Ken Martin's Blog

Keith Ellison, who is running for Minnesota's 5th Congressional seat, seems to have the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in his back pocket. He's had stunningly good coverage with little investigation into some things in his past which voters might be interested in. If they were told. But they're not.

Powerline, a locally-written conservative blog with a national readership, has done a very good job doing actual reporting on Ellison. Their latest post brings forward an interesting commentary by an eyewitness to a local debate between Ellison and his opponent Alan Fine. The commentator is not happy about how the reality he (or she) personally saw ended up being reported by Rochelle Olson.

I'll say it again: I thought news was news. I guess I’m finally seeing that news is both more and less than I ever thought.

First the bad news: The iPod didn't record this time. I don't know why. It said it was, but it never counted up. I'll have to babysit it next time. Too bad, too. It was a really interesting class on genitives.

Now the good news: Bethlehem Baptist said yes to us using a room! Starting this Thursday, if we want! Ahhh, parking and tables. And a nearby Dunn Brothers, too.

She was the cat I got for my 21st birthday. She was 18 years old, and lived well. In the days of my irresponsible youth, she wandered the woods of Burnsville, mothering countless kittens. Later, having lived and loved hard, she was content to be indoors. Death is death, but it was about the best death a kitty could have. She just fell asleep. Only Elvis - the friendliest cat anyone has ever met - is left. He's a bit confused and sad.

I'm not much of a take-pictures-of-your-cat guy, but here she is at about one year old; five feet up on my screen door, chasing moths.

She would climb up on my chest and sleep and purr if I was sick in bed. If I overslept, she would wake me up with the gentlest bite on the nose.

She wound down pretty quickly. Just a matter of weeks. The last week and a half we saw a swift decline. She was just too tired to get off the couch and go downstairs for the night. I had to carry her; three weeks before she would have wiggled and fussed, but by then she seemed to welcome the help. Then, finally, she just stayed in bed, sleepy. Hardly enough energy to reach over for a drink of water. Hours later she was gone.

The kids ask if she'll be in heaven. Helen's wonderful answer is that if we need her to be, she will.

savemaplewood.com, though biased, is the go-to place for Maplewood new items concerning the contentious situation surrounding the Maplewood City Council and city administration. Of course, I'm the go-to guy if you want to add in a little fairness to the mix. :)

A bit ago, they posted KSTP-TVs response to Maplewood City Council member Erik Hjelle's complaint against them for their TV news report on the city council. The complaint was upheld by the Minnesota News Council. My posts concerning that story can be found here. I've devoted plenty of space to questioning that story. I thought it would be fair to bring you their response, too.

You will see in the e-mail exchanges below both reporter Jo Ann Bemoras and news director Chris Berg offered to meet with council member Erik Hjelle and update our reporting on both the Gladstone project and the city council. Mr Hjelle did not respond to these offers. You will also note that Mr. Hjelle wrote to us that he was not representing the city in his correspondence with us, but two days later filed a complaint with the Minnesota News Council and apparently persuaded another city council member and the mayor to join the complaint.

It certainly was and remains Mr. Trippler's opinion that city projects were "in limbo." As Mr. Hjelle points out, Mr. Trippler is a member of both the planning commission and the environmental commission. He is entitled to his opinion and it is correct for us to share that with viewers. It was in that context that we also used the term "stalled." Sources in city administration and the development community that we spoke to used that term. We feel it is an accurate description of the effect the new council's actions had on this major project. It has been stalled for months and remains so.

In the intervening weeks since the story aired 5 Eyewitness News has tried to determine if the term "stalled" is still warranted or if the story should be updated. That has proven to be more difficult than one would expect. Mr. Hjelle has not responded to our offer to do a follow up story. A call to the interim city manager went unanswered. The city public works directors tells us he is forbidden to talk to us about the project. A voice message left with the city clerk has not been returned. A Google search for information about the July 20th news conference referred to by Mr Hjelle returns nothing. A look at the Maplewood Web site shows the information on Gladstone has not been updated since March 2006. A phone conversation with the consultant that was co-coordinating the Gladstone project yielded some information. The money and terms for the contract with that consultant ran out months ago. That is why the Web site is not updated. The consultant understands city staff may have been directed to update the contractual arrangement, but that has not happened yet.

Mr Hjelle makes three main points as signs of progress on the Gladstone project. A closer examination reveals something else. It is true that city staff has asked the Metropolitan Council for $2.5 million. However Bonnie Kollodge of the Met Council reports this: "Maplewood's proposal is 1 of 23 projects remaining under consideration for Livable Communities (demonstration) grant. 7 projects are no longer in contention after first scoring round by the advisory committee. Council has $8.8 million to award this year for such projects. Total request of 23 remaining projects comes to $27.1 million." Also Kollodge reports the decision to award some, all or none of the money for Gladstone won't be made till late this year or early next year.

Mr Hjelle accurately states the city council voted 5-1 for Phase I of the Gladstone Plan. However the Phase I of the Gladstone Plan is ephemeral at best. The master plan is not in place, there are no design standards and currently there are no developers.

A close examination of his other point reveals it is also a red herring. Mr Hjelle refers to "150 units in the Gladstone area." First off the city has apparently not received any application from the developer for this project. Secondly this project is only in the Gladstone area it is not part of the Gladstone plan.

In sum, we remain prepared to update the story whenever we can obtain reliable information from the city staff. However city staff appear to be intimidated into silence by the fact that two of their colleagues have been fired in the weeks since the political power on the council shifted and another has left. Meanwhile the Gladstone plan is a shadow of its original scope and is making no discernable progress.

Sincerely,

Gary Hill, News Manager Special Projects, 5 Eyewitness News
(Ed: I didn't include the emails. They can be found at the link above.)

Very interesting. First, even though I can completely understand not wanting to talk with KTSP-TV after having been on the receiving end of a poorly done story, I think that more communication, not less, is how to battle it. If a reporter wants to interview you, say yes and record the whole interview yourself and release it should there be unfair treatment. (I wonder if reporters would tolerate such scrutiny and accountability.)

But notice something about the response? It's interesting! It has what may be facts! Research seems to have been done. If only the story which aired that night had some substance like that, I personally may not have had a complaint.

But to quite seriously ask a clichéd question: How much did KSTP know and when did they know it?

In their response, KSTP appears to know who Dale Trippler is...

Mr. Trippler is a member of both the planning commission and the environmental commission...

Good job! A point I made, actually. But in the story that aired, Trippler was merely a "Maplewood Resident". This is exactly one of the things I mentioned via email to reporter Jo Ann Bemoras. Knowing who Trippler is and how he's interacted with the current Maplewood administration is very useful to better understanding the story over there.

Didn't they do all of this wonderful Googling before the story aired, or was it just in response to Hjelle's challenge?

It was trivial for me to find out about Mr. Trippler and many other interesting things, despite the terrific challenge that...

...city staff appear to be intimidated into silence...

So? Investigate. Report. Whip up a little Freedom of Information action (or whatever the city equivalent of that is).

If, at the time the story was aired, they knew as much as the response above would indicate, then it seems they did a very poor job of sharing known and relevant information. If they did not know that much, it seems they aired a story after having done little research. Either one doesn't seem great.

The comments concerning the Met Council seem very odd. I'll bet every city who's made it past the first cut would call that progress. Maplewood may very well get some or all that they're asking for. And the "red herring" may be development that could provide tax dollars that may be intended to help the Gladstone project move without having to go hat-in-hand to the Met Council.

Maybe not, of course. But it seems like KSTP-TV wants to just play one side here. And even if it's entirely true, it's still only one side of the story.

This seemed interesting to me, too:

However the Phase I of the Gladstone Plan is ephemeral at best. The master plan is not in place, there are no design standards and currently there are no developers.

Well, let's skip past the news manager's authoritative sounding judgement that it's "ephemeral at best". Didn't Mr. Trippler have had a hand in developing the ephemeral "Phase 1?" He's plainly willing to talk: ask him about it?

But the larger issue, and something that could have actually been interesting to the story in question, is that perhaps the new majority think that the Gladstone project was going in a bad direction. If so, it would be pretty unlikely that they'd want to "stay on track". That could have been Bemoras' story. What's going on with that development? Does the new leadership wish to take things in a new direction? Why? Is that a core issue dividing the council? What would changing direction mean? What would it cost? It certainly would explain, for example, an irate Mr. Trippler, if his plans dear to him are now being set aside.

Look, at some point 1940s Germany's "plan [was] a shadow of its original scope and [was] making no discernable progress," but most folks consider that a good thing. Change or stasis alone are not really interesting. History, context and details are.

Hjelle's complaint was "that KSTP-TV inaccurately reported that Maplewood City Council had stalled progress on an area redevelopment plan". Well, they did. It was obvious. Regardless of difficulties, only one point of view was shown. KSTP-TV seems to want to play this in two ways:

• "Well, we just didn't know any better and aired what we had."
• "Well, it was stalled. But it wasn't newsworthy or even possible to share any perspective other than those who dislike that it was stalled."

Do either of those perspectives make you feel confident you're getting the best, most informative news coverage possible when watching KSTP-TV?

And talk about a red herring... KSTP-TV didn't need Hjelle's permission to follow-up or come clean or clarify. They could have just run a "here's more information about the Gladstone development we reported on..." (I hope they aired a good followup and I just missed it.) Do they only air balanced stories if the "other side" complain and then agree to terms on further stories? What do I mean by "agree to terms?" From KSTP-TV News Director Chris Berg's email to Hjelle:

...if you want to sit down and speak on-camera about these issues and others being faced by the city council... (emphasis mine)

Gosh, ain't that swell. Come and subject yourself to, well, whatever we want, and we'll give you a chance for your side to be heard on the issue we've already mis-characterized. If it makes it past editing. How benevolent and even-handed. Why not just address the matter at hand, and the follow up another time with other issues?

Y'know what's funny? I like KSTP-TV. I tend to watch their news more than any other. But here I am looking at this story that landed on my doorstep months ago, and it just bothers me that a schnook like me can come along and know that what I'm reading or seeing is incomplete, misleading, or just plain wrong. From sources I used to think were reliable. I thought news was news. I guess I'm finally seeing that news is both more and less than I ever thought.

It was last Saturday afternoon for me. This Rotten Little Girl decided she was going to use the street in front of my house for her own Jerry Springer set and beat up a smaller girl. I got in between them before it got anywhere and tried to send them on their separate ways. But the Rotten Little Girl decided to try to lunge around me and try and get the other girl again. Again, Helen and I broke it up and I walked Rotten away telling that next it will be the police. "I'm gonna tell my mom!" "Yes, please tell your mom! I want to talk to her!" She kept walking away, then bellowed out "Honky!" I cracked up.

Rotten seems to be new to the neighborhood. Perhaps a feral child. I came home today to see her laughing as she rode a small bike down the middle of the street (we have sidewalks). A little boy was trying to chase her from a few houses down, presumably a little brother. The poor kid ran over a block with no mercy or resolution in sight. I realized what was happening too late to do anything.

What do you do about a little beast like that? She plainly can't be trusted to be around people. Not without supervision, which is seems plainly lacking in her life. No, her progenitors (yes, I'm withholding the word "parents") are making the bed and fluffing the pillow in her future jail cell. Or middle-teen pregnancy. And the cycle will continue.

What do you do? I try to engage them when possible, but that's rare and largely impotent. Raising my kids right seems to be my primary task. Of course, once I've raised them right, it'll probably be their tax money supporting her. Sigh.

It's so sad. She started soft and wiggly. Maybe not quite Locke's tabula rasa, but still a little person fresh from God, full of potential, waiting to start to understand meaning and purpose, right and wrong. What the heck was her spirit "fed"? The tasteless bread of selfishness, perhaps; the empty carbs of the soul? It all puts me in kind of an Ecclesiastes mood.

This is just stunning to me. The local major paper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, ran a pretty negative "news" (not editorial) piece about Republican Alan Fine, who is running for Congress against Democrat Keith Ellison (my small comments on the race here and here).

The paper dug up an expunged court record of charges that were dropped alleging he'd slapped his wife ten years ago. A mini October Surprise, I guess. Well, the gents at Powerline have done something amazing. Basically, they completely took the Strib to the woodshed.

Keith Ellison appears to have done something pretty seamy, too. Last year. He was the subject of 911 call. And will be in court for it this month! Days before the election.

But the intrepid staff at the Star Tribune only found it fitting to report on Alan Fine (10 years ago, dropped charges) but not on Keith Ellison (1 year ago, still active). They ran the Fine article on the front page. They have apparently failed to make any note of the Ellison 911 call (as of this writing, Saturday evening).

Can anyone say "thick, steaming, sickening, deceptive bias?"

It was actually "Minnesota Democrats Exposed" that found the 911 call. Powerline just connected it to the Strib's front page political advertisement... err... I mean story.

Ugh. Shame!

Looks like the eldest lad has a story on his mind. :)

Not really. I'd get in trouble. For speaking the truth to power, I suppose. With a smirk.

A young guy comes to my door and has a quick three question survey. There were five choices in the first question "what do you rank as most important to you", and the "options" left me thinking I was simply to choose what kind of democrat I was. Saving the environment, protecting a woman's right, etc. I said none. He pressed. None, please. We went on.

Who would you choose for governor? I know what you'd like to hear, I thought. "Definitely Pawlenty." "Oh."

Then what party. Then the discussion began.

Don't I want school funding to increase? Heavens, no! And so we started talking about school funding, per capita costs, and related issues. It turns out he's a school teacher in Minneapolis. By the time he and I were done talking, he seemed as ready as I to gut the public school system and even start by privatization. It turned out to be a very agreeable conversation.

Time to go, but he felt compelled to give it one more run. Healthcare costs have gone up 33%. Mike Hatch sues healthcare types. So vote for Hatch. I laughed. Yeah, but he sued Big Tobacco... what good has that done? Lots of new anti-smoking ads, of course. So someone got the best of it. But overall, a big nothing.

I said that I'm sticking conservative because I want less money to go to broken systems (because I don't like supporting broken) and because less money will force change. Not that conservatives these days seem particularly good at spending less money. Different topic.

"Yeah, Hatch isn't really a strong candidate." he said, "I'm really only out here because it's my job."

There's only one unpleasant thing about my Greek class: the parking. There's a dreadful lack of parking. And surly, uninformed lot attendants stand guard on the only nearby lot, where we are supposed to have sufficient spaces. Grrr. Time to give Bethlehem Baptist a call and see if they can allow us in again.

We went over nominatives, vocatives, and accusatives, and got up to speed on a new set of worksheets that we're going to be using for a while. Looks like good stuff. Did OK on the test. (Look! English can carry the subject in the verb, too!)

Here is the audio of the class. Complete with me complaining about the paper in the ESV, as I'm wont to do. No, it's not worth downloading just for that. iTunes subscribers will get this automatically.

That's the question Stephen Filister and Judith Johannessen address in their editorial on their website for the "nonpartisan" Maplewood Citizen's League (MCL).

They seem to be bothered that City Councilmember Erik Hjelle had an article in the Maplewood City News which suggested that the city council is not as divided as one might understand based on local news coverage, and to suggest that previous administrations left things undone. I'm not a resident so I don't get the newsletter, and it's not available online, so I can't judge the tone from here.

But that won't stop me from commenting, will it? :)

The editorial is interesting to me for a few reasons. First thing: "We examined the public record and talked with Councilpersons Rossbach and Juenemann about some of Mr. Hjelle's assertions." Oh, so you spoke with people who consistently disagree with Hjelle. Daring. Well, at least it's actually labeled an editorial.

And, interestingly, MCL seems to have found a way to circumvent their own standard - "open to all Maplewood residents who... are not elected officials" - and get commentary from elected officials on the site by simply interviewing their preferred elected officials and printing the comments seemingly unquestioningly.

Anyway, in the section labeled "Deferred maintenance" they respond to Hjelle, who seems to think that some of the maintenence on city properties should have already been done or be in progress. Others in the past thought they could put it off. They got someone in who verified that. So the editorial sticks up for the previous administration. I'm not sure why both Hjelle and Filister/Johannessen aren't right here.

But perhaps Hjelle is simply looking at what the city is spending money on and thinks it could have better been directed at looming maintenance. Because something can probably last does not mean it's best to wait and see if it does. Not sure what the big deal is there. People disagree; big whoop.

In "Gladstone progress", Filister/Johannessen seem to feel the old administration didn't get enough credit for the work the pervious administration did. Well, that's fair. If they also were pursuing the right things, they are to be commended. But why should that exclude the current administration from being commended for currently doing the right things? There must be something more meaty in Hjelle's article that I can't discern via Filister/Johannessen's editorial.

In "Divided council", the funniest points appear. Filister and Johannessen strike hard at Hjelle by noting that in his count of the voting from a particular meeting, he missed counting the vote on whether to stay past 11. Heehehe... oooo, you got him there. That's the only discrepancy.

Then they go on to lament that there are major, fundamental disagreements and that has resulted in "voting blocks". Of course, it takes two to tango; if three are acting a voting block, certainly the other two are, as well.

Councilperson Juenemann laments that the days when "we were a 1-1-1-1-1 council" are gone. Well, first, Hjelle's article actually demonstrates that they do, at least sometimes, operate exactly like that. His noted 3-2 vote sees people crossing the "division". Second, I wonder if the "good ol' days" had a little more fundamental ideological unity than now.

Y'know, it's OK. This is how it works. Maplewood's citizens voted in a majority with a different view on how to get things done than existed in the previous administration. Again, big whoop. If the citizen's don't like it, they'll vote them out.

Certainly that appears to be the deep abiding hope of the MCL. Certainly that becomes more likely if the kind of poor news coverage provided by the likes of Lillie Suburban Newspapers and KSTP-TV continue.

All that said, if it's true that the City Manager Greg Copeland is not sharing information equally with all members of the City Council (as is alleged), then he's doing something wrong and must stop excluding people. However, if the allegation is just their way of saying that Copeland doesn't come by and sit at the lunch table with Councilpersons Rossbach and Juenemann, well that's a bit different.

I close asking again (and you can leave a comment right below): In what way is the MCL "nonpartisan"?