How important is local politics?
Most blogs seem to cover national and maybe state wide politics, but the insanity that pervades national politics can be found even down to the city level. Case in point....
The City Council of Prior Lake Minnesota has been, for the last year or so, embroiled in controversy after controversy. It was so bad, that in the last city wide election, all incumbants running for re-election were defeated at the polls. The newest controversy centers around a decision to back the local indian tribe putting several hundred acres of land into "trust" meaning the land is taken off of the public tax rolls. This led to some rather heated discussions in the letters to the editor section of the local paper (which is where yours truly heard about the brouhaha). The letters lead one city council member to write in to try to defend their vote. Now the letter was your standard "we felt our actions were in the best interests of the city", but what struck me as out of line was when the council member said that the disagreement was serving as a "thin veil of the real underlying problem of racism and socio-economic bias"! WHOA!!!! Well, that has set the local population abuzz anew and I have to agree. Since when does a disagreement over property taxes become a "racial" issue?
This is still playing out and probably will continue to do so until the new city council is seated next month. Meanwhile, you have to ask yourself, how are we ever going to become a "colorblind" society if politicians on all levels continue to play the "race card"every time there is a policy disagreement!
posted by The Lady Logician at 9:30 PM permalink
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