Rochester City Council meetings are real-life performances that happen every two weeks at 7 p.m. at the Government Center. Cable Channel 19 shows re-runs of the meetings several times each week. Sometimes I go to the meetings, and even speak during public comment sessions, but for a thorough understanding of the actions and actors, I need to watch without distraction.
I watched the last meeting — all six hours of it — twice.
I am a retired Minnesota secondary teacher. I cannot give the council a passing grade.
They are using persuasion techniques to effect destructive changes in Rochester, and they used DMC-based reasons for the wanton spending of public tax dollars. Showy, multi-million-dollar development projects are encouraged and supported, while on the back pages of the Post-Bulletin, column after column of foreclosures appear. The have-nots have become economic units, called "useless eaters" if they do not work and pay taxes.
Taxes, whether at the federal, state or local level, are being invested in material things, not people.
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So, as Shakespeare reminds us, we need to watch our fellow actors, but also our own performances in the master production called life.
Barbara Upton
Fountain
