Municipalities, such as Andover, which have seen considerable changeover the past decade - new houses, new neighborhoods, considerable growth in population - face the somewhat compelling task of redistricting the city's election precinct boundaries prior to the next election in 2012.
Here's a link to Minnesota Statute, 204B.14 that details this process: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=204B.14&year=2009 .
This should be an obvious and necessary undertaking by the City of Andover. Looking over the election results at the Secretary of State's Elections web page, one can see quite a disparity between our 10 precincts.
In the 2006 election, out of over 12,500 votes cast in Andover, this is the percentage of voters from each of our Precincts (if all were split evenly, they'd each represent 10% of the voters):
Precinct 7: 14.7% (about 1860 voters)
Precinct 1: 11.8% (about 1480 voters)
Precinct 8: 11.3% (about 1430 voters)
Precinct 2: 11.1% (about 1400 voters)
Precinct 10: 9.9% (about 1260 voters)
Precinct 6: 9.9% (about 1250 voters)
Precinct 9: 9.5% (about 1190 voters)
Precinct 3: 8.1% (about 1025 voters)
Precinct 5: 7.8% (about 980 voters)
Precinct 4: 5.9% (about 740 voters)
That's a wide disparity. Each precinct has just one polling place to attend on election days. Precinct 7 is about 2 1/2 times the voter size of Precinct 4 - over 1100 more voters came to the polls that day, and faced long lines, long waits, and arguably, a more arduous voting process.
In 2008, we had a Presidential election, and many more contests were on our ballot. The disparity of voting numbers actually worsened in 2008:
There were nearly 15,500 voters in Andover in 2008.
Precinct 7: 16.6% (about 2560 voters)
Precinct 8: 13.1% (about 2020 voters)
Precinct 1: 12.4% (about 1910 voters)
Precinct 2: 11.9% (about 1840 voters)
Precinct 10: 11.8% (about 1830 voters)
Precinct 9: 10.3% (about 1600 voters)
Precinct 6: 10.3% (about 1590 voters)
Precinct 3: 9.2% (about 1420 voters)
Precinct 5: 8.8% (about 1360 voters)
Precinct 4: 6.0% (about 930 voters)
You can draw your own conclusions, but clearly Precinct 7 needs to be reduced, while Precincts 4 and 5 need to be grown somewhat. Arguably, Precincts 1,2 and 8 are too large at this time, while Precinct 3 is a bit small. As currently configured, Precincts 6 and 9 - on either side of Precinct 7 - are about right.
Unfortunately, it isn't as simple as moving one or two neighborhoods north or south or east or west, because it will really be something of a domino effect by the time all the various shifts are settled.
This is the type of work that our experienced, hard working City staff will most likely be tasked to prepare your City Administrator and City Council for. This is the type of detailed challenges that I like to tackle, and offer my informed opinions about.
I've been part of the Hennepin County AFSCME-Management negotiations process for the last three negotiation sessions. This is the type of nuance that I bring to our preparations. We send about 30-40 union members to work with three AFSCME Council 5 staff to negotiate with Management. I take it upon myself to provide analysis of health insurance-related matters and job classification-pay scale data that the union side tries to work with as part of the negotiating process.
I was a part of the United Methodist Church of Anoka Finance Committee for about seven years, chairing the Committee for three years. I prepared lists and breakdowns of the church pledging process for the Pastor and members of the Finance Committee. I organized the call contact process, and devised a tracking method for contacts.
This is the type of thorough preparation I would bring to the Council, if elected.
Have a good day!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
And, Why Am I Running for City Council?
So at 54, I'm fulfilling one of those teenage dreams I had - to run for public office. The dreams including winning office and doing a good job of serving the public. I hope this has a happy ending. It will be very challenging. I had expected to run for office at a time it appeared the incumbents would not be in the race. But instead, I am one of eight candidates, and both incumbents chose to run again, as well. So it will be difficult for us newcomers to break through, but I am going to try and make a case to change the current makeup of the Council.
I read a comment at Facebook from a one-time acquaintance who stated that he fears our turn to Socialism. Well, at the City Council level, the issues and the dollars and the number of lives impacted by government intervention - or lack thereof - is at a much smaller scale than at the state and national levels. Liberals and Democrats are not politically strong in Andover, but voters in Andover certainly don't need to fear Socialism, nor do they need to fear Democrats serving on their Council. Government can do right - by the people and for the people - lest we shall perish by our own insensitivities to the needs of the general welfare of the citizenry, which government is there to serve and respond to.
I am a Democrat. I am a public employee, working for Hennepin County. Earlier in my life, I was a public employee as a school teacher, here in Anoka-Hennepin and elsewhere in Minnesota. I am the son of a woman who proudly - and magnificently - educated Minnesota students for 39 years, and was a public employee to the day she had a heart attack at age 62, on her last day with her students before retiring, and never saw one day of her retirement. I am the son of a long-time federal employee, a veteran of the Marine Corps and a 27-year US Postal employee. My wife works in Ramsey County. I believe in government - in good government. I believe in the service good government brings to its citizens.
Part of my thoughts as a candidate goes back to the basic necessity of government in our lives, no matter what the Peggy Scotts, Chris delaForests and Debbie Johnsons of this area may think. You get what you pay for. And frankly in Andover, that's pretty bare bones. We have really good employees in Andover, but with pay freezes, cuts in staffing - they're spread pretty thin. I'd like to see us pay Andover employees properly (restore those frozen pay steps), and re-fill some of those positions (do you know that if you go to City Hall over the lunch hour, that they have to juggle who covers the front desk, who's available to help you, and sometimes have to ask you to come by later, because the only person who can help, isn't available?), so we don't seem so small town. We're a good-sized bedroom community of 31,000+ for heavens-sakes.
And Andover feels incomplete. We need to partner to finish things - we still have poor roads north of Bunker in much of the city. There are no right-turn lanes off of many key roads - like Hanson, like Andover Blvd, like 181st, or like Crosstown. Can't we get the County to at least remark shoulders and post "Right Turn Lane" signs on these artery roads? Why is there still no Clocktower near City Hall? Isn't there supposed to be a restaurant over there, too? Why is there no MTC line into Andover, especially not along Bunker, or north up Hanson to City Hall? I'd like to see us reach partnerships with the agencies or businesses that can get some of these things finished.
Recently the City had to talk to some of its citizens about the City's inability to afford to go around collecting tree limbs and brush that had been gathered following one of our many storms this summer. I appreciated that some members are looking at partnerships on such things as shared wood chippers between communities, that could allow them all to be more responsive to the community's needs. Concerns over the city water supply, dealing with requests for height variances, quelling neighborly disputes that identify unknown acreage issues that play out against city rules or ordinances - these are the types of real, everyday, city-level concerns that I'm prepared to step in and encounter, and contribute to the resolution thereof.
Most of our parents didn't have the beautiful, large homes and acreage so many of us enjoy in Andover. Our property taxes are hardly out of line - in fact, my mortgage has gone down a bit each of the last three years - without a refinancing - because the property taxes choices have made it so. The Democratic candidate for Governor wants to shift some of that property tax burden away from the middle class to the wealthier Minnesotans. That may impact many Andover households if he's successful. But if he and the Legislature are successful in implementing this change, it is also the City's responsibility to begin to address the services, those employee functions, that City infrastructure, in the next four years, and let us progress forward, instead of finding ourselves idling in neutral. Let's work to complete Andover, and keep it the attractive vision of a community that drew many of us to move here the past 10-15 years.
I read a comment at Facebook from a one-time acquaintance who stated that he fears our turn to Socialism. Well, at the City Council level, the issues and the dollars and the number of lives impacted by government intervention - or lack thereof - is at a much smaller scale than at the state and national levels. Liberals and Democrats are not politically strong in Andover, but voters in Andover certainly don't need to fear Socialism, nor do they need to fear Democrats serving on their Council. Government can do right - by the people and for the people - lest we shall perish by our own insensitivities to the needs of the general welfare of the citizenry, which government is there to serve and respond to.
I am a Democrat. I am a public employee, working for Hennepin County. Earlier in my life, I was a public employee as a school teacher, here in Anoka-Hennepin and elsewhere in Minnesota. I am the son of a woman who proudly - and magnificently - educated Minnesota students for 39 years, and was a public employee to the day she had a heart attack at age 62, on her last day with her students before retiring, and never saw one day of her retirement. I am the son of a long-time federal employee, a veteran of the Marine Corps and a 27-year US Postal employee. My wife works in Ramsey County. I believe in government - in good government. I believe in the service good government brings to its citizens.
Part of my thoughts as a candidate goes back to the basic necessity of government in our lives, no matter what the Peggy Scotts, Chris delaForests and Debbie Johnsons of this area may think. You get what you pay for. And frankly in Andover, that's pretty bare bones. We have really good employees in Andover, but with pay freezes, cuts in staffing - they're spread pretty thin. I'd like to see us pay Andover employees properly (restore those frozen pay steps), and re-fill some of those positions (do you know that if you go to City Hall over the lunch hour, that they have to juggle who covers the front desk, who's available to help you, and sometimes have to ask you to come by later, because the only person who can help, isn't available?), so we don't seem so small town. We're a good-sized bedroom community of 31,000+ for heavens-sakes.
And Andover feels incomplete. We need to partner to finish things - we still have poor roads north of Bunker in much of the city. There are no right-turn lanes off of many key roads - like Hanson, like Andover Blvd, like 181st, or like Crosstown. Can't we get the County to at least remark shoulders and post "Right Turn Lane" signs on these artery roads? Why is there still no Clocktower near City Hall? Isn't there supposed to be a restaurant over there, too? Why is there no MTC line into Andover, especially not along Bunker, or north up Hanson to City Hall? I'd like to see us reach partnerships with the agencies or businesses that can get some of these things finished.
Recently the City had to talk to some of its citizens about the City's inability to afford to go around collecting tree limbs and brush that had been gathered following one of our many storms this summer. I appreciated that some members are looking at partnerships on such things as shared wood chippers between communities, that could allow them all to be more responsive to the community's needs. Concerns over the city water supply, dealing with requests for height variances, quelling neighborly disputes that identify unknown acreage issues that play out against city rules or ordinances - these are the types of real, everyday, city-level concerns that I'm prepared to step in and encounter, and contribute to the resolution thereof.
Most of our parents didn't have the beautiful, large homes and acreage so many of us enjoy in Andover. Our property taxes are hardly out of line - in fact, my mortgage has gone down a bit each of the last three years - without a refinancing - because the property taxes choices have made it so. The Democratic candidate for Governor wants to shift some of that property tax burden away from the middle class to the wealthier Minnesotans. That may impact many Andover households if he's successful. But if he and the Legislature are successful in implementing this change, it is also the City's responsibility to begin to address the services, those employee functions, that City infrastructure, in the next four years, and let us progress forward, instead of finding ourselves idling in neutral. Let's work to complete Andover, and keep it the attractive vision of a community that drew many of us to move here the past 10-15 years.
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