Eden Prairie’s a pretty nice place to live.  Good parks, good schools, and a decent football team to boot.

And Money Magazine gave us Prairie Dwellers a Top Ten ranking, for a whole bunch of reasons, including the above, and including sound fiscal planning in city government.
All this changed, last fall, in the 2006 elections.  Well, except for the football team.  They won state.  Again.  A republican endorsed mayor and republican endorsed council member won election, joining an incumbent republican endorsed council member, giving the republicans a  3 republican  to  2 nonpartisan  majority.

Not that the republican endorsed candidates ran on a “change” platform” – what’s to change? 
AFTER the election, we citizens come to find out, “philosophy” is to change.  The new republicans immediately started looking at the  “core function”  of government,  What might “core function”   entail, you might ask?
According to republican council member Brad Aho, and I quote:

“local governments should supply only those services that the private sector or other governmental agencies cannot and do not provide effectively.”

Tonight, the Eden Prairie Council is set to enact it’s budget, and what the republicans don’t consider “core value” are two employees:  one being the only Somali speaking city employee in a city that used to reach out to immigrants and now is home to a large Somali immigrant population, the other a Historic Preservation Specialist.

This clearly is in compliance with republican philosophy; these days – to republican thinking – employees are  “liabilities”, NOT  “assets” .

So, how true to their beliefs are these Eden Prairie republicans?  As you might guess, consistently inconsistent.  As republican Brad Aho clearly articulated, republicans believe city government should not be in businesses private business could and would be in.
Consider that Eden Prairie has three municipal liquor stores that generate about a million dollars in profits, profits that in large part fund the city’s parks..

One might think some entrepreneur might be willing to pay a going fee for a liquor license and relieve the city of the burden of running it’s liquor business, yes?

YOU BETCHA.  But then, how do you fund the parks, without raising taxes?
And repeatedly, the republicans have denied any intention to dump the liquor business, even while scheming to dump support for battered women, hungry people, teens at risk, seniors, and yes, city employees. 

The whole time, dedicated citizens have fought republican attempts to sell the debt-free Senior Center and city financial support for citizens, especially those most at risk.   Dedicated citizens have won some battles; some are yet to be decided.

Tonight dedicated citizens will watch the republican dominated city council make the final budgetary vote, with two people’s jobs hanging in the balance.

And for now, the republicans will hang on to the liquor stores; after all, if they sold them, they’d have to raise taxes to cover the loss of income from these stores. 

But, what will the republican dominated city council tell the two employees, if they vote to fire them this close to Christmas?
Well, the liquor stores made a million, so “let them eat park” is my guess…

(For a blog thread in the local paper,  ”The Eden Prairie News”, featuring  some bumpersticker rhetoric from republican Brad Aho, a post by The Mayor Who Would Be Judge”  -  Phil Young, and a couple of really  “nice”   rants by the republican party webmaster, link here –…
http://www.edenprairienews.com/node/3750

Oh, yeah – the ol’ TwoPutter has a comment or two there, too…
Oh, yeah, yeah – republican Peter Bozanich, the GOP SD42 webmaster, is the first republican official I’ve heard that has enough intellectual honesty to admit the republicans really do want to sell the municipal liquor stores..