Editorial Roundup: Excerpts from recent Minnesota editorials

The Free Press of Mankato, Feb. 24

Women’s museum belongs in nation’s capital

Why it matters: A women’s history museum in D.C. would give the depth and context to our nation’s history that paints a more complete picture of how women were involved in the formation and evolution of the country.

Our nation’s capital offers a rich variety of museums that appeal to multiple interests, including art, air and space, U.S. history, native peoples history and culture, as well as the newest building focused on African American history and culture.

Next up, if all goes as it should, could be a museum dedicated to women’s history. Women’s accomplishments and roles in shaping culture and making their mark on American society have long taken a back seat to those of men. That’s not a surprise taking into account the way early laws were written by men favouring men, including voting and property rights.

Women always have played a significant part in the formation of this country — even though sometimes they were working behind the scenes of powerful men. It’s well known that politically astute Abigail Adams was chief adviser to her husband, John Adams, but there are a lot of other women who helped shaped America that many people never heard of, including those not in society’s upper crust.

A new museum dedicated to women in U.S. history belongs in D.C., complementing the other museums that specialize. There is no shortage of exhibit material for such a museum. Just last week, pioneering sports reporter Lesley Visser was named the first woman to receive the Sports Lifetime Achievement Award. She has been a leading sports reporter for 45 years and was the first woman to work on “Monday Night Football.”

The history of the women’s suffrage movement is marking its 100th anniversary this year, offering a depth of information about how women fought for the right to vote. And also a hundred years ago on Feb. 14, the League of Women Voters was founded.

So the timing is appropriate that this month the U.S. House easily passed legislation by a vote of 374-37 to establish a women’s history museum as part of the Smithsonian Institution. The museum has been proposed for decades, and it’s time to move forward. If the Senate also gives approval, the discussion will turn to funding, expected to be 50/50 between government money and private donations, which is how the African American museum was funded. The Senate should get on board to support the project.

Abolitionist and suffragette Susan B. Anthony said, “Oh, if I could live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done.”

Of course, no one’s work, including women’s, is ever done, but the American people should have the opportunity to see what women in this country have so far accomplished by visiting a national museum in the country’s capital.

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Minneapolis Star Tribune, Feb. 21

Who gets to move whose cheese? (Questions of jurisdiction in Minnesota legislative action.)

On policing, pesticide proposals, local control is a common thread.

Among news items from the Minnesota Legislature last week were two that touched on a broader matter: Which decisions should be mandated from a higher level of government, and which left to local control?

The question is perennial. It arises on issues from the minimum wage to the legal age for buying tobacco. General opinion has it that Republicans are more likely to support local prerogative, and Democrats, top-down directives. In the recent examples, however, those roles were reversed, with Republican legislators looking to exert state influence over big-city police staffing and DFLers proposing to let municipalities decide individually whether to ban certain pesticides within their borders.

The policing question is the more heated of the two. Noting an increased incidence of violent crime in parts of Minneapolis and St. Paul — and arguing that people should feel safe in the metro area’s core cities whether they live in, work in or visit them — Republican legislators are developing a set of responses. One of the proposals threatens to withhold state aid if the two cities don’t put an “adequate” number of officers to work near “regional or statewide” sports and entertainment facilities.

The second example is a bill introduced by state Rep. Jean Wagenius, DFL-Minneapolis, that would give municipalities their first chance in 30 years to deny the use of certain pesticides that have led to population losses among pollinators like bees and butterflies. That, of course, could lead to different rules in different cities, a situation the bill tries to mitigate by restricting the bans, in all-or-nothing fashion, to a list of “pollinator-­lethal” pesticides kept by the state.

Both the policing and pesticide issues are worthy of thorough debate. For today, we’d like merely to offer a way of considering questions of jurisdiction.

Debates over policy are often inconsistent, and debates over consistency are often insincere. Parties tend to argue for whatever general principle happens to advance the current policy they’re pushing.

There’s nothing wrong with inconsistency, however, if it’s in service not to what’s politically convenient but rather to what’s effective. So key questions about local control might be: when is a patchwork of laws preferable to a blanket approach (answer: when it can foster a competition of ideas that will allow the best solution to come to light), and under what circumstances are coercive measures from a higher jurisdiction warranted (answer: when there’s a clear consensus solution, and it’s being neglected).

From that framework, neither the policing nor pesticide proposals would pass their respective tests.

All cities develop budgets and set staffing levels while possessing better local knowledge than the Legislature has — and, we dare say, more fleetness of foot. State lawmakers have a legitimate interest in the well-being of Minnesota’s biggest cities, but there isn’t a broad formula they can apply that can “adequately” reflect urban idiosyncrasies and shifting trends.

With the pesticide ban, meanwhile, there’s no point wondering whether one city can come up with a better idea than another. The pesticides are deadly wherever insects are. (Which, in a fine conundrum, is why they were developed in the first place.)

As we say, jurisdictional questions aren’t the only aspect of either issue. But considering them may, as a starting point, clarify needs and motivations.

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St. Cloud Times, Feb. 21

The Press falls, but it could have been so much worse

There’s a corner at St. Germain Street and Fifth Avenue South in downtown St. Cloud that can now say a lot about any observer who comes upon it. The ashy remains of The Press Bar is the equivalent of the glass-half-empty, glass-half-full test.

It’s a hole in the heart of the community, but one with the promise of something great down the road.

The loss of a business is a clear tragedy for its owners and employees and, less acutely, its patrons. For the owners, it represents not just the wrenching away of financial capital and a livelihood, but the loss of the sweat and tears invested in a dream for the future they envisioned.

For patrons and former patrons of The Press Bar, the fire swept away the most obvious physical reminder of good times and youthful friendships. For an entity as long-lived as The Press, that alone impacts generations of Central Minnesotans.

The community’s sympathies go out to all who are feeling the loss acutely.

Our sincerest thanks go to the firefighters and police who put themselves at risk to fight the fire and ultimately contain the damage, which could have been even more devastating if not for their efforts.

It’s no small thing to do a difficult, dangerous job in uncomfortable conditions — and to do it for more than two days straight, all while keeping an eye on your colleagues to make sure they’re safe, too.

There is the crux of the glass-half-full conundrum such a devastating event presents: The pain of the loss is mirrored by the elation of knowing that even worse outcomes were avoided. No lives were lost. Other businesses were saved.

For now, the downtown community — and the community as a whole — has only one role: To support the businesses that were affected by losing a day or more of income or water damage or inventory damage, by patronizing them. Their glasses are half empty; we can help refill them.

The loss of the venerable building itself extends beyond its owners, however. A downtown is an ecosystem, and a major change to any part of it affects the whole. That glass is also, for now, half empty — a devastated lot on a bustling corner.

But it’s also half full. The loss presents opportunity to create something new and fresh, even if you’re among the many who preferred what was there to what is left. A loss is also a clean slate.

The Press owners’ plans for the site are not publicly known. They could rebuild, they could do something entirely new, or they could sell to someone else to make something entirely new.

Their vision will shape the future of our downtown. Will it be an homage to what went before? A bold step into something new?

The public’s role in those decisions is limited, but not inconsequential. The city’s leaders will make decisions that will affect the outcome, as with any development. The citizenry may be asked to help guide those decisions through public hearings. Vision will be required to ensure what comes next is at least as valuable to downtown as what went before. The decisions will shape downtown for perhaps another 73 years, or longer.

The public will, of course, have the largest role in deciding whether what comes next for the site is a success.

Time will tell. The glass is half empty. But like the space The Press occupied for 73 years, it won’t be empty forever. Opportunity is knocking from this devastation.