SPicy has heard some of the buzz around City Hall today and its not an airplane, its that Lee Helgen is apparently considering turning toward the headwinds and changing his position on the Holman Field floodwall being built to protect Saint Paul's' downtown airport.

Tomorrow the Saint Paul City Council will consider the appeal of the Planning Commission's approval of modifications to the project.  The council had voted 4-3 in support of the project with Lee Helgen casting an important  4^th and deciding vote.

What would lead someone who talks about his "strong leadership" on a campaign website to make such a radical change?

SPicy wonders how this plan takes off with the Saint Paul Building and Construction Trades Council as they are shoring up their votes.  How about the Saint Paul Trades and Labor Assembly learning that Helgen may now want to drop the landing gear and oppose a project that would create and protect jobs?

What has changed?

Could it be the fact the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce PAC pulled back on Lee and endorsed his opponent, David Haas - after Lee aggressively worked to use his vote of support to try to persuade them that he had ascended to the level of being a friend of business and should land their endorsement? Note: Its a pattern of support that earns you an endorsement, its never just one vote, specially a no brainer like Holman Field. What type of "leader" would behave so childishly as to play games like this?

Might it have been the Haas campaign blocking a DFL endorsement in the race? Maybe Lee is trying to prove to the liberal base just how much of a lefty he can be.

Or maybe the heat from Haas' aggressive campaign against a vulnerable incumbent council member who won his first set of wings four years ago with less than 40% of the total vote?

Or perhaps it was the magical presence and wisdom of Al Gore, who keynoted the 2007 Sustainable Operations Summit that Lee attended?

Whatever the case, SPicy will be in a holding pattern waiting to get the visual on which tower Lee will receive his orders from, how the Mayor battles it out with his own flight crew, and if we will finally be able to park this pointless bickering in the hangar.