SPicy obtained a forwarded email from Saint Paul’s Chief Lobbyist Wendy Underwood.  In it she alludes to a strategy how the City of Saint Paul will paint notions that the failure to obtain $70 Million in capital bonding were “political, they were not about the merits of the project.” See the email below:

  Wendy Underwood 4/7/2008 5:51 PM

As you may have heard by now, Governor Tim Pawlenty officially line-item vetoed over $200 million in (SPicy asks: in what Wendy?) this year.  All Saint Paul projects were vetoed.  Central Corridor and all other east metro transit projects, including Union Depot, were vetoed.  Most other projects vetoed were from the metro area.

Attached is a spreadsheet of the vetoed projects.

I can't speak to next steps yet.  Line-item vetoes may be overridden one at a time; this may be a tactic with Central Corridor, but it will be challenging to get 90 votes on the House Floor.  The bill sits at $716m, leaving just over $100m to fit under the State's 3% bonding cap; this would allow the House and Senate to put together a second bonding bill.  Again, it would be very difficult to pass a second bill off the House floor.

You will hear in coming days that these vetoes were political, they were not about the merits of the projects.  It is important to me that the bonding project teams know this and that all of your very hard work resulted in being in the final bill.  We did everything we could, and we did it really well.  Thank you.

I'm still pretty shocked by all this (but smoothly entering the stage of anger).  Please call with questions.

All the best,

Wendy

Back to SPicy:

It is clear the Mayors Office was immediately prepared to introduce the excuse that the motivation behind Governor Pawlenty’s veto was based on politics. Mayor Coleman, so quick to jump to conclusions should be asking himself is; are all of Saint Paul’s budgetary issues are so entrenched in loss of increased payments in Local Government Aid. Some soul searching will point closer to the fact the City of Saint Paul has lost its way and is focused on obtuse priorities.

SPicy believes that if the City and the Saint Paul Delegation, instead of blasting the Governor, immediately responded to the veto calling on the merits of the Central Corridor Light Rail Line, that the political rhetoric floating around today would be more civil and may lead to a higher level of discourse.

SPicy has read from afar in the past months about tasers and ensuring visible locations for protesters.  Suggestions from City Council Member Dave Thune that bar patrons in town during the convention will be puking Republican lobbyists, and in other emails also from Mr. Thune that those same people are traitorous and anti-American.

SPicy would much rather see a better exchange of ideas from the Governor and our delegation, Mayor and Council. SPicy will ask that all Saint Paul residents and light rail advocates recall what it means to make difficult choices and react in a manner that does not apply unmitigated blame on those who you rely upon.

When the Mayor’s staff moves beyond anger and denial, acceptance of the power structure in today’s political climate might make you realize that you have to work with the powers that be.  The Mayor and Council should be reminded that their rhetoric when attacking the Governor is sound and smart. Yet when he returns the “favor” the DFL reaction is that he is just being mean.

Mayor Coleman has been taking his share of rhetorical shots at the Governor.  If the Mayor intends on using his Mayoral pulpit to run for Governor, do so now. Your incessant blame game is getting very old.