Readers Write: Minneapolis spending, extreme rain, Epstein files, ICE

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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Minneapolis municipal elected officials should be mindful of any action they take making the city a uniquely costly and complicated place to live and do business (“Mpls. seeks new taxes on city’s wealthiest,” July 12). This happens quite often, especially in recent years. So Minneapolis is already on an island in comparison to surrounding cities, and the degree to which that is true and compounds matters to our future vitality. To put this problem on steroids, I can’t imagine a more harmful, one-of-a-kind policy than a Minneapolis-only income tax, an idea now apparently under consideration in response to budget challenges facing every local government in the state.

With city property taxes already high, here’s an alternative way to think about this issue: Focus on the spending side of the budget equation. Don’t assume every current line item plus inflation needs to be supported by additional revenue, either higher-yet property taxes or a new source unique to Minneapolis. I have watched budget decisions at City Hall over the past few years, and this is fertile ground to explore.

Steve Cramer, Minneapolis

The writer is a former Ward 11 Minneapolis City Council member and retired president and CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Council.

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Tax the rich! Great idea. The most mobile portion of the state population will simply move to Florida or Texas for six months and a day and you will lose all their tax revenue. We have an unregulated spending problem with a lack of oversight that needs attending to. This state has not significantly grown in population in the last 20 years, which may have reduced the problem or may have not. Increasing corporations’ taxes will have the same result. They will find greener pastures. Why not ask Gov. Tim Walz what he has done with the $17 billion surplus?

Stephen Elston, Golden Valley

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The July 12 article “Mpls. seeks new taxes on city’s wealthiest” caught my attention, not for what it contained, but what it did not.

The writers stated that the City Council voted 10-0 to tax the rich. There are 13 members on the council. Where were the other three? And why? With elections coming up soon, details such as these are important. [Opinion editor’s note: The three council members absent for the vote were Andrea Jenkins, Jeremiah Ellison and Emily Koski.]

As for the proposal to tax the rich, it seems like another pie-in-the-sky idea from a group of idealists who are long on ideas and short on practicality. Good bait to toss out to an uninformed electorate.

Cynthia Sowden, Minneapolis

The Washington Post article “Tool to help prepare for extreme rainfall is halted” reprinted in the Star Tribune July 17 is somewhat outdated. We civil engineers and other professionals who design, construct and maintain stormwater-related infrastructure have known that there have been significant variations in rainfall intensity for over 50 years! While our profession has relied on the publications of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and predecessor agencies for almost 100 years, we would be pleased to see the currently delayed, if not abandoned, project on rainfall intensity continued. However, although we would certainly welcome another tool in our toolbox to design projects that are impacted by precipitation variations, we can also proceed without such an additional tool if required. The downside, however, may be facilities costing more than necessary.

In the late 1960s, the predecessor to the current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency provided funds for a project here in the Twin Cities to study rainfall/runoff and its impacts on combined sewer overflows (CSOs) on the receiving waters, in particular the Mississippi River. (We knew there was spatial variation in rainfall prior to the start of the study.) As part of this project a network of multiple precipitation gauges were installed and monitored throughout the Twin Cities metropolitan area. From this project, we learned that the intensity of precipitation varied significantly across the metropolitan area. The variations we hear about today are not anything new; they existed over 50 years ago here in the Twin Cities and most likely elsewhere. As a result, the “gully-washers” we have heard about recently in Texas, New Jersey, New York, etc., are not necessarily related to climate change, etc.! These have been a fact of life for those who design and maintain our stormwater facilities for many years.

The reason for the precipitation network was to determine how we could utilize the existing CSO network to maximize runoff that entered the network from reaching the Mississippi River, storing excess runoff quantities in the existing infrastructure where less precipitation was being received. The goal was to reduce the quantity of runoff that was untreated from reaching the Mississippi River via either overflow points in the collection system or quantities too great to be treated at the Metropolitan Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Fast forward, the result was separation of the CSO network in the 1990s and early 2000s in Minneapolis and St. Paul at a cost in excess of $500 million. There were many concerns about spending that amount of money on this massive infrastructure project vs. continuing to store excess CSO flows in the collection system.

This example should remind us all of the limitations we have to continually balance: expenditures vs. long-term debt for infrastructure improvements. Many believe the answer is designing and constructing for resilience, i.e., designing and constructing within our means today for a better tomorrow with reduced, but not zero, risk, since the latter cannot exist within our financial capabilities.

Dennis Martenson, Corcoran

For years, President Donald Trump built suspense around the Epstein files, fueling speculation and promising transparency. He campaigned on the idea that justice would be served and that the truth, especially about high-profile elites, would come to light. His base rallied behind him, trusting that he would expose the powerful and protect the innocent. Now, in a stunning reversal, Trump is lashing out at his own supporters for continuing to demand answers. He’s called the Epstein files a “hoax,” dismissed the public’s interest as “boring,” and even labeled his critics “weaklings” and “PAST supporters” (“Trump calls his own supporters ‘weaklings’ over Epstein questions,” July 17). This isn’t just a shift in tone, it’s a betrayal of the very movement he helped create. If the files truly exonerated him and implicated only his political enemies, Trump would be releasing them and shouting it from the mountaintops. Instead, he’s urging silence. That’s not the behavior of someone with nothing to hide. It’s the behavior of someone desperate to change the subject.

The American people deserve the truth. And they deserve leaders who don’t weaponize outrage only to abandon it when it becomes politically inconvenient.

Paul Niebeling, Minneapolis

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For the life of me I cannot understand why it has become so important to Democrats and their pals in the media to continue to assault Trump over his failure to deliver the files of Jeffrey Epstein (“Johnson breaks with Trump on Epstein,“ July 16). While the people who accepted Jeffrey Epstein’s invitation to take advantage of women, many underage, should be punished severely, that has been true since it was disclosed over 10 years ago. The Epstein files, which may or may not include a list of those who participated in these disgusting acts, are in the possession of the Department of Justice, and thus under the control of the president and his attorney general.

But that was equally true while President Joe Biden held the office. Why didn’t Democrats or their pals media demand disclosure during the four years of Biden’s term? And if Trump is named in those files as Democrats suggest, why wouldn’t they have used the so-called “list” to attack him during the run-up to the 2024 election?

Ronald Haskvitz, Minnetonka

The use of masks to disguise Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents has been stoutly defended by the ICE director as necessary to protect their identities and to prevent retaliation or harassment of themselves or their families. Hmm ... legislators, judges, school board members and other elected officials have too often been harassed and threatened for doing their jobs. Should all public officials wear masks?

Charlie Bulman, St. Paul