Election 2013, Volume 4, Issue 1: City Council Ward 12

[naomikritzer]

The way I've done election research in the past was to center it on my own ballot. I was doing the research anyway, and taking notes on my findings, so why not put them on my LJ? But then I moved to St. Paul right before one of the most interesting city races Minneapolis has held in years. And I got started early. And I'm having fun. So I'm doing City Council Ward 12 right now because it's my old ward, but I may do some of the others, though I'm not going to promise a full write-up for every City Council race.

It's a year that could swing the city in some really interesting directions, though, because so many of these races are wide open. Talk to your friends. It's a lot of work to research candidates, but there are some very interesting options. (Unless you're friends with this dude: http://storify.com/crz/failing-to-sway-a-voter in which case don't bother. The guy he's chatting with is Christopher Zimmerman, who's one of the Libertarian mayoral candidates. If you are saying to a Libertarian that he's just like all the liberals on the ballot, well, you are definitely reinforcing my stereotypes of anti-gay bigots and really, if you want to opt out of voting, I'm kind of okay with that. Because I'm a liberal, but I'm a bad liberal.)

I apologize in advance if I sound a little punchy tonight (or if I have any particularly hilarious typos). I have a really bad headache. It's 11:30 at night as I'm starting this, and going to bed would be a logical thing to do right now, but I know from experience that when I have a headache like this, going to bed just means that I will lie awake, thinking about how my head hurts. I might as well stay up and do something distracting. Eventually, either my head will stop hurting, or I'll be so tired I can barely keep my eyes open, and at that point I'll go to bed. We'll see if that happens before or after I finish these writeups.


The candidates:

"Dick" Franson
Andrew Johnson
Ben Gisselman
Chris Lautenschlager
Charlie Casserly

Dick Franson

Website is here: http://www.dickfranson.com/

A ten-second glance at his website will probably tell you that this guy is a nut of the "perennial candidate" variety, given that the first page of his website suggests electing him to the U.S. Senate in 2012 as well as Council Member, he also wants you to elect him Mayor in 2013 though he didn't file since I guess, unfairly, they only want you to run for one office at a time, and if you click around the site at all you'll also find him pitching himself as MN Secretary of State. Basically, his hobbies are running for office, and complaining about the fact that no one takes him seriously.

Andrew Johnson

Website is here: http://www.andrewmpls.com/

Based on the signage in the neighborhood, I'd say that Andrew Johnson is the front-runner. I'd thought he was endorsed by the DFL, but he isn't; they didn't endorse anyone in Ward 12. He is, however, endorsed by lots of popular local politicians, including R.T., Gary Schiff, and Wes Skoglund, and various subcategories of the DFL.

One of his big issues has been unnecessarily complicated regulations for small businesses, and managed to personally get one regulation changed -- the requirement that restaurants and bars have two gender-specific bathrooms even if they're one-person-at-a-time bathrooms with a locking door. (Comments on the article include a bunch of irate women who'd rather stand in a long line than have to share a bathroom with men. You know, I've used gender-neutral bathrooms many times and I've also, frankly, used the one marked "men's" on occasion, and I'm sort of wondering what these ladies are picturing because I don't think men are THAT disgusting. Also, most restaurants that want to keep their customers clean their bathrooms pretty regularly, so I think the concerns of the fastidious ladies are overblown.

I will admit that a candidate who looks at the regulations and went specifically after a particular regulation that annoys small business owners warms my heart. It's rare that you see such specificity, and it suggest a willingness to dig in really try to change things, which I approve of. He also organized people to lobby for the Surly Bill, and that article is really worth clicking over for as it paints a picture of Andrew as someone who got involved mostly out of genuine outrage at obstructionist big lobbyists, and who can bring together a very diverse crowd of activists.

You know what? This guy would have my vote, if I still lived in Ward 12. He has stances I'm not crazy about (he's pro-streetcar) but overall I like his approach and I think he'll do a good job for Minneapolis.

Ben Gisselman

Website here: http://benforward12.org/

Ben Gisselman says that he's in favor of essential services, green space, good schools, jobs, and development. (It's good to see people taking the really controversial stances. Since I've been grousing about mayoral candidates talking about schools, let me just note that council members have even less to do with schools than the mayor. He does kind of acknowledge that ("I also look forward to doing what I can to continue to improve the quality and attendance of our local public schools....I plan to do whatever possible to ensure that I have the best working relationship I can with the School Board to ensure that our schools can continue to improve and so that Minneapolis Public Schools can be competitive with the rest of our region.") He wants to "toe the line on excessive spending" (I think he means he wants to hold the line. I'm guessing.)

But yeah, not a ton of specifics other than that he is anti-municipalization. (Andrew Johnson is pro-municipalization, although with caveats about doing an honest analysis of costs.)

There are a couple of other things that turned up when I went hunting for more info. He's a lawyer -- specifically, he's a divorce attorney, which I have to admit I view as a pretty significant negative. This may be very unfair; it's one of those unpleasant jobs that someone has to do, right? But, yeah, you know -- divorce lawyers have a certain reputation. He and his wife got married about a year ago; I found the wedding website, which is still up. It didn't make me hate them, which is a point in his favor.

Not in his favor is the fact that he and his wife hosted a meet-and-greet for Mark Andrew. If you're one of the (many) people who's nervous about Mark Andrew, you definitely will not want to vote for this guy, since presumably he'll be a firm ally of Mark's on the City Council.

Chris Lautenschlager

Website is here: http://www.twelfthward.org/ ...dude. No one had registered that? I'm kind of appalled.

Chris's catchphrase is, "Common Sense. Uncommon Name." Which is maybe a slightly risky catchphrase when one of your opponents is named Gisselman. Though people definitely will not get him mixed up with Andrew Johnson, and to be fair, Lautenschlager (which means "lute player," apparently) is definitely the most memorably unusual name in the race.

Chris is endorsed by the Minneapolis Greens, although he kind of buries that on his website. This may be a mistake. When you bury your party affiliation, people around here sometimes assume you're a Republican and you're hiding it. On the other hand, if you look at his issues, you're not going to make that mistake for very long. He's actually far enough to the left that even though I consider myself a Progressive, his stances start to make me nervous. For instance, he's pro-bike and talks about "lessening the privileged position that automobiles have occupied for generations." I'm also pro-bike, but when people phrase it that way, I worry that they're going to try to force people out of their cars by making it a massive pain to drive. I like biking. I am in favor of funding transit. But I'm mostly a recreational biker, honestly, and if I actually need to get somewhere, I want to be able to use my car and have it not be incredibly annoying. Does that make me part of the problem? Probably, but you know, I live in the (other) city, in a walkable neighborhood of reasonable density and we drive way less than suburbanites, so cut me some slack.

He clearly thinks Andrew Johnson is the front-runner. Chris's Facebook site (here: https://www.facebook.com/twelfthward ) is unusually interesting for a campaign Facebook, in part because of stuff like this -- he snagged a post Andrew Johnson made to the e-democracy forums in 2011 (so, waaaaaaaaay before he got seriously into politics), responding to some layoffs of firefighters basically by saying, "before we demand the heads of those who made this decision, do we know whether we had a surplus of firefighters?" The conversation is a little hard to follow because it's all out of order (thank you, Facebook, for your contributions to public discourse) but Andrew is clearly a little taken aback to have someone he's always had pleasant personal interactions with turn on him this way, and the Firefighter Union rep (Andrew has their endorsement) showed up to reiterate their support, and frankly, I think the whole exchange makes Chris look like kind of an ass. It's one thing if you're running against someone who's been in politics for years and you want to throw some old position they took in their face. It's another when you're both running for an entry-level office like City Council rep and you dig up a basically reasonable if slightly tactless (and not brilliantly phrased) e-mail to a political discussion list someone made two years ago.

Perhaps I'm taking this personally because if I ran for office, imagine the sort of stuff people could pull out of this blog. Out-of-context sarcasm! Random acts of cluelessness!! Disrespect for deeply-held religious beliefs!!!

A few other notes on Chris: you can find an interview with him here, along with a photo, and boy, does he have a piercing stare. Also, on the front page of his website, he has an aerial image of the 12th Ward with his house circled, I think. The photo looks kind of odd and I think it might be a vintage postcard; he mentions somewhere that he collects vintage postcards.

Charlie Casserly

Website is here: http://www.charliecasserly.com/

He describes himself as a "common sense independent," which in this context probably means "closet Republican," but I'm really not sure given that the only other thing he tells you about himself is that he was born and raised in the 12th Ward. I went hunting for other information and found that he owns a web design company. Website is here, and you know, you really should go and look. http://www.casserlymedia.com/ Charles Casserly has been a web designer since 1996, and doesn't appear to have changed his design approach or techniques since 1996, either.

So yeah, I'd view his crimes against design to be a reason not to vote for him, but the main reason not to vote for him as that beyond "local grown" there's absolutely no indication of what you're getting. (Oh, I think I found him on Facebook, and he'd "Liked" the group "Viking Fans for an Outdoor Stadium," which might also be a reason to vote against him, although if you look at my Facebook you'll see that I've "Liked" Jackie Cherryhomes for Mayor because I wanted to keep tabs on all the major candidates and so I liked all of them because that's what you do on Facebook to follow a page.)



Barring major revelations about the candidates, I'd say I'd rank them as follows:

1. Andrew Johnson
2. Chris Lautenschlager
3. Ben Gisselman

(Mark Andrew really makes me nervous.)

My head still hurts, it's 1 a.m., and I'm not sure I'm exhausted enough to go to sleep but I may try. I hope this was coherent....

Election 2013 Index of Posts

Comments

[stargoatpdx.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Lautenschlager’s website says “we need more people to drive less” (emphasis original). Is that what’s fueling your worry about forcing people out of their cars?

Because until I read that, I was drawing a parallel between your reaction to "lessening the privileged position that automobiles have occupied for generations” and the kind of reaction that led to the whole defense of marriage concept. I do recognize that there are a great many differences between discrimination against cyclists and discrimination against LGBTQ. What I mean is that when someone talks about reducing a deeply entrenched privilege of yours, it’s natural to wonder, “What are they going to take away from me?” ... but you don’t have to indulge those kinds of iddish thoughts. (Iddish as in id, as in Freud.) Though I’m sure having a headache plays all sorts of havoc.

(It may be unfortunate that parts of Lautenschlager’s rhetoric focus on the negative (“drive less”, “lessening the privileged position”) instead of the positive (“bike more”, “make room for bikes”). But since driving a car actively harms the environment, he’s certainly justified.)

Anyway. Speaking for myself, when I think of cycling as a tool to get people to drive less, I usually think in terms of making cycling easer for people who don’t think of themselves as cyclists. And, yes, sometimes that means diverting cars from one of the city’s designated bicycle boulevards onto a traffic artery 160 meters away. Rather than think of this as something have been taken from you, I’d suggest looking at your goals. For example, if you want bikes, cars, and whatnot to respectively to account for X%, Y%, and Z% of all travel in the city, what resources will it take for each of them need to reach or maintain that percentage? Then (re)allocate resources accordingly. If that really does make it more annoying to drive a car, so be it -- privilege lost. And maybe you can find an alternative solution that will reach the goal in a better way.

I hate headaches and I hope you feel better soon.

[naomikritzer]

Well, and taking away some road to give to cyclists is absolutely reasonable; it's just the way he puts it that makes me worried that inconveniencing drivers will be part of his goal. It's one thing if you see it as a problem to be mitigated, and another if you see it as a side benefit.

I have seen traffic projects that take the same amount of cement and give some to bikers and actually improve things for cars. Minnehaha Ave, when we first moved to Minneapolis, had two very narrow traffic lanes in each direction (plus parking). The problem was that if you drove in the left-hand lane you would get stuck behind the left turners. If you drove in the right-hand lane you would get stuck behind the buses. And the left lane was terrifying, especially in winter, because it felt like you were missing oncoming traffic by about two centimeters. They restriped it to create one wide lane in each direction for the cars; a nice bike lane; and parking. So now everyone drove in the same lane, but there was space to get around the left-turners (if you were careful of bikers), space to get around the buses, space to park, AND a bike lane. It actually worked much, much better.

It is not, however, the nicest bike lane in town (and during the heavy snows of a few winters ago, the bike lane completely disappeared because they didn't plow it well enough.) They're reconstructing again and talking about a protected bike lane or cycletrack, which I think is a good idea (it's a major thoroughfare for bikes) although I ALSO want them to ensure that cars can get around left turners etc. and not say, "the cars should be over on Hiawatha Ave, anyway."

Minneapolis is a really excellent biking city and the bike routes are mostly put together really intelligently -- people who use bikes for transportation can get from point A to point B very efficiently, people who use bikes recreationally can find really pleasant trails for it. That said, there are certain spots that are dangerous or difficult to get through; there are bike lanes and trails that don't get the snow cleared properly; etc. If he went for more specifics, I'd probably be less suspicious.

[coho29.livejournal.com]

It's also worth noting that incumbent Sandy Colvin Roy dropped out of the race after failing to win the DFL endorsement. She was one of the seven Councilmembers who voted for the Wilfare stadium bill; I'm not sure to what extent that ended up being an issue in the campaign.

[naomikritzer]

AH, okay. I had thought she'd stepped down because she was ready to pursue other interests. (See, I leave the ward and I no longer GO to the ward conventions and I miss this sort of really interesting information; thank you for filling it in.)

Ed and I campaigned for one of Sandy's opponents years ago, the same year Sharon Sayles-Belton got tossed out of office. Sandy's opponent that year, Craig Larson, was not nearly as successful, and Sandy's embrace of bad ideas became less of a problem when the main sources of those ideas (Sharon Sayles-Belton, Jackie Cherryhomes, and Joan Campbell) all lost their elections.

[coho29.livejournal.com]

Re: Facebook, I heard there's something called an "interests list" or "add to interests" that lets you follow someone or something without "liking" them. Sorry I don't know exact details but it might be worth looking into (especially knowing how you feel about Cherryhomes).

[naomikritzer]

Ehhhhh, I am not so worried about my public image that I'm going to do the research necessary to figure it out.

I just wish I could get Facebook to consistently show me the posts I want to see, as opposed to intermittently. (Molly, looking over my shoulder, said, "Is there any way to tell it to show you everything?" I said. "Yes, there is, but it doesn't actually do it.")

[servant-of-clio.livejournal.com]

You're okay with opting out of voting? That is SO not what you told me in 1996! ;)

(You're allowed to have changed your mind.)

[naomikritzer]

I'm okay with it for that dude. I think we're all better off. (It may be the headache talking. I went to bed at 2, was awake until 3 because of the pain, and woke up again at 6 and it was worse. I took another dose of Tylenol and it actually eased up. Not completely, though.)

[nathaniel hood! (from livejournal.com)]

Naomi -

What's the best way to get in touch with you about an interview about Minneapolis candidates?

Best -Nate

[naomikritzer]

E-mail: naomi dot kritzer at gmail dot com.

[jenett]

I am so totally with you on Casserly's web design. (Wow. That is exceedingly late 90s.)

I also continue to adore these, even though I've got no stake in any of the actual races.

[fred beukema (from livejournal.com)]

Casserly's updated his website info a bit, including much more on the issues. Calling himself a web designer is still stupefying, but a picture is emerging of a big friend to development who mostly sits on boards but also does some web stuff on the side. All of it in MS Front Page, which I don't think exists as a piece of software you can buy any more.

Anyway, on the issues, he's seeming more and more like a closet Republican. He's a proud bike commuter who seems pretty skeptical of recent bike lane and transit development in the city. He talks about specific dumb effects of regulation on business (DQ by the parkway having to shutter their drive through because of pedestrian zoning), which is fine as far as he takes it. But the kicker is his rather firm statement that the cops who shot Terrence Franklin should get medals. I don't think that case compares to, say, Diallo or Oscar Grant. But some nuance would be nice, given how much confusion and controversy there is around it.

[coprock.livejournal.com]

I got a mailing from Ben Gisselman saying he was endorsed by Sandy Colvin Roy. That was enough or me to remove him from consideration.

[naomikritzer]

He also got endorsed by the Strib, despite the fact that apparently he's running on a fiscal responsibility platform after narrowly avoiding bankruptcy.

[grenacia.livejournal.com]

I waffle back and forth about voting for Ben Gisselman even in 3rd place - he sent me a campaign postcard with a statement that seems really dumb to me: "I will advocate for policies that ensure airport noise is fairly distributed as opposed to limited to certain neighborhoods". It implies an incredible lack of understanding on how the routing of flights works. Is he going to attempt to somehow arrange for planes to take bizarre routes at the start/end of their flights just so they fly over different neighborhoods? Even if he did this, it is unavoidable that neighborhoods closer to the airport are going to have more noise than ones further away (though they can also get reimbursements for home improvements to reduce noise). There are things that can be done to reduce airport noise, there's not much that can practically be done to redistribute it geographically.

But there isn't anyone better to stick in third place, so it's either him or leave it blank or write in my cat or something.