Until this year, I did not think much of parades and I learned differently. Parades are especially important when name recognition is an issue. The Sheriff's race is non-partisan so there is not even a party label on the ballot to help build support. Parades also build community, it is an easy way for community leaders to reach out and connect with community members. Add literature, stickers and good presentation to a parade, and it is the best political outreach.
The Matt Bostrom for Sheriff campaign outreach in parades was extraordinary! First of all, the candidate, Matt Bostrom, is amazing. Matt is obviously in great physical shape, so he greets everyone that he can, going from side to side, sometimes running to catch up. Matt Bostrom has great charisma because he really cares about people and it shows. Then we have a team of happy smiling folks handing out literature, handing out stickers and handing out candy. One person is constantly introducing Matt and leading the "Say hello to Matt - Hello Matt" shout-out. With everyone in the emblazoned black and gold shirts, some just carrying signs, it is quite a crowd. An antique police car leads the parade group, occasionally announcing its presence with a siren. Sometimes the antique car needs to "rest" a few minutes, and to the great amusement of the crowd, a half dozen Bostrom people push the car. Can you tell that we are having great fun? This is a group enjoying each other on a social occasion that happens to also be political. At the end of the parade, we share the best Vote-Matt-Bostrom stories from the event, and sometimes surprising stories. Like we had a great response from the Vadnais Heights parade and Vadnais Heights is where our opponent Bob Fletcher lives. That caused me to start using the phrases, "To know Matt Bostrom, is to like him! To know Bob Fletcher is to NOT like him!".
While I have worked at the highest level of our party, across many campaigns for both issues and candidates, this is the first time that I have contributed all of my volunteer efforts for one candidate - Matt Bostrom for Sheriff. My colleagues have urged me to give you an inside look at what that kind of volunteering is like.
In this volunteering, the most important feeling comes from this campaign being a most important cause - a cause worthy of dedicated volunteer effort. Matt Bostrom is that type of candidate. We needed a candidate with a great record that the opponent would have no traction on attacking. Matt Bostrom has 28 years of experience with the St Paul police in multiple leadership roles, with great projects and great awards. For example, Matt Bostrom won the 2009 Preparedness Award by the Association of Minnesota Emergency Responders his organizational skills and demonstrated fiscal responsibility. In addition to being a great police officer, Matt Bostrom has great speaking skills and the ability to talk to everyone. And most importantly for me as a progressive, Matt Bostrom has great character and integrity.
In high contrast, our incumbent opponent Bob Fletcher has over 16 years of experience, with a record that should remove anyone from office, which I summarized from news sources. Bob Fetcher's pet project, the Metro Gang Force, that he touted on his campaign for years, was so bad that it was disbanded. His management of the jail is so bad that a young person died from not receiving insulin medication when the mother had personally brought the medicine to the jail and explained how important it was. Bob Fletcher sued the county government so he would have the privilege of over spending his budget as much as he wants, which he does. But the whole truth is worse, much worse. As a known citizen journalist, people come to tell me stories about Bob Fletcher that they are not willing to go public with - just so someone knows. What is publicly published is only the tip of the iceberg. There is huge dam of information waiting to break. This knowledge makes this campaign, a peace and justice mission of the highest importance. We should have never allowed this to happen here in Ramsey county. So everyone on this campaign has this sense of an important mission.
The reason that Bob Fletcher is able to get away with so much is that the sheriff is a low visibility office, which the media ignores. In fact, Bob has cultivated the media with favors so his press releases are not critically examined. Those press releases are frequently re-published as news articles. This year, news staffs are cut so deeply that only the governor's race is getting coverage. So the only people who really know about Bob Fletcher's record are active in local government and local politics or follow local politics closely. And in this case, the incumbent is so bad, that it has motivated people from both parties, DFL and GOP, to work together. It has attracted people who do not care about any other campaign or any other politics, over 120 endorsements so far. We have dedicated peace advocates working with dedicated gun-carry advocates. Never before have I seen such a diversity of political causes and views on one campaign.
Now for the best part, after the fold are some personal stories based on the diversity of the campaign.
Today, the new St Paul Chief Thomas Smith is announced by Mayor Chris Coleman. The city council still has to approve this choice. Thomas Smith was picked from four very strong Internal candidates. The finalists for the chief job were: Commander Todd Axtell, a watch commander; Senior Commander Colleen Luna, head of the Western District; Senior Commander Bill Martinez, head of the Eastern District; and Assistant Chief Thomas Smith, who is in charge of operations. One of the other Assistant Chiefs, Matt Bostrom is currently running for the elected office of Sheriff of Ramsey County. The St Paul police is known for its culture of community policing, where the St Paul police partners with the community to solve problems. Though community policing, and through emphasis on character and integrity, St Paul police has gained strong respect and trust from the community.
And the outgoing chief, John Harrington, is one of three finalists to be the police chief in New Orleans. That final decision isn't expected soon. Normally, St Paul police do not move to other departments, so this may be the beginning of a new trend.
More videos will become available throughout the day.
At the Ramsey county level, we have an endorsed candidate for sheriff, Matt Bostrom, and an endorsed candidate for county attorney, John Choi, who will work very closely together to provide world-class public safety and justice. Both the Sheriff's department and the County Attorney's office are actually high level management positions of hundreds of employees and huge multi-million dollar budgets. Both won awards for great management. John Choi has the Joseph I. Mulligan Jr. Distinguished Public Service Award. Matt Bostrom has the 2009 Preparedness Award by the Association of Minnesota Emergency Responders. Yet what really impresses me, is that both are well liked by employees, by associates and by even their bosses. St Paul Chief John Harrington has endorsed Matt Bostrom and Mayor Chris Coleman has endorsed John Choi. The wealth of endorsements is also a measure of their involvement with the community. Both have strong fiscal responsibility. Both are strong innovators. Both are known for economic justice. Both are known for defending civil rights under great pressure. Both are strong advocates for working with the community to solve problems. And they are also great campaigners and speakers as these videos from the endorsing convention show:
After the CD4 endorsements concluded yesterday, the Ramsey County endorsements took place. Most, although not all, of Ramsey County is in CD4.
The winners of the Ramsey County endorsements were John Choi for Ramsey County Attorney and Matt Bostrom for Ramsey County Sheriff. Kudos to those who didn't win for a job well done.
In the latest of many endorsements, the DFL Veterans Caucus has endorsed Matt Bostrom for Ramsey County Sheriff. Matt Bostrom also has the endorsements of 36 Ramsey County elected officials, 18 law enforcement endorsements, 6 labor endorsements as well as many individual endorsements. Matt Bostrom champions the St Paul Police style of community policing, where law enforcement works with the community to resolve community problems.
The Veterans caucus is particularly concerned with law enforcement because veterans can go into a mental health crisis from traumatic stress or simply encounter law enforcement because a higher proportion of veterans are homeless. So it is particularly important that all law enforcement, including Sheriffs' departments are trained in identification and handling of veterans.
"Matt Bostrom is committed to training line officers to recognize and identify someone who is experiencing a mental health crisis and ensuring that anyone who has served in the military is identified and connected with appropriate services" said Trista Matascastillo, military veteran and Chair of the DFL Veterans Caucus. "This includes mental and physical health services, shelter and chemical dependency services."
Our Democracy was based on certain ideals like a constitution that protected rights of people and like separation of powers into three branches of government. Constitutionally making corporations into people has broken the rights of people. The budget and policy rights of the legislature have been taken by presidents and governors. Our Governor Tim Pawlenty's deliberate planned use of unallotment to essentially remove legislature power is part of a court filing, quoted in one of today's recommended diaries on DailyKOS:
It would dramatically change the structure of government created by the Minnesota Constitution if this Court were to sanction a process in which this or any other Governor could sign appropriations into law, then veto revenue bills, and then use unallotment to ignore legislative appropriations and to rewrite the budget according to the Governor's own legislative priorities. This in fact is what has occurred. This use of unallotment was unauthorized by any law and was unconstitutional.
The Uptake will be streaming live coverage of the oral arguments today before Minnesota's Supreme Court.
The executive power has also been abused through how the law is enforced. Republican governors have particularly not enforced selected laws. Now judges and sheriffs are now getting into the process of overruling legislatures through how and which laws are enforced. This totally violates the principles of separation of powers, democracy and values of fairness.
In perhaps the most bizarre twist of all, my local Ramsey county Sheriff's race now has a group of ***DFL*** supporters and perhaps the campaign arguing for voting for the Sheriff based on legislative policy issue stances! My endorsed candidate, Matt Bostrom, from the beginning of the campaign declared that legislative issues are off limits unless they are very directly related to the Sheriff's office. For there is no perception of fairness when officiating civil rights issues when then personal stances of law enforcement officials is known. For example, Sheriff Fletcher is widely known to be a pro-war advocate. Especially law enforcement and judges ought to be selected by character, integrity and fairness (as well as ability to do the job).
So the real questions are: Do we stand up for principles of democracy and separation of powers always? Or is the DFL as bad as Republicans in erosion of Democratic principles when it is in our policy favor? Will we be suddenly for unallotment and expanded gubernatorial powers when we have a Democratic governor?
Today I attended the SD64 Convention at Central High School in St. Paul. There was a very good turnout and the energy level was high. I had a good time and found myself grinning at all my candidate friends.
Let's get the awards out of the way first.
Best tie: J. P. Barone
Most applause: R. T. Rybak
Most Improved Presentation: Matt Entenza
Most Entertaining: Tom Rukavina
Most Elusive: Mark Dayton (he was nowhere to be found)
Most Campaign T-shirts: Paul Thissen and R. T. Rybak (all these t-shirts were running around like characters in a Disney movie)
Now those of you who know me, know that I have reputation for speaking, even when no when else will speak. So it may surprise you that this year I am focussing on listening.
Peacemakers have a huge emphasis on everyone having a turn to speak in a round table fashion. A peacemaker should look at the world from the other person's perspective, to seek to understand before seeking to be understood. In taking all the workshops of peacemakers, I thought I learned the skills of listening - until I met Matt Bostrom, the Assistant Chief of St Paul Police.
What I observed with Matt Bostrom, was that he listened more reflectively and with longer pauses, than anyone else I had known. So I asked him about it. Matt Bostrom described listening as one of the key skills of good law enforcement work. Just waiting will frequently get more information than asking another question.
The Star Tribune reports that Patrick Uzalac, the gentleman suing Sheriff Fetcher for lack of medical treatment on frozen feet, has now died. It will take an autopsy to determine cause. If there is cause from the jail treatment, then we will have yet another wrongful death case.
Even more telling, is that more and more cases of lack of medical treatment are coming forward. This is also confirmed by the anonymous notes that I have been receiving:
"What has emerged is a pattern of, I don't think neglect, but almost to the point of affirmative abuse," Hajek said. "One guy fell off a cot and broke his heal. He went without medical care for two to three months ... now he's disabled. Another guy, he had broken stitches from an appendectomy and they didn't treat him."
Hajek said he expects to file additional lawsuits.
What the Star Tribune is failing to say, let me say very clearly. This is a widespread pattern of mis-management that displays that Sheriff Fletcher ought to retire to Florida immediately. This is a peace and justice issue of the highest urgency! Only the voters of Ramsey county can manage to force Sheriff Fletcher's retirement. Fortunately, a number of us have been able to persuade a current St Paul Assistant Chief Matt Bostrom to take on the challenge. Matt Bostrom is the opposite of Sheriff Fletcher is in every way: professional, capable, calm and reliable!
At the Ramsey county sheriff's office, Sheriff Fletcher rules everything by personal command, so anything that is not standard procedure has to go through Sheriff Fletcher. It gets worse: the standard procedures and processes do not cover much. In fact, the processes and procedures have rarely been revised. Now since I wrote this, I do expect Sheriff Fletcher to do a last minute election revision. Rarely does any government get as badly broken as Sheriff Fletcher's jail. Innocent people now have to fear Sheriff Fletcher's jail, as Patrick Uzalac found out.
After locking himself out of his apartment in the pre-dawn hours of a bitter January day, Patrick Uzalac started tossing snowballs at his neighbors' windows for help.
Somebody called the cops.
What followed, according to Uzalac, was 42 hours of suffering with red, frostbitten feet as his pleas for help fell on the deaf ears of New Brighton police and then Ramsey County jailers...
At the Ramsey County Adult Detention Center, Uzalac said he again complained about his painful and, now blistered, feet. Jail staff ignored him, he said, and placed him in a cell.
(Star Tribune Article by James Walsh)
This follows a long history of medical help failures even leading to death and a long history of courts assigning damages to be paid out by Sheriff Fletcher. More details and new information below the fold.
Tonight, the community spoke out on what the selection criteria should be for the next St Police Chief. In the audience taking notes were at least four of the candidates: Todd Axtell, Colleen Luna, Bill Martinez and Thomas Smith, The press were taking notes. Truly, it is a process of a social contract being worked out between the community and the next police chief.
Tonight, I spoke out even when my voice shook. I prepared so much for my testimony at the community meeting, that I became nervous. Yep, me!
The highlights of what I was asking for is here:
Internal Candidate
Command Leadership
Courageous, Calm and Compassionate in times of Adversity
Willingness to give credit to others, to admit mistakes and to look from the viewpoint of an opposing perspective
Ability and Willingness to be the St Paul Police Public Advocate
Long Standing Community Relationships
Innovation and Leadership in Working with the Community to Solve Problems
My complete speech is below the fold.
Retired Chief Finney also spoke, with both cheers and applause. Chief Finney spoke of the need for integrity most of all. The new chief also has to form a partnership with the police union, keep informed of policing best practices and trends, form state and national connections, and continue grant work and collaborations.
"Deposits in the bank of trust" is what the St Paul police call the long work in building community relationships. From two in-depth interviews that I had with Matt Bostrom, Assistant Chief, and Todd Axtell, Watch Commander, there are strong themes running through their decisions. And, indeed, many casual conversations with St Paul police officers back up these common themes of building trust.
Surprisingly, the first deposit in the bank of trust is the personal volunteering with young people by the St Paul police. The drug education program, D.A.R.E., has long been in St Paul schools. Matt Bostrom and many law enforcement officers are involved in coaching sports. Todd Axtell is involved in the YWCA youth achievers' program on police techniques. This is direct personal contact by high level officers, not just an organization hosting a volunteer program. The payoff for working with young people has to be at least five years down the road, a very long range project. Yet I had one person say in a meeting that he supported the police because of the "way" that his son had been arrested 16 years ago. St Paul is a place where people stay, where you are a newcomer until you have been here at least 10 years. So while I was marginally aware that my children had had training in school programs that involved police officers, it was not until my interviews that I realized the depth of that involvement.
Courtesy and kindness is another deposit in the bank of trust by the St Paul police. Obviously, as law enforcement, the trend of encounters is negative and confrontational. Yet Todd Axtell describes the St Paul standard training where a police officer gives a ticket so courteously that the receiver actually thanks them. Matt Bostrom tells a story of a law enforcement officer going to a door greeted by a pointed gun. Yet the person with the gun sees the St Paul police officer, lowers the gun and greets the St Paul officer like an old friend. That friendly greeting was the benefit of many years of courteous visits to the same house. Make no mistake, to try to be actively courteous is extra effort when the natural trend of the encounter is to be negative.
For those of you who have never tried going to a stranger's house, just to join a "meet and greet" party for a candidate, I urge you to try it. It took me a long time before I did.
In a "meet and greet" party, there is time to just socialize with a candidate. There is time just to know the person before evaluating the candidate. And especially with local candidates, there is a feeling of just being with neighbors.
This video is taken in very low light, so I apologize for the clarity. I think you get the feeling of the close knit comfort of a small living room, filled with people. Although this is edited for time constraints, people do have the time to ask questions and then to ask follow-up questions. No debate timer is about to go off! I really like that relaxed atmosphere compared to debates.
Matt Bostrom is running for Ramsey County Sheriff, and here is his social introduction and background, at a "meet and greet" party:
Today, Matt Bostrom formally announced his campaign to run for Ramsey County Sheriff. A most impressive array of local politicians and people filled a Landmark center room.
Normally, we hear the same ideas and same phrases. However, Matt Bostrom is unique in his ideas and even in the way, he describes those ideas.
1) Building trust in the community for law enforcement
"The reality is that to have safe neighborhood, it takes ownership from those that live there and to have a trusting relationship with the law officers that arrive. They are going be the ones that together will solve those long term community problems."
2) Cooperation between different law enforcement agencies is essential
"What we learned after 9/11 is that is not possible for agencies to go it alone anymore. We have to be structured in such away that we know how to come along aside each other in times of need and then solve the community problems, whatever they might be, no matter how big or vast. And then we have be able to go back to doing what we normally do in a daily operation. We have to be able to do it seamlessly."
3) Building an effective law enforcement agency that can work with the community requires diversity
"Diversity matters!"
4) Leadership in the community begins with connecting with youth
"My challenge then to our deputies and to our police officers when those young lives come across your path: a gentle smile, a word of encouragement is going to last a lifetime."
5) In tough economic times, every government agency should be practice fiscal responsibility
"I make a pledge that for two years if I am elected we will maintain the budget at that [current] level."
In the latest of many endorsements, the DFL Veterans Caucus has endorsed Matt Bostrom for Ramsey County Sheriff. Matt Bostrom also has the endorsements of 36 Ramsey County elected officials, 18 law enforcement endorsements, 6 labor endorsements as well as many individual endorsements. Matt Bostrom champions the St Paul Police style of community policing, where law enforcement works with the community to resolve community problems.
