On Election Day 2012

I encourage Andover residents to vote for the following:

For President - Barack Obama & Joe Biden
For US Senate - Amy Klobuchar
For 6th District Congress - Jim Graves

For SD 35 - Peter Perovich
For SD 31 - Mike Starr

For House 35B - Sam Scott
For House 31B - Louise Woodberry


For Anoka County Commissioner, District 1 - anybody but Matt Look on general principle, but Alison Lister is a genuinely good choice
District 2 - two terrible choices - Andy Westerberg is the lesser of two evils
District 5 - Carol LeDoux is superior to Scott Bromley, an opportunist who hasn't even voted in recent years
District 7 - Dan Earhart continues to be a holdout against the takeover of the County Board by Tea Party-like reactionaries.  Much better choice than Scott Schulte.

For Andover Mayor - Mike Gamache (unoppopsed)
For Andover Council Special 2-Year Seat - Val Holthus (a narrow call over Tony Howard, but I pledged support to Val before she decided which seat she was runniung for)
For Andover Council - two 4-Year Seats - I generally don't support Sheri Bukkila politically and I personally wish Mike Knight had decided to retire this time, but the only knowledge I have of third candidate David Forsberg is his replies in the Anoka Union (the city newsletter isn't out yet)... in good conscience I can't recommend Forsberg based on those responses, but I'm glad he's running - we need contested races, as we had in 2010.

For Supreme Court Justices - re-elect the incumbents even though two are extremists appointed by Gov. Pawlenty - but they are of judicial quality and character which Tnglestad and Griffith are most certainly not, and Barkley may have consideration as a politiucian - but certainly not as a Justice.

Vote NO on both Constitutional Amendments!

I'm Supporting Peter Perovich for SD35

I've sent the following Letter to the Editor to ABC Newspapers, hopefully to be published on Friday, October 26, 2012...

I am voting for Peter Perovich in Senate District 35 this year because I find him a much better fit for this district and this state.  Peter and his family have long-time roots here in the Anoka and Ramsey communities, he grew up around the educational challenges facing Anoka-Hennepin school district, and as an adult has focused his attention on the modern challenges of balancing our environmental concerns, our love for our lakes, rivers and streams, and the interests of the hunting and fishing communities throughout the state.  I see Peter Perovich as an “Abeler Democrat,” to coin a phrase; Peter would not be tied to party dogma, he would be open to collaboration with the Senate Republicans to legislate solutions to the gridlock that we face in St. Paul, and he would be willing to take hard votes based on his own fine principles, not just those of his party and his supporters. 

Many of us union members in Anoka, Andover, Ramsey and northern Coon Rapids have endorsed Peter Perovich because of the positions his opponent, Branden Petersen, has taken against our collective bargaining rights in supporting a Right to Work amendment, against government and government workers, and especially against teachers – in particular against the great people we have teaching and providing classroom support in our very own schools.  We hear Branden Petersen railing against “bad teachers” and insisting on better performance evaluation processes.  Which teacher made Branden sit in the corner when he was a young boy?  He sure has it out for these hard-working professionals – and he is not a trained and educated teaching professional himself. 

I don’t understand Republicans like Petersen who want to get elected to serve in our government, but whose real purpose is to tear away at the government itself, and the public employees who make our state and communities efficient and successful in these trying times – people like our teachers, our police, our child support officers, our parole and correctional officers, our snow plow drivers, our forest rangers and fish and wildlife protectors, and the office clerical staff that hold together the nuts and bolts of every school and office building around the state.

I don’t understand Republicans like Petersen who voted to change the homestead credit in 2011.  You might be lucky, and your property taxes didn’t go up.  Anoka County and many of our communities are holding down their property tax collections, but not all communities can do so.  Throughout Minnesota, that Republican change shifted more of the property tax burden to homeowners and away from commercial properties.  Homeowners in many communities have seen the same or higher taxes despite lower home valuations.  Peter Perovich and a DFL legislature will work to restore the market value homestead credit.

I don’t understand Republicans like Petersen who voted in 2011 and again in 2012 against raising revenue, but to make the budget balance, shifted educational funding down the line, further hurting our schools and educational system.  Peter Perovich believes in investing in our schools now, and not using any fancy budgeting gimmicks to balance our state budget on the backs of our schools. Perovich is committed to reversing the short-sightedness of Branden Petersen and his Republican colleagues, and will work to legislate paying back our schools the monies they are owed.

I’ve watched both local debates between Peter Perovich and Branden Petersen, sponsored by the area mayors and the League of Women Voters.  Branden Petersen is ambitious.  He’s a young man in a hurry, and Petersen is carrying a set of principles for our future that scare me.  He called Minnesota a “sovereign state” in the Anoka debate.  Minnesota isn’t sovereign, but Republicans like Petersen have introduced legislation to make us sovereign – to enable us to reject federal legislation they don’t like, as they want to stymie as best they can, such programs as Obamacare, Medicaid, and laws protecting women’s reproductive rights.  Help stop this ambitious young man’s political career here and now, and elect Peter Perovich to the Minnesota Senate for District 35 on November 6^th.