REPUBLICAN PARTY
Keep the standards, learn from mistakes
Poking fun at Republicans being the party of family values and fiscal responsibility in light of recent scandals is an easy target ("Responsibility: Bill comes due for state GOP," Jon Tevlin column, April 25).
No doubt the DFL strategy this fall will be to paint every Republican with a broad brush and try to shame them. If the state Republican Party and some of its leaders have failed to live up to the principles that are the foundation of Republican beliefs, the worst thing to do is abandon those principles. If you fail to pass the test, you shouldn't just set the bar lower.
You can learn much more about a person or organization by how they handle their failures than how they achieve success. Do they repeat their mistakes or learn from them? The real test of the Minnesota GOP will be how it recovers and if it stays true to its ideals while doing it.
ANGELA BERGER, EDINA
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Land use
City planning policies drive sale decisions
I appreciated the April 25 letter "Developers can't build unless land owners sell." I agree: The developers were not true "villains" -- the people responsible for specified harm or damage. Nor were family members who made the difficult decision to sell. They did what society and city planners asked.
Unfortunately, the benefits the land provided to the community -- fresh local food and ecosystem services -- were "lost," and bulldozers most definitely "strafed the land." They removed the life: the trees, bushes, flowers and grass. They even removed and sold off the living topsoil -- classic 1980s development.
The city of Eagan had left no land zoned for agriculture. Was the Diffley family land "willingly" sold? With the zoning and future of Eagan being what it was, and with the system of sewer and water assessment liens, development was a force in motion. It would have required tremendous community effort to reverse it and an understanding of urban edge land use that was not yet widely accepted.
One goal of my memoir "Turn Here Sweet Corn" is to learn from experience and create a healthier future. For food security and stability, it is crucial that future planning includes land preservation and local food production. Now, during this development downturn, is our perfect opportunity to rethink urban design.
ATINA DIFFLEY, FARMINGTON
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Health care costs
No free market to be found in this country
So much for "free trade" when it comes to protecting us from exorbitant pricing and windfall profits by our pharmaceutical companies. On Wednesday, testimony was given to a Senate committee that in the United States we are paying $5.71 for an over-the-counter heartburn medicine that can be bought online in Canada for $1.34. Meanwhile, the cost of a breast-cancer drug costs 10 times more in the United States than in Canada. Although every safeguard for quality was assured, the committee rejected this Canadian drug purchase amendment by a 12-9 vote ("Push for Canadian drugs falls short," April 26). Just another very flagrant example of the stranglehold our corporations have on our politicians. Just another reason that more than half of our bankruptcies are a result of medical costs.
TOM WHITE, EDINA
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University of Minnesota
Hiring process is very selective -- to a fault
It should come as no surprise that the University of Minnesota selected its new athletic director, Norwood Teague, as the single finalist ("U's hunt for A.D. shrinks to one," April 23).
University President Eric Kaler, who chose him and gave him his $400,000 annual contract, pending rubber-stamp approval by the Board of Regents, was selected in 2010 in the same way as the only identified finalist.
In fact, Kaler's recent predecessors, going back a few decades, customarily have been chosen in this same manner, as have other top-level Minnesota administrators.
The university uses this process as a means of circumventing public scrutiny under the Minnesota "sunshine" laws for Data Practices and Open Meeting measures.
The institution illegitimately justifies this opaque system by pointing to fears that high-quality candidates will be deterred from applying if their identities are publicly revealed. So, the school shrouds the process in an unnecessary veil of secrecy akin to picking a pope.
But the concerns that sunshine will repel candidates as if they were vampires are not supported by evidence. Many other educational systems around the country -- and in Minnesota as well -- reveal the names of major candidates and allow the public to examine their qualifications, rather than disclosing only the sole "finalist" as a fait accompli.
MARSHALL H. TANICK, MINNEAPOLIS
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