Saint Paul 2008

Following in St. Paul’s wake, Murderapolis Minneapolis has announced the creation of their own “committee to protect the rights of protesters”, including no less august a person than mayor R.T. Ryback himself, possibly the only city mayor in the country to have a beer named after him. (It’s a pretty decent beer, too.) […]

Bob Fletcher, erstwhile Ramsey County Sheriff, says he’s been advised by the Saint Paul Police Department to plan for three-thousand arrests during the 2008 RNC convention, and is asking for more than four million dollars to help do so.

It’s probably overkill, but as Commander Joe Neuberger of the SPPD said, “it’s easier to scale back […]

The St. Paul city council has voted (unanimously) to create a special advisory panel to “oversee demonstrations” at the 2008 RNC convention here, vowing to treat protesters “with the same respect and honor accorded to conventioneers.”
Like many local government actions, everybody loses with this decision. The demonstrators and protesters lose, in that they want […]

More ammunition for those few million Minnesotans who hate any and everything DFL-related: Patti Fritz, state Representative for Faribault, has evidently introduced legislation declaring the Tilt-A-Whirl the “state amusement ride”.
Nevermind our view that the most amusing ride in the state is up and down Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis on a Friday night, it has to […]

Evidently our local activists are dissatisfied with the treatment they’re receiving from the City ahead of the 2008 RNC Convention in St Paul. “It’s a convention, not a catastrophe,” warned Matt Bostrom, our Assistant Chief of Police. Alliterative assertions aside, we’re skeptical that many in the anti-war, anti-globalisation, anti-republican, anti-imperialism, anti-damn-near-everything movements are […]

While we’ve been busy enjoying Minnesota’s unseasonable warm March weather, others have been busy… doing other stuff.
The 2008 Pheasant Fest at RiverCentre (18-20 January) will overlap the 2008 Figure Skating Championships (20-27 January) by one day, which should be interesting, to say the least.
Area residents come up with some pretty dumb ideas for redevelopment of […]

Pheasants Forever announced this morning that they’ve chosen the RiverCentre complex in St. Paul as the location for the 2008 National Pheasant Fest. No words on dates just yet, but this years’ convention ran 19-21 January; things could get fun if Pheasant Fest coincides with the 2008 Figure Skating Championships here, which run 20-27 […]

“shouting obscenities at the police in the street is so 20th century,” says Martha Ballou of St. Paul, a lawyer and organizer trying to set up large outdoor video screens downtown during the RNC convention in 2008. Evidently thousands of people sitting around and being passively entertained by, let’s face it, anti-GOP propaganda is […]

From an AP article, and other sources, some numbers concerning the 2008 RNC Convention in St Paul:
People:
50,000 people are expected to visit the area during the convention
20,000 hotel rooms are to be reserved, including 2,000 suites
8,000 volunteers will be impressed into service
3,000 protestors’ arrests are being planned, and budgeted, for

Money:
$82 million: Predicted total RNC budget
$57 […]

As we noted here, 2008 marks the 150th anniversary of Minnesota’s statehood, and it looks like planning is well under way to celebrate this anniversary.