Chronicles of Drazistan: enough with the green roofs, send more flood water

The sharp-eared Phoenix Woman called my attention to a report on Minnesota Public Radio in which Mayor Rybak responds to a Steve Drazkowski rant on the House floor about the Minneapolis city budget.

First, I'm not surprised that it took Steve Drazkowski so long to discover that running a large city often involves large dollar amounts. After all, the Draz has devoted more time to trying to get public assistance recipients pay for drug tests, to make English the official state language, and to eliminate pay equity for  women working for local government.

Also, rooting out those walnut trees, which, if left on their own in state parks, might fall down and rot after several hundred years.

Draz seemed especially offended by the notion of a green roof in the rant. Fortunately the mayor got a chance to respond in Rybak fires back at GOP lawmaker over 'wasteful spending' charge:

Let's look at those green roofs. We're in a period of flooding in this state. One million gallons of water is captured on that green roof at Target Center that's not going to create flooding in this state. The city of Minneapolis was under a state mandate to lessen dramatically the amount of water we put in the Mississippi, and we've delivered, and by doing that we've lessened flooding in this state.

So when people take things out of context and don't understand what they're for, they don't make a whole lot of sense. I could go line by line through any of the state budgets and come up with some outrageous things.

But the fact of the matter is the largest city in this state has focused primarily its spending on public safety. We've lowered crime to dramatic lows. We've created jobs, and we're moving this economy forward, and we have restored fiscal stability to the city where our bond rating had been lost a decade ago. Now I'm proud of that work.

Perhaps Draz feels his district--downstream from Minneapolis on the Mississippi River--isn't getting its fair share of storm sewer water from the Mill City. It must be frustrating to know that the efficacy of green roofs for stormwater management is a given.

Those walnut trees growing in the deep ravines of Whitewater State Park and on the bluffland in Frontenac State Park are probably helping to withhold water from the floods as well. Frivolous, wasteful things.

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Comments

[Phoenix Woman]

Thanks, Sally. Listening to Draz yesterday was like listening to a toddler trying out a new word for the very first time, and that word was 'green': "Oooh, new word to use! I'll throw it into every sentence!" Rybak in contrast sounded like an actual adult.