Pages

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

With an election coming, Paul Levy writes of Anoka County's Board.

This full item; this limited excerpt [read the entire report at Strib]:

Commissioner Dan Erhart, a former County Board chairman, says there been "no transparency" and "no conversation" under Sivarajah's reign. Hennepin County Commissioner Mark Stenglein, who criticized Sivarajah for removing Erhart from Anoka County's rail authority management committee, said, "Her leadership is going to send Anoka County backward in time." And in an e-mail to all seven commissioners, former Veterans Services director Allison Lister described the county's leadership as "appalling." Lister is considering running for a seat on the County Board.

Sivarajah, a darling of the local conservative blogs, has admirers throughout the county and state. Commissioner Robyn West, a fellow conservative and friend, applauds Sivarajah's survival skills and unabashedly marvels at her courage, perseverance, patience and wisdom.

[...] As [County Board] chairwoman, Sivarajah has the power to determine who runs the county's various committees. She had never been a fan of the Northstar commuter-rail line during the line's planning stages. But federal funds paid for half of the $317 million line's cost, with the stipulation that the line would run for decades. Now, Sivarajah says, "my job is to ensure that we build ridership in order to bring down subsidy."

She replaced Erhart as chairman of the Anoka County Regional Rail Authority with Look. More than a year later, the move still raises eyebrows from skeptical commissioners in Hennepin, Sherburne and Stearns counties.

"I do think some of the institutional knowledge that someone like Dan Erhart has is missed for those of us who are left with Northstar," said Sherburne County Commissioner Felix Schmiesing.

With six County Board seats up for grabs this fall, Sivarajah's future as the county's leader is hardly a foregone conclusion.

She's among those who will be running. [...]

[italics added] With County leadership "appalling" in the view of the former Veterans Services Director, Ms. Lister; she should run.

It would be especially good were she to run against one who has chosen to become and be a career politician. Lister would bring a diverse background and skill set to the table. Re: career politicians, the article mentions Erhart and Sivarajah in juxtaposition; and Look and Westerberg. Westerberg has a business life outside of holding office, selling insurance is my understanding. Look runs a home-based business printing campaign signs for new Republican office seekers and incumbents seeking reelection, with himself and spouse in that candidate-signage mix.

The last serving military retiree on the board was Dennis Berg, and he was well respected for bringing a diverse non-careerist political viewpoint to deliberations.

Blind ambition is no substitute for institutional knowledge, nor for diversity of background. We should hope Lister decides to seek a board seat, to be an independent leavening voice in what has too frequently been a factional, frictional operation, yinning and yanging with any change in the majority-minority balance, (a situation Levy's report does not ignore).

Finally, the last thing the County Board needs is an over-concentration of career politicians. New blood without any doctrinaire biases (i.e. independent of and not attuned to major party alliances) might be just the thing to help reduce rather than entrench factionalism on the board; a step that would benefit everyone.

Readers may recall a Look effort last election cycle to, aside from gender, characterize Natalie Steffen as too "old boy" for the job. While "old boy" situations can often be problematic, lockstep marching with Grover Norquist brings its own worse set of difficulties. Unreasonableness being one, and too ready a willingness to throw away the baby with the bathwater being another.