It Ain't Easy For Dean to Be Green

In a month or so we'll learn which Skull & Bones candidate gets to put his shoes up on the big oak desk in the Oval Office and Minneapolitans will be able to turn their attention to...the city-wide elections!

It's pretty certain the two incumbent council members, Robert Lilligren and Dean Zimmermann will be battling to represent the 6th Ward. It's gosh darn amazing to this humble blogger that Dean hasn't been chucked out of the Green Party yet. Except for a few symbolic votes on "progressive" stuff like the Iraq War, he tends to vote along with his DFL cohorts on bonding millions of dollars for pricey items like parking garages and granting favors of all kinds to developers like Basim Sabri-- whose $95,000 bribery of Brian Herron is alleged to have been caught on tape by the FBI.

But what I'd really like to hear is an explanation of Zimmermann's opposition to completing the Cedar Lake Trail to Washington Avenue.This article from the Skyway News quotes Zimmermann and a few others making the bogus claim that it's unsafe to bike on Washington Avenue (There's a bike store a block down Washington Avenue from the proposed trail exit ramp.)

The question everyone should be asking is why are all these objections to the bought-and-paid-for Phase III Plan popping up now?

Do you think it might have something to do with the...um...stadium?

I heard from the city that the stadium (in the proposed Rapid Park site) would be "cantilevered over the trail". Besides having to bike in a dark, scary tunnel, I'm sure this will create additional design and building costs. I suspect that they would prefer not to have to deal with the trail extension at all which is why I think they are bringing up this objection to the ramp at Washington Avenue.

That anyone would throw a monkey wrench into this project to help some property owner sell his parking lot to the stadium developers is in my opinion a scandal. Zimmermann still supports adding ramps to Lake Street so that more cars on 35W can have easier "access" to Lake Street...but he opposes bicyclists having ramp access from the trail to the heart of downtown Mpls. That ramp to Washington Avenue has already cost taxpayers $300,000. I'd like to hear Zimmermann and his supporters explain away THIS one.