Category: Letter

“Is 911 a Joke?” [August] was not fair to Fire Chief Rocco Forte. He has been given a raw deal by both the governor and the city fathers and mothers. They cut his budget and told him to deal with it. He has done his best to keep suppression forces adequately staffed. There is much more to running a fire department than many realize, particularly with prevention, education, investigation, and code enforcement along with firefighting and EMS duties. He has made several solid appointments and raised the level of cooperation with the police department. During the last several years, the arson squad, comprised of four Minneapolis firefighters and two Minneapolis police sergeants, has made a significant number of arrests. We ended the run of the Hodgeman brothers’ serial arson spree and resolved the twenty-four-year-old murder of two Minneapolis firefighters. This is an area of the fire department where Forte deserves credit.
Sgt. Sean McKenna
Arson Squad
Minneapolis Police Department

There are just so many ways to dislike Waltz’s essay. Start with the facile, faux Hunter S. Thompson prose style; the lack of insights (spoken word has been around for, oh, ten years or so. Thanks for noticing, William!); the defense of Billy Collins (in the sixties the popular poet was Rod McKuen. Anyone happy about that?); or the commercial plugs for his buddy Gabriel Gudding (go talk to your own buttocks, fellas). What’s most appalling to me is that like most “cultural commentators” discussing poetry, Waltz assumes it’s an academic game. The writers I’ve come into contact with in the nearly thirty years I’ve been writing write poetry for love, not grades. And among those people, poetry has never been in danger of dying as an art.

R.T. Castleberry
Houston, TX

Oddly, a large number of letter writers who disliked Waltz’s essay accused him of shilling for “his buddy” Gabriel Gudding. The two are not aquainted socially or professionally, just one poet admiring another—a shocking enough state of affairs, we guess.—Editors

Thank you for doing what the rest of the press and media had been afraid to do for the last year. Up until now, no newspaper or radio program has addressed the real issues, and Chief Forte was well aware that if he did not comment on policy/politics, the local papers would not take him to task. It had been intimated that unless he would give the press his side of the story, they would not address the issues. Your article [“Is 911 a Joke?,” August] was on the money. I have attended meetings in the past, and, as you pointed out, Chief Forte “controls” the numbers quite well and masterfully dazzles the crowds. When questioned by someone who understands or has researched the facts, he has responded by attacking the individual’s motives (in the case of a firefighter at a community meeting) or telling the group that the facts were incorrect (as he did to me even though I had documented proof from the National Organization of Fire Chiefs). I encourage readers to look up an article entitled “Death by Staffing” on www.firehouse.com. It details the risks to citizens and firefighters when staffing falls too low. It also documents the liability to a city budget when deaths are caused by reduced staffing. The City Council should have read this article since it was forwarded to them prior to the budget-cutting vote. Knowing that there is danger and not acting diligently could cost the taxpayers millions more than we have saved by axing the firefighters.

Bob Nielsen
Minneapolis

The article about the Minneapolis Fire Department was very good. I think it missed one key point, though. The cuts to basic services in our cities are a direct result of actions taken by our state legislature and governor. The Republican mindset is very hostile to the core cities, and they have reneged on the Local Government Aid formula put in place to return revenue to the economic engines that produce much of our wealth yet also have great needs. Now we city dwellers can deal with the consequences.

Jeff Farnam
Minneapolis

I found it very interesting that your July article was promoting Pat Awada for sainthood [“Is This Woman Ruining Our State?,” July], not mentioning any lasting effects about what her plan on reducing aid to the cities would do to the Metropolitan area. Your August article on the cuts to the Minneapolis fire department did not mention that they were a legacy of our illustrious auditor and her pet governor. Funny how you didn’t mention who was responsible for the cuts. If I recall, this was Pat Awada’s baby from the word go.

Pat Vauk
Minneapolis

Minneapolis city officials certainly have a duty to provide adequate and effective fire protection service to their city, but it’s unfair to single out that one city and one department for criticism as The Rake does, when the true fault lies with the decisions imposed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Republican legislators. The governor and Republican lawmakers who backed him in his “no tax hike” pledge utterly failed to recognize that this policy would have real-world effects—and the reduction of firefighters, police, and other essential city services is one of the biggest. They talk about “the budget” as if it were some mathematical abstraction, but as mayors, council members, and fire and police chiefs can testify, there are real people, real communities, and real challenges attached to every digit in the document. That’s why House Democrats proposed a budget that avoided these devastating cuts in aid to cities. Every citizen ought to be concerned about the ability of our city governments to protect them. But blame ought to be laid where it truly belongs: with the governor and the Republican legislators who put their own narrow ideological and partisan interest above the public interest.

State Representative Len Biernat, District 59A, Northeast Minneapolis

As I read Craig Cox’s article, I couldn’t help but be impressed with his knowledge of the sometimes tough and always dangerous job firefighters perform twenty-four hours a day and 365 days a year. Still, the article does unfortunately gloss over the ax–wielding occurring across the river in St. Paul. Cox wonders how it is possible that St. Paul, with a population of 100,000 less than Minneapolis, can afford to have a fire department approximately the same size as Minneapolis’s department. Both fire departments respond to fire alarms and are EMS first responders. However, in St. Paul, firefighters also provide the emergency ambulance service for the city, to the tune of more than 25,000 medic runs per year. Although St. Paul is smaller in population than Minneapolis, the SPFD does have more runs, and therefore the need for added personnel. Cox also mentions St. Paul’s plan to hire laid-off firefighters from other departments. St. Paul’s fire administration is doing this out of desperation. Mayor Randy Kelly eliminated fourteen already-vacant firefighter positions. Although nobody was laid off, this move had the same effect. Staffing levels in St. Paul are so poor that on many occasions rigs have had to be placed out of service and entire fire stations have had to be shut down because there were not enough personnel to man them. Randy Kelly won St. Paul’s fire union’s endorsement in 2001 because he promised to make public safety his number-one priority. Since his election, Kelly hasn’t done one single thing to increase the public’s safety. If anything, he has continually sought to compromise safety through misguided policies—for example, his plans to cut three fire rigs and then build two new fire stations. Any firefighter can tell Mayor Kelly that fire stations don’t put out fires, firefighters and fire rigs do. Often I wonder if I will have the resources to put out the fires in the city where I work, and if the Minneapolis Fire Department will be able to protect my family’s home in the city where I live.

Chris Parsons, Minneapolis
St. Paul firefighter,
member, IAFF Local 21

As a poet and host of a poetry reading series, I found William Waltz’s article “Does Poetry Matter?” [August] an outstanding insight into what is right and wrong with poetry today. Waltz does highlight the prominence and reach of Billy Collins who (like Mark Doty, Lucille Clifton, and others) understands both how to write excellent poetry and how to engage an audience that isn’t likely to read that poetry without some assurance it won’t bore, berate, or bite them. On the flip side, Waltz calls attention to those poets who are too impressed with their own ideas, satisfied with their own politics, or comfortable with their own crowd to notice that they are using bad poetry to preach a poor message to a smug choir. Thanks for driving home the point that there’s a difference between writing quality poetry and thinking you’re a poet. Writers who write things no one can read do nothing for anyone—least of all themselves.

David Vincenti
West Caldwell, NJ

The sight of 10 road-weary but cheerful unicyclists whizzing down the road would make people take pause in almost any city. For the onlookers in these small northern Norwegian villages, it’s a bizarre and thrilling event. So why are these determined folks riding over, around, and through Norway’s mountains and fjords, nearly 600 miles to the Arctic Circle? A mere month before the U.S. unicycling championships, which are coincidentally being held back home in the Twin Cities?

I posed this question to Andy Cotter of Hutchinson, Minnesota, the ringleader and organizer of the “Norwegian Unicycle Tour” (NUT) when I caught up with the group in Bodø, a fishing village located at a latitude of 67° 17’ North, well inside the Arctic Circle. “We selected Norway for the incredible scenery, and once we decided that we wanted to see the midnight sun, the Arctic Circle was the obvious choice.” Cotter is an enviably lean and muscular 34-year-old with a youthful presence. He is a database manager at General Mills by day, and a tireless unicyclist in just about every other waking moment. The scars on his knotted legs support Cotter’s claim that he’s been one-wheeling for 18 years. He also has countless national and world titles to his name in individual, pairs, and team competitions.

In Bodø, the riders were in good spirits, despite being sunburned, exhausted, and in a semi-stupor after traveling 63 miles (their longest ride) on an unusually warm, cloudless day. After unpacking and cleaning up, the riders limped en masse to a nearby Italian restaurant, where they tried to replace the approximately 5,000 calories they burn daily.

The unicycles used for distance riding are not the same ones you see in parades and competitions. The wheels and cranks are much larger and thus faster. Beyond those details, the touring unis are custom-designed by each rider with such options as speedometer computers, “drag brakes,” small handlebars, bike bells, and even small rear racks for carrying tools and food.

One of the newbies is 18-year-old Irene Genelin of New Brighton. When I asked what inspired her to join the tour, Genelin’s first answer was, “Because the Norwegian men are sexy!” When her interviewer noted that he is, in fact, Norwegian by heritage, she switched the subject. “I liked the sound of unicycling through the mountains of Norway.”
The group has endured rain, hills, sleep deprivation, panicky sprints to waiting ferries, reindeer-skin beds, and repetitive stress injuries to knees and calves. They’ve traversed mountains, navigated long, sporadically lit tunnels, and shared dreadfully narrow roads with huge cargo trucks, whose high-speed wake vortex can blow the riders off the pavement, into a surprise tour of the ditch.

In addition to the obvious bragging rights of having participated in the NUT, the unicyclists have benefited from the extraordinary curiosity and friendliness of the Norwegians. They have been warmly welcomed into far-flung homes by the side of the road when running low on water and in need of a bathroom. They’ve had townspeople rush to their aid when their support vehicle broke down. And they’ve even had some pro bono welding repairs made to their unicycles at truck stops. All of this may be a way to secretly prepare for the Tour de France of unicycling. The North American Unicycling Championships take place in Minneapolis from July 29 through August 5. On the other hand, it may just be a way to meet good-looking Norwegians.—Leif Pettersen

I went to Benchwarmer Bob’s and picked up my first copy of The Rake, and I found the article about Ray Dandridge [“Stranded on Third,” July]. It was most interesting to me, since he is the only ballplayer I ever asked for an autograph. It’s still a vivid memory, climbing out of the stands at Nicollet ball park and meeting Mr. Dandridge along the right-field line as they were walking off the diamond, the bright lights, the very green grass. As a little kid from Northeast Minneapolis, I wasn’t into racism or politics. All I knew was that I saw a great ballplayer.
Virgil Nelson
Burnsville