[Mpls] Mission to destroy our biosphere

[MnGus]

Jordon Kushner states that the city council is anti-environmental. Jordon
perhaps you can answer the question that I asked of Robert Yorga, who went
beyond anti-environmental to stating that the government has a "mission to
destroy the biosphere". Roberts response to my question asking for specific
policies demonstrating this mission was to say that "It's like breathing,
they do it naturally, the problem is government." That didn't help me very
much.

In another attempt to answer the question I was reminded that the natives
(American Indians) showed the army the spring at Camp Coldwater. I am not
sure what that had to do with the question asked but apparently my asking the
question is not very politically correct and I needed to be reminded that the
natives were not primitive. Maybe they weren't, but I have been back to the
old country to see how my ancestors lived around that time and I would call
their lifestyle primitive. I will concede for the point of discussion however
that the native (American Indian) lifestyle was not primitive.

I am not a policy wonk that can answer every question about what our
government has done, but I have been involved with he CLIC process for a
number of years. Every year we add bike paths; we have added sweepers to
clean the streets to avoid waste runoff into the lakes; we have added grit
chambers to capture as much waste as possible before it enters the lakes; we
have restored some wetlands around the lakes to naturally clean the runoff;
we are working to reline the water lines to reduce water waste; we are
building an ultra filtration facility to insure clean water; we have split
the sewer and storm drain systems to insure that in heavy rains we don't pump
raw waste into the river. These all seem to be favorable to the environment

That is some of what we have done, and when I use we that has to be seen as
our government. Now I have all kinds of frustrations with our city council
and current mayor, and if you get me going I could join you in ranting about
government and all its foibles. I have become more frustrated however with
the growth of attack politics, political correctness and its stifling of
debate. We just ended a campaign of anti-this and anti-that. Lets get past
it.

Your post atttacking Carol's remarks accuses her of not presenting any
significant savings for merging the Park Board and City govenrment. Maybe
they weren't significant but she did offer some data and thoughts. But your
post doens't give any reasons at all why the Park Board should be kept
separate other than attacking city government as being "anti-environemental,
pro-corporate, anti-livibiilty and anti-people". You even describe her
opposing view as a "negative" agenda. I 'm not sure but from where I stand
you are the one pushing a negative agenda. I particularly like the accusation
that the people in our government our anti-people.

The question stands. How is our government trying to destroy the biosphere,
or on a smaller level, what are the city governments anti-environmental
policies? The way this works is if you list some policies, others can comment
on whether they agree with you or not. Government officials can even defend
themselves if they wish. Then we can maybe even reach some consensus on what
we should be working to stop, or working to promote.

Bob Gustafson
13th