Parks think green, as in cash

Minneapolis’ Park Board is looking at business partnerships and other ventures to bring in needed bucks.

By ALEX EBERT, Star Tribune
Last update: July 25, 2010 – 9:19 PM

Faced with a shrunken budget, Minneapolis park leaders hope a combination of bikes, burgers and an Italian sculptor named Brioschi will stave off further cuts to the popular and nationally known park system.

Hey, it’s deja vu, all over again!!!

Last year, I wrote a whole bunch of posts about a clean and green project that couldn’t get done in Minneapolis, The Crown Hydro Project. Posts included “Protecting A Parking Lot, or…” and “Crown Hydro Update: The Park Board Already Takes Water From The River” and “Crown Hydro, Minneapolis Parks, and a St. Cloud Times Editorial”.

And many of the points I and others pointed out have come to pass.

Except for the Crown Hydro Project.

Excuse me, but: anyone remember wanting to reduce our dependence on oil? Remember the BP Spill, too?

And now the Park Board is hurting for cash.

Are they hurting enough to do a deal with Target, to solve a cash-crunch problem?

Hey, we know – KNOW – they’re not hurting enough to do a deal for a clean energy project – Crown Hydro – to solve a cash-crunch problem…

(cross posted from MnProgressiveProject.com; comments welcome there)

One reason republiCon Ron still has his job, is he’s good at asking AND he’s good at ducking. It’s the GreedOverPrinciples Party’s Golden Rule: “Do Unto Others But Don’t Let Them Do Unto You.”

I bring this up, because so many of us on the left side o’ the aisle have a tendency to enjoy – if not laugh uproariously – when some brain-dead bootlicker in the “Family Values” party (they’re called the “Family Values” party because they have so many of them; for instance, in the last presidential election the only candidate that had only been married once was the Mormon – go figure) does something incredibly hypocritical – such as David Vitter replacing the disgraced Bob Livingston in Congress, and Vitter later getting caught in figuratively if not literally the exact same (cheney)in’ kind of scandal.

Well, since morckery, ridicule and scorn are heaped upon those on the right for the old-fashioned reason – they’ve EARNED it, it only seems fair to rip those on the left side of the aisle when they’ve done something incredibly hypocritical. It seems that they too should be roasted and toasted with the same types of mockery,ridicule, and scorn. And I was going to do just that, today, to an organization known as Parkwatch – but, I’m tracking down more information on them that’s recently come in — so that’s going to have to wait for another day.

In the meantime, and to whet the whistle o’ the Regular Readers, I’ll end with a couple of thoughts. First, let’s review what it says on the “About Us” page at ParkWatch:

Minneapolis Park Watch is not affiliated with any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Yeah, “right.”

Right there, on ParkWatch homepage, is this:

Posted by Liz Wielinski on Thu, 06/18/2009

Well, I guess technically that might be true, depending on what your definition of “is” is, because they could argue that “ParkWatch isn’t ‘affiliated’ with Park Board Candidate Liz Wielinski; it IS Park Board Candidate Liz Wielinski, along with a bunch of her pals.

And, it also says this on that ParkWatch “About Us” page:

Openness and Accountability

We are advocates for openness and accountability in all of the Park Board’s fiscal and administrative activities.

So, they advocate for openness and accountability of others? Where’s the disclosure and openness from them; the acknowledgement that Liz is a candidate for the very organization their website likes to trash?

This one, on that same page, made me ROFLMAO!

Observing Meetings

As a watch dog organization, members of Park Watch attend Park Board meetings on a regular basis to observe first-hand official Park Board business being conducted. Park Watch also reviews various Park Board documents. (emphasis added)

“…various documents.“??!?

How’ bout dam near EVERY piece of paper that the Park Board generates?

As noted here:

Seems like these days, a lot of people are taking shots at the Park Board. In the course of investigating the Crown Hydro Project, one group that seems to especially get in the Park Board’s face*, is a group called ParkWatch.org, who’s whole schtick seems to be “the Park and Rec Board is filled with incompetents, liars, and thieves and you can’t trust them or believe anything they say – EXCEPT when it comes to Crown Hydro.”

And I couldn’t believe the amount of paperwork ParkWatch.org demands. I asked for information regarding data requests from the Park Board; I simply couldn’t believe what ParkWatch.org wanted. Let’s look!

Well, you can go here and look, but if you don’t want to, I’ll leave it at this: ParkWatch wants copies of so much stuff, that it’s fair to say the Park Board had to add a full-time staffer just to keep up with their demands.

Which is why ParkWatch reminds me of republiCon Ron – it seems the things they accuse others of are the exact same things they do themselves.

Stay tuned!

Oh – and keep those tips coming in!!!

(crossposted from