GreenMark, which supposedly ensures that new stadiums (and perhaps some older
ones) are "green". It is apparently a successful business, income-wise at
least. The basic question is what he would do with his business should he be
elected?
Mayor RT Rybak has been more than just a booster of the Pohlad stadium and more
recently, the Wilf stadium. He announced early on in the Vikings fiasco that
the people would not be getting their referendum and explained at a public
event that the issue was "too complicated" for the public to vote on. How could
Mark Andrew run his business and also be the promoter of green businesses
without a conflict of interest? How could he fail to promote his version of
"green" when that is a large part of his campaign platform? Remember that he
was a booster of the Twins stadium, and also of the garbage burner, which isn't
green in any way.
I guess the audacity to run, having promoted and profited from two very large
non-green projects, says that he should be all powerful in the office of mayor.
Does anyone know if this question of "conflict of interest" has been raised by
anyone during his campaign? If not, another question should come up, that being
how one can run a large business and perform the duties of mayor at the same
time? And if it can be done, what does this say about the office of Mayor of
Minneapolis?
I bring this issue up fully realizing that "conflict of interest" is an archaic
term which doesn't have much application in today's corporate-run government.
It seems all the things I was taught in school about America that made it a
great country of integrity and fairness have been slowly eroded and are now
just being summarily thrown under the bus. This is happening at a time when we
desperately need not good, but great leadership which respects and applies the
law equally. The planet needs stewardship and we need leaders who sincerely
want to turn around the damage that has been done to our environment by greed
and cronyism.
Janet Nye
Phillips