While googling for material on something entirely different, I found my attention drawn to two headlines about the resignation of Goodhue, Minnesota's police force.
On August 16, Don Haney reported for Fargo's The Mighty KFGO in Lawmaker says Goodhue Police Dept. story blown out of proportion:
GOODHUE, Minn. – State Representative Pam Altendorf says the media is completely blowing out of proportion the story about Goodhue’s entire police force resigning — because she says law enforcement coverage will likely come from the Goodhue County Sheriff’s Office.
Altendorf, a Republican from nearby Red Wing, says the real story is a shortage of officers “mainly due to the failed policies of the Walz administration.”
A House DFL spokesman responds that Altendorf voted against a tax bill that included public safety dollars for cities and counties. Republicans say the bill also had wide-ranging tax increases.
Rep. Pam Altendorf, R-Minn., told Fox News Digital that the small town of Goodhue, Minnesota, should serve as a warning for the rest of the country after the community lost its entire police force.
"This is a reflection of a bigger problem that's happening all over Minnesota, and that is that we have a police shortage," Altendorf said. "It has really been fueled by the defund the police movement that started in 2020."
"What just happened in Goodhue, Minnesota," she said, "should be a warning for many areas across Minnesota and actually across the United States." . . .
The focus on the different headline shift from her calling media reports overblown to the part where she's blowing hard herself--regardless of her own vote against increasing funding for law enforcement. Perhaps the size of the platform? What voter can resist the insight of Fox Digital News?
About the sheriff's office stepping up?
On August 15 (with an August 16 update), CBS News reported in After Goodhue's entire police department resigns, sheriff's office is stepping in to help:
UPDATE (Aug. 16, 2023): A tentative agreement was made Wednesday to provide more law enforcement services for Goodhue. What follows is a revised version of the original story.
GOODHUE, Minn. – The small southeastern Minnesota town of Goodhue is figuring out how to move forward after its entire police department resigned.At a special meeting Monday night, the Goodhue City Council accepted the resignations of Chief Josh Smith, Officer Anthony Brecht and multiple part-time officers. . . .
The council had originally planned to discuss police pay increases at Monday's meeting, but the en masse resignation made the agenda item moot.
The mayor said the return of a restructured Goodhue Police Department is possible.
On Wednesday, Goodhue County Sheriff Marty Kelly announced that his department and the City of Goodhue reached a tentative agreement to provide policing services through the rest of the year. . . .
In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, State Rep. Pam Altendorf, R-Red Wing, said the situation in Goodhue is "being blown completely out of proportion." She blames the state's police shortage – specifically how small towns can't afford to pay larger law enforcement salaries – for the mass resignation, as well as "the failed policies of the Walz administration and the degrading of our police officers."
"This is what happens when government creates an environment where criminals do not receive just sentences and law enforcement is demeaned and demoralized," Altendorf said. . ..
There's a political back story about Minnesota sheriff's departments stepping in.
Bluestem would be remiss not to add the observations of scamps on X with long memories reacting to the GOP "defund the police" meme, posting materials about a Pawlenty-era cut to Local Government Aid, before the Haney and other articles went up.
Witness:
The post was in response to another X post that shared this September 11, 2020 commentary by Matt Beckman in MinnPost:In 2012 the statewide MN police group went after GOP legislators hard for cuts to LGA and, as in this example, cuts to Gov. Dayton's BCA office. pic.twitter.com/UngGVpjRdb
— Vic Thorstenson | @vthorstenson.bsky.social (@VThorstenson) August 15, 2023
Minnesota’s GOP politicians: The original defunders of police departments
By Matt Beckman, MinnPostOver the past few months, since George Floyd’s homicide, there has been debate around defunding the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD). While I now reside in Minneapolis, my roots are in small town, rural Minnesota, where I was born and raised. Over the past few months, I have noticed many folks from Greater Minnesota decrying the notion of defunding the police on social media. They are suggesting that folks from the Twin Cities who support this idea are anti-American or hate the police. I find these claims to be specious and not based in fact. A recent poll of Minneapolis voters conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling indicates there is broad support in Minneapolis for police reform, including some level of reallocation of funding of the MPD; yet there is not majority support for abolishing the police.
Given the controversy that calls to defund the MPD has elicited, we owe it to ourselves as Minnesotans to look more broadly at state funding of police departments in metropolitan areas and Greater Minnesota over the past 20 years.
In the early 2000s, during the governorship of Tim Pawlenty, local government aid (LGA) was drastically reduced (state aid was reduced by 47% from 2002 to 2008). This led to lower levels of funding for community resources in large cities and small towns in Greater Minnesota. While many towns spent more to staff their fire, rescue and police forces, less money was allocated to many municipalities by the state. Mayors and city officials in small towns and major cities were blamed for their overspending by GOP leaders. Towns were further hampered in their revenue raising efforts by Gov Pawlenty-led “levy limits” which prevented tax increases sufficient to offset cuts in LGA, though there were “exceptions” for police and fire. Nevertheless, the impact of deep LGA cuts ran deep into city budgets and ultimately affected essential services.
Small towns faced insurmountable budgetary challenges because of this reduced LGA, increasing labor costs, limits to increased taxation and a steadily decreasing populations resulting in a lower tax base. The residents were pitched a new “cost saving” plan that would hire their county sheriff or a neighboring town’s police department to provide policing in their jurisdiction. Supported by a steady reduction in violent crime in Greater Minnesota, this was a pitch that city councils and mayors were able to sell to their townspeople even if it meant they wouldn’t have a dedicated police department in their town.
Today, at least 17 small towns (probably more) in Greater Minnesota do not have their own police department. Who really initiated this decrease in LGA that contributed to the defunding of Police Departments in many towns in Greater Minnesota? The Republican senators, representatives and governor led the cuts to LGA under the guise of small government. Unfortunately, the GOP-led cuts in LGA have had a lasting and negative impact, but perhaps the recent DFL-led efforts to restore LGA [editor's note 2019) will provide a needed boost for police departments and fire and rescue services in Greater Minnesota.
So the next time you hear someone vilifying the “evil, liberal Twin Cities residents” for their supposed anti-American police defunding (when we are really just calling for long overdue and necessary police reforms) let them know that the Minnesota GOP initiated and carried out a systematic defunding of police departments in Greater Minnesota in the early 2000s.
I will be frank, I am sick of hearing Minnesota GOP politicians vilify us in Minneapolis for wanting police reform while they say they “Back the Blue” and claim to stand for “law and order.” Their past actions to defund the police through a systematic reduction in LGA and the lasting impact of these actions tell a different story. We know Minnesota GOP politicians are the original defunders of the police.
Altendorf's new around the state capital. Perhaps she'll learn more about legislative history and consistency.
I used to live in Maynard, one of those small Minnesota towns with no police force. There were times we could have used one.
It's not a problem isolated to Minnesota. Here in the small town of Summit, South Dakota, the town board is in talks with a nearby town to secure the services of Roberts County Sheriff's deputies to patrol our streets; neither town has a police department. So far, town board minutes reveal that the high cost of the proposal is a barrier. It's not free in either state.
Photo: Pam Alterndorf, via Mn District 20a | Altendorf For House | Red Wing.
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