Appoint a Retrenchment Committee for Albert Lea

Open letter to Mayor-Elect Murtaugh:

Thank-you all for subscribing to my blog! I appreciate the opportunity to express my thoughts and comments in a format that is casual, yet publicly accountable. I believe it is important to be respectful, yet not be afraid to question generally accepted standards.

With that said, I have watched with interest the recent news coming from the State level. I respect the fact that the League of Minnesota Cities stepped up and issued their list of potential cuts to cities that MAY come forward. The numbers for Albert Lea are substantial!

http://www.lmnc.org/media/document/1/25_100million_cut_estimates.pdf

I happen to serve on the board of a state-wide legal aid organization that relies heavily upon funding from the State of Minnesota -- Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services. Without going into the great work that this organization does for those in need, I am most proud of this organization's ability to proactively respond to crisis. They strongly articulate their programs, but do not jump on the "poor us" bandwagon. At our most recent meeting, they appointed a "Retrenchment Committee." The goal of this committee is to carefully review our budget and recommend a series of scenarios of how we would respond to various levels of budget cuts. No-one wants to cut, but being prepared with responsible options seems beyond logical.

I suggest that you follow this lead and immediately appoint a citizen committee to carefully scrutinize the City budget and present a series of options for cuts. Use the Leagues' projected cut as the first tier, and a tier 5% greater than and a tier 5% less than that number. Most importantly, allow this committee to operate outside the sphere of influence of the staff and current council. This will not be a popular job and it is unfair to expect those with a vested interest in this year's budget to re-trench. The staff should be an available resource to this committee, as invited.

Set the expectations high and expect this committee to do a lot of heavy lifting to actually understand the complexities of the budget. Good luck!

The Beginning of the End of the Department of Agriculture!

I'm afraid that we are seeing the beginning of the end of the United States Department of Agriculture. The USDA facilitates one of the largest sources of federal funding to Rural America. Under the new Obama administration, the trend of moving this funding source away from Rural America and to the population centers will undoubtedly be accelerated.

This week, an editorial from New York Times' columnist Nicholas Kristof entitled "How about naming a Secretary of Food," articulated this trend very clearly. Kristof states, "Renaming the department would signal that Mr. Obama seeks to move away from a bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes Americans unhealthy – all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-kristof_13edi.State.Edition1.2a4e285.html

Kristof's editorial summarizes a long-time popular attack on traditional agriculture -- divert money away from USDA farm programs to food programs concentrated where the people are -- population centers. As argued by Kristof, only 2% of us are farmers, but 100% of us eat.


Kristof is no crackpot either -- he is the recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes and former managing editor of the New York Times. His opinions would certainly be considered mainstream in today's media world.

My concern is that while this frontal assault is being waged, Rural America continues to perpetuate the problem. Traditional agriculture continues to cling to the last remnants of their turf and resist reforms that would be more marketable to mainstream America. At the same time, each sector of agriculture attacks the other as they continue to fight over an ever shrinking piece of the pie.

The rural town kids, not recognizing that one of the largest returns on their tax investment is being systematically torn down, continue to tell farmer jokes and beat their chests reciting the motto, "get rid of subsidy payments for factory farms". As the saying goes, be careful what you ask for, you may get it. The new "Department of Food" will eliminate payments to farmers... and to Rural America.