Woodbury Days if over and the end of another year of county and city fairs has come to an end.  Most citizens of Minnesota, who attended these fairs, were polite and willing to discuss political, financial and social differences. But, some of Minnesota’s left leaning citizens chose to express themselves by yelling obscenities as they quickly hurried away from the Washington County Republican booth at the Washington County Fair and Woodbury Days.  Repeated calls by the Washington County Republican booth workers to stop and let’s discuss our differences were only met with more obscenities and walking away faster.

“I won’t discuss anything with people who shut down the government!” one citizen at Woodbury Days was yelling while walking faster and faster away from the Washington County Republican Booth.  All one could do was yell back “The Republican’s had a budget to keep the government going with more money for everyone.  It was Governor Dayton who vetoed it and shut down the state government!”  I’m sure the comment fell upon selective deaf ears.  When will the liberal citizens understand flash bang riots, yelling, screaming and other obscene acts of violence will only divide us further.

This was the annual review of the entire budget and started at 4pm and ran til 9:00pm. It appeared to be attended mostly by staff (managers) of all the depts, plus media, the public and city council members. It can be pretty dry but there were some interesting discussions, mostly thanks to Paul Rebholtz, who cracked some jokes to liven things up. More details were reported elsewhere in the Woodbury Patch.

Tweets from Aug 17, 2011 Budget Workshop – City of Woodbury, MN

• #Woodbury budget workshop 4 – 9pm at public safety building-  Stop by!
• Beautiful new training room – just feels a little too big for this meeting. Lots more room – come over. #Woodbury
• Speed review of budget by Clint Gridley, City Admin. #Woodbury. No levy increase proposed!
• New”internal service fund” combines all worker comp claims to better monitor as costs are rising
• #Woodbury doesn’t add franchise fees, sales tax or field use fees like other communities
• Woodbury continues to have a triple A bond rating
• Woodbury city council cost is significantly lower than comparable cities by about 30%
• Election budget reflects adding possibly 3 new precincts to #Woodbury
• IT report: upgrade to Windows 2010 this year to impact 2012 budget #Woodbury
• Police dept. is cities largest operation next to water and sewer. Fire has 73 paid on call staff in #Woodbury
• Thanks! Sitting thru a dry budget meeting so you don’t have to #Woodbury
• Thanks for taking note! #Woodbury has come a long way from rural cornfields!
• EMS: 7% increase planned. Medicare reimbursement not keeping up. Sliding fee scale being used much more by patients.
• EMS needing more support staff to keep up with paperwork requests for legal purposes
• Tour of new #Woodbury public safety building. It is more functional now. Still getting settled.
• Your #Woodbury city council at work. Reviewing budget in detail.
• 3% increase in water rates from 88 to 91 cents proposed. Average usage is 23,000 gallons per household. Nixed by Council.
• I am very impressed with the detail and technical knowledge of staff and council
• Discussion of Eagle Valley golf – task force being proposed to consider its economic status and where it sits in the budget.
  Accepted by Council.

Via Twitter: Fred Thompson -

• Obama at fundraiser: I “inherited” country’s economic problems. Ok – but to “inherit” something, means you’re now the rightful owner.
• Obama wants more regs on hydraulic fracturing in natural gas drilling. Man, I’m getting sick & tired of all these fracking regulations!

 In response to the question:  “Do you have any dependents?”

 I replied ……. 12 million illegal immigrants;  3 million crack heads; 42 million unemployable lazy bastards; 

the entire cast of the Jerry Springer Show;  2 million people in over 243 prisons;  300,000 leftovers from Katrina; 

half of Mexico;  and hundreds more in the U.S. House and Senate.

Apparently, this wasn’t an acceptable answer.

Randy Brown, from SD56, emailed the following to help explain why the US credit rating was downgraded.
________________________________________________________________________

Another perspective on why S&P downgraded -

 • U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000

• Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000

• New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000

• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000

• Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000

 Let’s remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget:

 • Annual family income: $21,700

• Money the family spent: $38,200

• New debt on the credit card: $16,500

• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710 • Total budget cuts: $385

The following email  shows the coordination and planning between the Governor Dayton’s office and the Correctional Policy Committee (CPC). Further it reveals their political aims of having the shutdown give them a boost in their 2012 election campaigns”.    Political Hack

From: Keapproth, Mike (DOC)

Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2011 11:31 AM

To: Score, Amy (DOC); DuBois, Andy (DOC); Witty, Carl (DOC); Skare, Charles (DOC); Kracke, Christopher (DOC); Bunnell, Darby (DOC); Pierre, Denise (DOC); Firkus, Gerald (DOC); Barbo, James (DOC); Repke, Jim (DOC); Hillyard, John (DOC); Perlich, Kyle (DOC); Cornell, Mark (DOC); Gammel, Paul (DOC); Ramler, Randy (DOC); Sanchez, Stephen A. (DOC); Walsh, Thomas P (DOC); [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

Subject: State shut down process

During the most recent meeting of the CPC, the issue of the state shut down was discussed. During this discussion the issue of who made decisions and how many people were laid off was discussed and who made these decisions. I would like to bring clarity to this issue.

Early in the process when it was becoming clearer that the shutdown was going to happen there was discussion between the governors office and the coalition group ( a group made up of a wide variety of unions including AFSCME, MAPE ,Teamsters, and others who discussed on how broad the shutdown should be. All parties agreed that for the shutdown to be most effective,  that the public had to feel the pain and realize what state workers do for this State. The best way for this to happen would be a real shutdown involving many state workers, in lieu of a partial shutdown. There was no one party who came to this conclusion. The shutdown was necessary to place focus on the top 2% of Minnesotans to pay their fair share in taxes. This was explained at a statewide meeting of all local presidents.

Governor Dayton supported this shutdown because he could not agree to the massive cuts to state workers and state programs, and although we did not have success with taxing the top 2% he did succeed in saving 5 thousand state jobs which were going to be lost under the Republican backed plan, and many provisions which would have ended our collective bargaining rights as we know them were removed from bills.

There was much disappointment when the Governor made his decision to compromise and end the shutdown. Elliot Seide was asked to speak to our group so we could better understand the Governors decision. Elliot stated that the Governor did not take this decision lightly and was burdened by the effects the shutdown was having on state workers and  the entire state on Minnesota. Elliot stated that Governor Dayton did not believe that continuing the shutdown would result in Republicans agreeing to raise taxes on the wealthiest Minnesotans. Elliot and other did attempt to convince the Governor, without success to continue the shutdown as he felt we were gaining momentum and gaining Public support
.
AFSCME council 5, intends to stick with Governor Dayton’s tax the rich plan and is convinced we can take control of the House, and Senate with labor friendly legislators in the 2012 elections. This is the only way we can assure our jobs, and collective bargaining right will be protected.

In solidarity:
Mike Keapproth President Local 915, and the Correctional Policy Committee