state + local

Sounds like front page web news to me.

We don't need the Mayor to tell us the state of the city, anyone can see it. Property values falling, taxes rising, business closing and leaving downtown. All that's here are million dollar condos sitting vacant. No shopping, no grocery store, everything is gone. Good job Mayor!

Rybak and St. Paul's Coleman have been screwed by Pawlenty's inept handling of our economy and budget. The forthcoming report is going to be grim, mostly because of the Governor's mismanagment.

Here should be the State of the City address: "Good people of Minneapolis, I am here to ask that you help me bring back in to focus the things that made this city an once enviable one. We will struggle but need to come to grips with the fact that far too many contribute little to the public's welfare while far too many are accustomed to receiving from it. There are many reasons this exists but I will make it my priority to try and reign in some sensibilities about what things a local government could and should be asked to do and fight to end the things we shouldn't. There will be a transition period here and we must realize that there will be short term costs but our city cannot continue to sustain itself on the backs of a diminishing number of people. I will be fighting some powerful forces who are at the beholding of the public trough and will ask that you help me ward off these pressures. I would ask that you ask more of your fellow citizen and less of some of agencies we helped create that have not or cannot deliver what is asked of them. Basically we need to revisit the idea of what we want to be because the Minneapolis of today is not it".

no one has mentioned no-interest business loans, $10K no-interest home downpayments that are forgivable (no payments) over 5 years... and more. Yeah, it's the govs fault!!!

Funny how in every City communique, staff report, and website blurb I had yet to even come across many of his speech's finer points. If his vision was to invest in the poor, I'm glad he never told us or the denizens would have accosted him out of office. I'm not quite sure where all the innovation has gone. Certainly our Great Streets program is one of these innovations but it's a bit early to tout a program that started a few months ago isn't it -- and yet I see no vision of where Hennepin Ave or Franklin Ave is going. Surprisingly my dear municipality, your neighborhoods want you to tell us what you want and you are thinking so that we can go, "Yeah, that's a great idea, a common ground for all." Instead of steamrolling us into piecemeal innovations. But of course that means your ideas have to be refined to begin with. I guess we can't all have our cake and eat it too (Eden Prairie?)

Curious, no mention of the foreclosure crisis in Minneapolis?

Minneapolis has not had any real political ideas competition for decades. Until competition returns those of us who live in the city will continue to be subject to the same old, stale, costly and non-inovative dictates of the looney left wingers who try (and fail) to govern effectively.

Revrurik...you need a new song. It's the governor's fault...if it was a republican mayor and a democratic governor, you'd be singing the same song in reverse. Stop blaming everything on a governor who, again, had a $2.2 billion state surplus and now the demos seem to have managed to sqwander it away. No, Rybak has created his own cesspool...now anyone living in Minneapolis gets to swim in it.

These politicians of both political stripes keep confusing the P word;it`s Productivity not patronage!!