Take better care of public assets

In the Duluth News Tribune and the MPR website a public official termed the area where cruise ships can newly dock next to the DECC as previously having been in “remarkably decrepit condition.”  At the dedication ceremony several other public officials had their glowing remarks quoted as to the benefits from the improvements that were made to that site.  No one was quoted as pledging how this upgraded facility will get much better care to stave off its own decrepitude.  

Officials want to be seen cutting ribbons for shiny new things; they haven’t wanted to assure a higher priority for responsible budgeting and scheduling to take good care of important things.  To be fair, maybe they did say something about upkeep, but it didn’t get reported in the media because it would be boring.  But lengthy widespread municipal neglect causes me to doubt that. Consider the deteriorated states of the community’s streets, downtown library building (allegedly), parks, golf courses and waterworks.  

We can all recognize that nothing can be expected to last indefinitely, planning successful maintenance is tricky as timelines stretch out, and sometimes the world changes enough that early replacement with something else makes better sense. Nonetheless, why have the problems arisen? Approving design choices with minimal consideration for durability? A poor plan, or none at all, for long-term asset preservation? Failure to follow through on a good plan? Pretending that the unexpected will never happen? Lowball budgeting for the plan?  Raiding an adequate good-repair budget to spend on gaudy new objects or other “emergencies”? Citizens should demand that community leaders stop getting us so far over our skis.
David Schimpf
Duluth, Minnesota

Violence is just what the regime wants

Rioting is understandable, but likely to backfire. Even though the “social contract” has been broken, people are expected to respond to acts of sadistic brutality committed by authorities with civil, peaceful protests. That’s an extremely difficult expectation to meet, but the alternative – violence – only plays into the hands of the regime, which not only possesses overwhelming force, but is hoping for an excuse to use it as one more nail in democracy’s coffin. Stokley Carmichael once said, “In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience.” That’s a difficult statement for us peaceniks to consider, as we are surely dealing with a regime full of people lacking consciences. But it doesn’t mean that violence will accomplish anything positive. We protest not just to send a message to those in power, but to also win the hearts and minds of Americans in general, and rioting will only scare the shit out of them, as happened with the tiny percentage of Black Lives Matter protests that turned violent in 2020. We must adopt many tactics to disrupt and destroy the autocratic attempt in progress, but violence will surely be counterproductive.
David A Sorensen
Duluth, Minnesota