Happened to noice the op-ed signed by Peter Mclaughlin, Ted Mondale, and The Mayor in this mornings Strib extolling the virtues of Gordon Sprenger and Allina. Why am I not surprised? Even more interesting was the editorial in Sunday's Strib entitled "Committment" or some such thing, one editorial in a continuing series over the past three weeks regarding mental health issues. You want to talk about public service. I'll take the Strib's editorial stance over Allina's lobbying position at the state cappitol regarding committment any day. if people missed it I would say it's worth digging through the paper pile to juxtapose itagainst today's song of praise to Daddy Moneybags. Since I'm talking about the capitol I'll bring people up to speed on the racial profiling bill in the Senate. It could use grasroots support. Sens. Ranum and Orfied both report they have received no mail on the issue. Sen. Orfield is especially surprised. He felt his constituents would firmly support mandatory data collection which is the major sticking point. There is another hearing tomorrow evening in the Senate Judiciary Committee and this will be key to getting the bill out of committee by the March 30 deadline. Today the Judic. Comm. heard testimony from Sen Roy Terwilliger regarding a bill to place cameras at intersections to get photos of the license plates of people running red lights. On the surface it sounds like a good idea. I've nearly been clipped as a pedestrian numerous times not to mention the times I've been in a car watching people fly by after accelerating from what seems like 1/4 block away. Problem is that there is no protection for due process in the bill. They send a ticket, you mail back a check. What happens if it was your neighbor whom you foolishly lent your car to? Your son or daughter? you get the point. Here's another little known fact. Of the 18 states and the District of Columbia where this isin effect to some degree, these cameras and the systems to ticket are run by private contractors who collect the dough and give the municipality their take. Even if the state operated the cameras this sort of legislation would not be palatable. With a private vendor it is even less so. For the record, Bob Weinholzer, a well known figure in Capitol politics seemed to be the motivating force. That is by no means meant to diminish the pain endured by those who have been victim to crashes as a result of someone running a red light. I remember when I started driving oh so many years ago there were such things we called radar traps where police would often hang ang and catch people breaking the law. One of the unintended consequences of CODEFOR it seems to me has beeen the cost and the necessary reductions in traffic enforcement. I suspect if one studied the issue there would be a coorelation between the two. One last thing while I'm mentioning cameras. I hate to admit this. Most of you probably already know of this but it was just yesterday that I saw all the cameras mounted on light standards in downtown. They were all the way down Hennepin. i was pressed for time so I'm not sure how prevalent they are but they gave me the creeps. They are all nicely labeledMinneapolis Police. Does someone sit in a room downtown monitoring all day long? Spooky even when you're not committing crimes. So if you favor mandatory data collection of information by police when making traffic stops write your senator now and let them know. This is all the more important if mandatory seat belt usage passes as a primary, stoppable offense and is signed by the governor, as looks likely, for what should be obvious reasons. Tim Connolly Ward 7 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/?.refer=text _______________________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
