Category: Minnetrista Mayoral Election 2020

Minnetrista prediction – wagers anyone?

It’s an election year and strange things happen in election years. Mayor Whalen has voted every year since she was elected to increase the city’s tax levy to the point of increasing your property taxes. Every. Single. Year. But this is an election year and even Whalen understands voters don’t like seeing their taxes go up year after year after year.

I predict this will be the first year Whalen votes in support of a tax levy that doesn’t increase your city property tax. But remember, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Rest assured that will hold true for the next four years.

Past city levy increases have far exceeded Minnetrista’s growth rate. Since elected I have voted against each and every one. The growth we are experiencing, and are told will continue, should generate more than enough revenue to support city services without increasing anyone’s city property taxes. The city also has several “special funds” not reflected in the general fund (where levied revenues and expenditures appear) with hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting idle. Some of these funds should be re-allocated to roads instead of using roads as an excuse to raise taxes every year.

Our council meeting Tuesday night will likely include a vote on the 2021 preliminary tax levy. Anyone willing to wager it will be the lowest since Whalen took office?

http://www.ShannonBruceForMayor.com

The pattern continues. Whalen flyer selectively distributed

One thing everyone knows about me is everything I say or write is public, available for everyone to read and I don’t distribute campaign material secretly or selectively. That’s not been our incumbent Mayor’s pattern, however.

Door knocking this past weekend several people shared Whalen’s flyer with me and after asking around I found it had been selectively distributed. None of my neighbors received one and neither did many in other parts of Minnetrista that I contacted.

The flyer has the statement from Whalen saying “My leadership style is quite different from that of my opponent.” I couldn’t agree more.

If I have something to say I will say it directly and am not afraid to call out corruption, deceit, or pay-to-play politics…all too many of which have been documented with evidence on this blog. Whalen, on the other hand, pretends to be positive, civil and respectful on camera but then secretly distributes hit pieces like the one below on her last opponent. This was the artwork on her campaign’s invoice to the Westonka School district:

Vanderlinde hit piece
Artwork associated with Whalen campaign committee’s invoice to Westonka School District

Old habits die hard and we see the pattern continuing with selective distribution of Whalen’s 2020 campaign flyers implying her opponent is “dismissive or divisive.” Anyone that disagrees with Mayor Whalen is labeled or discredited, but not openly. Secret postcards appear in mailboxes, mailing lists are scrubbed to eliminate those that might challenge misinformation and on and on the pattern repeats.

Someone once told me that people with nothing to hide, hide nothing. I’ve always believed that’s true. Selectively communicating to residents reveals a troubling pattern that’s not likely to change.

I believe every Minnetrista resident, whether they agree with me or not, deserves to know what I’m saying about Minnetrista or the election.

http://www.ShannonBruceForMayor.com

Declining LWV forum invite. Not live or nonpartisan

I received an invitation to participate in an online League of Women Voters (LWV) candidate forum in September. LWV claims to be a nonpartisan group so I wanted to find out if it was true. I had reason to be skeptical from watching their local 2018 forums (see blog post “Were incumbents given forum questions?”) but was curious about their claim of nonpartisanship.

I looked up their organization on http://www.Guidestar.org, a site that publishes the IRS 990 forms of nonprofits. From their most recently filed 990 I found the names of their Communications Chair (Jeorgette Knoll) and Executive Director (Amy Arcand) and looked them up on Facebook to see if they appeared to be objective nonpartisans as advertised. Below is what I found:

Jeorgette Knoll shareJeorgette Knoll Biden HarrisAmy Arcand WarrenAmy Arcand protest songAmy Arcand Klobuchar WarrenAmy Arcand Trump propaganda

No bias there on the part of those in charge of communications and running the Minnesota League of Women Voters organization. No doubt these two will be reprimanded and their Facebook accounts locked up tight going forward but I think I’ve seen enough to know this group is not transparent about their ideology.

The email I received from LWV indicated the forum would not be live-streamed (what if someone says something they don’t like?) but would be recorded “in case there are technical difficulties” and broadcast later. Candidates appearing must agree to the airing of a possibly edited version of the recording at a later date. Sorry, I will pass.

It’s time for people to stop accepting the fraudulent claims of “nonpartisan” nonprofits when there is evidence to the contrary. The League of Women Voters is obviously a partisan organization. There’d be nothing wrong with that if they were just honest and didn’t pretend they weren’t. No doubt our incumbent mayor will be more than happy to play that familiar game with them.

http://www.ShannonBruceForMayor.com

“Technical error?”

Minnetrista’s mayor surprised residents when she announced in July she would be running again. Most of us haven’t forgotten the judgment against her last summer  for the illegal financial scheme she was involved in that birthed the term “Minnetrista-gate” and, in the judge’s words “corrupted the political process” in Minnetrista.

Calling the illegal financial scheme a “technical error” underscores the fact our current mayor doesn’t think she did anything wrong. She doesn’t agree with the three judges that do. Watch the video below to understand what really happened and why.

The illegal scheme concealed who her campaign donors wrote checks to as well as who paid for her campaign expenses. Her financial involvement with the illegal political committee “Our Minnetrista,” whose leaders were sanctioned as well, was kept secret, as was a donation to her campaign for over 10 times the legal limit from the committee (the reason for the illicit scheme). And on top of all that her campaign mailings were invoiced to the Westonka School District.

If she’ll blatantly lie and break the law campaigning, do you trust her to govern your city?

http://www.ShannonBruceForMayor.com

 

Digging in to high speed internet for Minnetrista

I met with a new internet service provider (ISP) that had recently contacted the city of Minnetrista about providing services here and learned a lot about how the city could remove obstacles preventing new service providers from entering the Minnetrista market.

Did you know that in order for a new service provider to mount an antennae on top of one of the city’s water towers it costs $40,000? That may not be a lot of money for Verizon or T-Mobile but for new providers entering the market it can be prohibitive.

In addition to leasing the space on the water tower there are engineering fees and application fees for each repeater and small cell tower location, which could be on an existing telephone pole or a new pole, provided by the ISP or possibly the city.

Assuming the city would need more than just existing telephone poles to accommodate the bandwidth required to reach all residents, the question of who builds out the infrastructure for the grid needs to be answered. Do we let companies put up their own or does the city plan out the grid and lease access to providers?

If the goal is to create a robust, competitive marketplace for high speed internet then the decisions we make must focus on encouraging competition and limiting barriers to the Minnetrista market. Some of the ways we can do that include:

  • Waive the city’s solicitation fees for new ISPs coming to the area so they can sign up new customers
  • Simplify the permitting process
  • Allow one application to cover multiple locations if technology is identical instead of an application for each repeater/ small cell tower location
  • Provide ease of access to the city’s right-of-way (ROW)
  • Waive engineering fees unless the city incurs a cost
  • Set infrastructure leasing costs for providers to reflect the actual costs incurred by the city to provide and manage that access.

I noticed our current mayor added the following to her reelection campaign “Roadmap” on her website yesterday: “Support a feasibility study of internet connectivity for all of Minnetrista.”  Internet connectivity is not the problem, Mayor Whalen. Everyone has connectivity. The problem is it is slow, unreliable, customer service is horrible and there is no competition. The mayor doesn’t get it.

We need an ordinance dealing with these small cell wireless issues so that providers see Minnetrista as a viable market opportunity and the city doesn’t see them as just another revenue stream.

Stay tuned for an announcement of a Zoom meeting with some broadband industry professionals from our area.

http://www.ShannonBruceForMayor.com

 

The street where I live

In reading Minnetrista’s “Council’s Corner” this morning covering our meeting last Monday, August 17, 2020, I noticed two things: 1) it mentions nothing about the city’s COVID-19 Emergency Order being terminated nor the discussions about spending CARES Act funds or Internet service improvement, and 2) it reports that, Fielding Trail, the street where I live, was added to the 2020 Overlay project.

Council's corner 8-17-2020The 2020 Overlay project originally included all the connector roads to Game Farm Road (Sterling Drive, Retreat Circle, Game Farm Circle, and Fielding Trail). All these property owners had been assessed large amounts for the paving of Game Farm Road several years ago and are all still making assessment payments for several more years. Because these roads were deteriorating, and if ignored would soon require reclamation meaning another large assessment, it was determined to try to extend their life with an overlay.

When the engineering estimates came in higher than anticipated in the spring the council decided to drop Fielding Trail from the project. When the city received the actual bids from contractors, however, they came in low enough that Fielding Trail could be added back to the project without going over budget.

I abstained on the vote to add Fielding Trail back to the project for obvious reasons but it was passed with all the other council members’ approval.

http://www.ShannonBruceForMayor.com

 

 

 

 

Minnetrista COVID 19 Emergency Order Terminated

We can all breathe a sigh of relief. Minnetrista is a panic zone no longer. Five months no panic zoneafter Minnetrista’s COVID-19 emergency order was invoked and following many contentious discussions debating its necessity, usefulness, purpose and length, it was finally terminated after another lengthy discussion at the August 17, 2020 council meeting where staff continued to recommended its continuance.

Listen below to the motion to terminate (1.40 min):

No actions have been taken by the city, since the emergency order was invoked, that would have required the order. No anticipated actions, that had any reasonable probability of occurring, could be identified as well. Despite this staff continued to advocate for the order’s continuance Monday night but the motion to terminate did eventually pass in a surprising 5-0 vote, effective immediately.

Readers can listen to the full discussion here starting at about the 2 hour mark.

http://www.ShannonBruceForMayor.com

Mound Fire Department awarded $151K federal grant!

Congratulations to Mound Fire Chief Greg Pederson, Vicki Weber and staff for their hard work in obtaining a $151,758 federal grant to replace Mound Fire Department’s 17 year old Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) units!

MFD Grant

The Minnetrista area is served by both the Mound and St. Boni Fire Departments.

Press Release:

MOUND FIRE AWWARDED FEDERAL GRANT OF $151,758
Mound, MN, August 13, 2020: On July 31, 2020 the Mound Fire Department was awarded a federal grant of $151,758 from U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FEMA Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) program. The AFG grant program is federally funded with goals to improve fire department operations, with a focus on firefighter Health and Safety.
This grant will fund the purchase of 22 new Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) units. SCBA are the air tanks and masks that firefighters wear when entering a hazardous or smoke filled environment. This AFG Grant allows us to replace all of our old-obsolete SCBA units that are now 17 years old. The new equipment will be a substantial upgrade to meet the up-to-date National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Safety Standards (our existing SCBA units are non-compliant and considered to be obsolete).
This grant award is very exciting news for our dedicated staff of 40. The primary benefactor of this grant will be the Mound firefighters. Nonetheless, the impact of this grant does not stop with our firefighters, or the 15,840 residents we serve, and $2.60 billion in property values we protect.
The grant program requires and 5% match, therefore the fire department budget must contribute $7,587 which is a relatively small amount of the entire project cost of $159,346. Our administrative staff is proud of our achievements with regard to grant awards. Over the past 7 years our fire department has added $515,449.20 in revenue through donations, fund raising efforts and grants.

http://www.ShannonBruceForMayor.com

 

Council candidate caught on camera (0:56 sec)

There are two city council seats up for election in Minnetrista and three candidates  on the ballot competing for them. It appears current council member Mike Molitor will not be running again which is too bad. Although we didn’t always agree on everything he had a mind of his own and I respect that.

Returning trust and integrity to city hall is what this election is about but the following video is an example of what we’ve had in the past. The person in the video is one of the three candidates for city council, Damian Young, who is currently serving on Minnetrista’s Planning Commission.

The clips below were taken from a Minnetrista City Council Meeting during a hearing on the licensing and regulation of golf carts. Mr. Young was in support of regulating and licensing golf carts and was trying to convince the council that, not only was he in favor of the ordinance, but the Planning Commission was in favor of it as well. In spinning his tale he had forgotten I had attended the Planning Commission meeting he was referring to.

Minnetrista needs elected officials that don’t resort to deception to achieve their goals. We’ve seen enough of that in Minnetrista.

Below are the websites and Facebook pages for Minnetrista council candidates:

Ann MacGregor
website: https://macgregorforcouncil.com
Facebook: MacGregor for Council @MinnetristaCouncil2020

Cathleen Reffkin
Facebook: Reffkin for Minnetrista City Council @reffkinminnetristacitycouncil

Damian Young
No campaign website or Facebook page as of 8/12/2020

http://www.ShannonBruceForMayor.com

High-speed internet in Minnetrista – not just possible – IMPERATIVE

Ask anyone who runs a business in Minnetrista about high speed internet and you’ll hear things like “I never would’ve moved here had I known how awful the internet service was!” and “I moved here from a much smaller town where we had excellent high speed internet. Why can’t Minnetrista figure this out?” or “My kids have to go to the coffee shop to do their online homework because our service is so unreliable.” Sound familiar?

I was successful getting “High Speed Internet” added to the city’s goals at it’s strategy high speed internetsession lasts year and then modified last March to “proactively” get creative about it. We even scheduled a work session on “Technology Issues” last June but it was postponed. I sent an email to our City Administrator two weeks ago asking for a date certain when it would be rescheduled and still have not received an answer.

High speed internet issues in Minnetrista are not unresolvable. It requires a mayor, council and staff to make it a priority. We need to take a good, hard look at our legal agreements with service providers, at our fee structures and regulatory policies to make sure we are doing EVERYTHING possible to encourage bringing competitive services to Minnetrista.

It starts with making it a priority. Reliable high speed internet for ALL of Minnetrista is not just possible it is imperative.

www.ShannonBruceForMayor.com