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."
Matt Bostrom is going to formally announce running for Ramsey County Sheriff, next Tuesday, at the Landmark Center, during the lunch hour. Matt Bostrom is well-liked by everyone that I have interviewed at city hall. He has twenty seven years on the St Paul police force which actively does community outreach. And that means that many St Paul community members also know Matt Bostrom, with similar favorable comments. I personally saw him in two community meetings, where he was open and informative. He even answered all of my pesky questions. Even in the most adverse of questioning, he stays in the conversation, calm and considerate.
Matt Bostrom is also well known for his professional skill in putting together huge collaborative projects with multiple agencies and community projects with over a 1 million people. He manages huge budgets well. For this work, Matt received the 2009 Preparedness Award by the Association of Minnesota Emergency Managers (AMEM). Matt currently serves as the Assistant St Paul Police Chief in charge of the Homeland Security and Support Service Division. And when Matt Bostrom is not actually doing management, he is teaching others to do public administration as as an adjunct Professor at Saint Mary's University, Northwestern College, and Hamline University.
"Do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, whether or not you want to, without being asked, and whether or not anyone is looking." is Matt Bostrom's motto.
Rarely when I call about news on an endorsement, do I hear about an enthusiastic unanimous endorsement. Yet that is exactly what I heard from a group of people on east side of St Paul who endorsed Matt Bostrom for Ramsey County Sheriff. Not only is there a group endorsement, but each member also added a personal individual endorsement.
The Eastside PAC committee is called PROGRESSPPAC, an acronym for "People for Reinvestment, Opportunity, Growth, & Redevelopment on the East Side and Saint Paul Political Action Committee". This group pulls together the east side issues. The chair, Raymond Hess, said that Matt Bostrom's presentation was "really dynamite", expressing "concern for the community". The committee was most impressed with the ideals of the good cooperation between county level of sheriff and the city levels of police. Right now, the relationship between the local police and the current sheriff in Ramsey County can best be described as turf battles. So cooperation would be a huge change in policy.
Community-partnered policing or community policing is both a philosophy and a strategy where police and citizens cooperate as partners. The people of a neighborhood and their local police use relationships, trust, empathy and a common purpose to jointly use the resources of the community to solve the roots of crime. Ordinary citizens take on the responsibility of solving community problems relating to crime, not just leaving it to the police. In this philosophy the police are part of "we, the community," instead of viewing the community as an "us vs them" mentality.
In the community-partnered policing, the first role of the police officer is to know the community well and to support the community. Knowing the community requires that police stations are located more within communities instead of being centralized. Officers are less in their patrol cars and more on the street, in town meetings, talking with people and generally being involved in the neighborhood. Police officers are encouraged to live in the community and to become socially involved in the communities.
The neighborhoods under community policing begin to look different. People form block parties, block clubs, neighborhood watches and action groups. People know and care who their neighbors are. Activities move from closed-off back-yard parties to more open front-yard parties. In walking through the neighborhoods, more people walk and talk on the streets, and kids are actively bicycling. Boulevard gardens display the new front-yard focus.
Matt Bostrom, Assistant Chief of the St Paul Police Department, has formed a campaign committee to run for Ramsey County Sheriff today. That election will be held next year, not to be confused with the current election. Matt Bostrom has more than 27 years of law enforcement experience, handling some of the toughest assignments in the well-liked St Paul Police force. Matt will be running against the incumbent, Sheriff Fletcher, best known for his leadership role in the tarnished Metro Gang Strike Force and a litany of woes.
Matt Bostrom brings the strong community-focused policing that has been the hallmark of St Paul police. Indeed, Matt Bostrom has been well known in neighborhood community meetings, a role he does with ease and charm. As assistant chief of the St Paul police, Matt Bostrom has initiated many community outreach efforts. The St Paul police have long been known for partnering with neighborhoods in joint efforts to reduce crime by getting at root causes. St Paul is unique in that local people speak of positive experiences with their local police. For example, I feel that way because a St Paul police officer gave me a ride home in the middle of a snowstorm, when an accident had demolished my parked car. The peace community has long noted that the St Paul police stand out for fairness and reasonableness in managing peace protests, compared to all other metro law enforcement. It is these types of experiences that build community and trust in local law enforcement.
I, Grace Kelly, am fully endorsing John Choi for Ramsey County Attorney. In the process of doing research in making the decision about endorsement for this critical local race, I personally tested John Choi's major focus, restorative justice, in my own life and it profoundly changed my life. In reviewing John Choi's work as St Paul city attorney, I find him to be a politically courageous leader who is actively
improving justice for the economically disadvantaged
improving justice disparity in racial and in cultural areas
putting pressure on corporations to act better in foreclosures
holding to the same standards of justice in processing all cases despite political pressure
using foresight to improve our St Paul budget problems
being open to the public and the press, including citizen journalists like me
willing to meet with citizen groups in a dialog that was openly critical instead of staying inside of a comfortable shell of communication
using restorative justice actively to improve our community
Indeed John Choi's work is now a model for other cities. International Municipal Lawyers Association is giving John Choi a major Joseph I. Mulligan Jr. Distinguished Public Service Award in October. This is a story where you will want to follow the details, below the fold.
Matt Bostrom is going to formally announce running for Ramsey County Sheriff, next Tuesday, at the Landmark Center, during the lunch hour. Matt Bostrom is well-liked by everyone that I have interviewed at city hall. He has twenty seven years on the St Paul police force which actively does community outreach. And that means that many St Paul community members also know Matt Bostrom, with similar favorable comments. I personally saw him in two community meetings, where he was open and informative. He even answered all of my pesky questions. Even in the most adverse of questioning, he stays in the conversation, calm and considerate.
I, Grace Kelly, am fully endorsing 
