Monday, October 28, 2013

The Columbia Heights Candidate for New Brighton

The letter arrived in the mail the other day, not addressed to me, but rather to Mrs. D. The letterhead announces that the missive is "FROM THE DESKS OF YOUR MINNESOTA STATE LEGISLATIVE TEAM, Senator Barb Goodwin & Representative Carolyn Laine."

Goodwin and Laine represent our area (in a manner of speaking) because of the way the legislative districts were drawn in the last cycle. New Brighton politically leans a bit to the left, but has voted for more conservative candidates in the past. New Brighton's neighbor to the west, Columbia Heights, is where Goodwin and Laine call home. Because the Heights regularly vote for DFLers by lopsided margins, Goodwin and Laine have very safe legislative seats. And now they want to install their own candidate into office in New Brighton, one Mary Kunesh-Podein.

Goodwin and Laine sing the praises of their candidate, even though they have trouble with proofreading:
In addition to having served on the [New Brighton Parks, Recreation and Enivornmental] Commission, Mary Kunesh-Podeinis (sic) also a teacher with nearly two decades of experience in the classroom. Just as a teacher comes prepared with a lesson plan, Mary comes to the New Brighton City Council with a strong, common sense plan to move the city forward and grow the local economy.
Emphasis theirs. This is silly, of course. It's not the job of the City Council to grow the local economy; in a city like New Brighton, the job of the municipal government is to provide needed services and keep the roads paved. Under the current leadership of Mayor Dave Jacobsen and council member Gina Bauman, we've had smart, efficient government for the last four years. Meanwhile, in Goodwin and Laine's Columbia Heights, the local government has been a train wreck for decades now.

There's no reason to assume that these DFL grandees know anything about what New Brighton needs. If anything, their recommendation should be a cautionary tale. Dave Jacobsen and Gina Bauman richly deserve your vote.

No comments: