Alice Krengel, Ademocracy update!
If you are a regular at our Town Hall meeting here you are aware that we have run several stories on Alice Krengel. It appears the main stream media has caught onto the story.
Reprinted from the Pioneer Press-
Alice in no man's land
West St. Paul officials have taken unusual steps to rid the city of a nuisance: They seek a one-year order barring a resident from her home, which police say is used as a flophouse.
BY BRIAN BONNER
Pioneer Press
CRAIG BORCK, Pioneer Press
Alice Krengel stands in the spot where she sleeps on a mat on the floor in the Dorothy Day Center. Despite owning her own home in West St. Paul, Alice Krengel is homeless. Years of alchoholism and problem police calls to her house have exhausted the city's patience.
More photosAlice Krengel, West St. Paul's No. 1 public nuisance, is living on the streets again — for the third time in six years.
The city says Krengel has been using her home for years as a flophouse for criminals, drunks and drug users. Police went to her house 41 times this year alone. Deciding enough was enough, the city forced Krengel out on Aug. 7 and boarded up the home.
Her status as a homeless woman who owns her own home makes her an anomaly. But her alcoholism, which she admits, and possible mental illness, which she disputes, make her more typical of Minnesota's chronic homeless.
City officials are fed up after having spent hundreds of hours and thousands of taxpayer dollars responding to problems at 823 Allen Ave. Her neighbors and relatives are just as exasperated.
City Attorney Kori Land went to court last Tuesday to ask that Krengel be barred from her own home for a year for habitually violating the state's public nuisance law.
Krengel, 55, has been on the streets almost three months, after a temporary court order in the city's favor. She is guilty of trespassing if she sets foot on her property without police escort or permission.
District Judge Leslie Metzen is expected to rule on the proposed one-year expulsion in November. The judge will decide how much nuisance a city is forced to tolerate from one household and how far officials can go in separating someone from his or her property.
"This is the first time I've heard of somebody who is homeless and has a house," said Laura Kadwell, the state's director for ending long-term homelessness. "It sounds to me like somebody should be advocating for her and looking at mental health and chemical dependency issues."
Land said the city has simply run out of options. "The city's resources have been expended over the last six years to the point of exhaustion," she said.
Land said officials would rather take the responsibility for ensuring the security of Krengel's vacant house than continually respond to problems when she and her guests stay there.
The city's goal in removing Krengel from her house, Land said, is to "break the cycle" and force her to disassociate from troubling acquaintances who use her and her house, with or without her permission.
The one-year ban is an unusual remedy, Land said, but justified by Krengel's inability to control what happens on her property.
"My hope is that she will get help in that year," Land said. "Believe me, I am looking for any creative solution I can find. The city wants to get to the heart of the problem so it doesn't continue a year from now."
SEES HERSELF AS A VICTIM
Krengel showed up for Tuesday's court hearing wearing dark blue shorts and a blue tie-dye T-shirt. She carried her ever-present drink tumbler that she regularly refills with Diet Pepsi.
When she's sober, Krengel can be well-spoken and outgoing. When she's drunk, she is known to be foul-mouthed and capable of violent outbursts.
In January 2003, Krengel pleaded guilty to hitting a tenant over the head with a frying pan, an assault she still denies.
While West St. Paul is in the heart of the metropolitan area, the St. Paul suburb of 20,000 residents has intimate features of small-town life. Officials have come to know Krengel well.
As a rookie police officer in 1988, part of Police Chief Bud Shaver's orientation tour included a stop at Krengel's house. Eighteen years later, veterans still tell rookies "they'll meet Alice quite frequently during their shifts," Shaver said.
Outside of her official duties, Land has had pleasant conversations with Krengel at St. Matthew's Catholic Church on St. Paul's West Side, where the attorney has served meals to the homeless.
"Actually, I feel bad for Alice," Land said.
But Krengel sees none of the concern and compassion.
She sees herself as the victim of a conspiracy between city officials and Metzen, the judge. She said police are picking on her while ignoring more serious crimes taking place in the neighborhood.
Their goal, she said, is to seize her two-story, four-bedroom house and subdivide her large lot for a new house and extra tax revenue. The officials are seeking to accomplish their mission, Krengel said, by keeping her out of her home long enough for her to fall behind on bills.
"I would rather have had 30 days in jail instead of this," Krengel said. "It's inhumane. We don't treat dogs like this."
Krengel's lawyer, Julia Althoff, is asking Metzen to let Krengel return home.
SIMILAR ORDERS TWICE BEFORE
A.
lthoff said conditions at the house have improved since Krengel entered into an agreement with the city on Aug. 22, 2005, to stay sober, not permit alcohol in the house and allow police officers inside for random inspections.
"She said it would get better, and it got better," Althoff said.
Krengel, acknowledging that she has trouble controlling who comes and goes from her house, said she sought restraining orders to prevent four men from coming onto her property.
But West St. Paul officials told Metzen that Krengel has repeatedly violated terms of the August 2005 agreement.
In the last six years, police have documented 180 trips to Krengel's house. Responding officers have measured blood-alcohol levels of 0.30 percent or higher in men at the home. Officers have gotten infested with fleas while inspecting the home.
Neighbors living on each side of Krengel's home told Metzen they are relieved to have her gone.
Tim Stiles started keeping a written log in recent years but didn't call police about minor incidents, such as public urination and loud arguments. "It was a revolving door as far as tenants," Stiles said.
Another neighbor, Mike Frame, said the men who hung out at Krengel's house were mainly concerned with "drinking, arguing and partying."
The city has gotten court orders to kick Krengel out of her house twice before, in 2000 and 2003. Inspectors both times declared the home unfit for human habitation, mainly because of unsanitary conditions. Krengel said they caught her both times on bad housekeeping days.
She was out of her house for about a year the first time and re-entered after a childhood acquaintance who owns a small construction company fixed the problems. She was out for about three months the second time.
Also in 2000, Dakota County social workers found her to be an unfit mother and removed the youngest two of her three children, sons who are now 20 and 15. Her oldest child, a daughter now 31, left home in 1993 at age 18. The subject of her children brings Krengel to tears.
Krengel traces her problems to early childhood and blames her adoptive parents for favoring her three adopted sisters. She said she is an outcast from her family, which includes an elderly mother in Eagan.
'OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY'
Two of Krengel's relatives are not necessarily opposed to what West St. Paul is doing, as long as the judge or someone else orders her to submit to inpatient chemical-dependency treatment and undergo a mental health evaluation.
Krengel's younger sister, Diane Krengel Reinhardt, 53, of Langdon, N.D., and Krengel's daughter, Angela Hall, of Burnsville, came to Tuesday's court hearing.
"I don't think kicking her out for a year is going to solve anything unless she has six months of inpatient treatment followed by six months in the halfway house," Hall said. "Her reality is different from normal reality."
"By taking her out of the house, we're not tackling the issue," Krengel Reinhardt said. "We need to get her into a safe environment."
Hall said she never had a mother-daughter relationship with Krengel. At age 12, Hall started calling her Alice, rather than mom. Once she moved out, she "pretty much never looked back," Hall said.
Krengel never married, Hall said, and the three siblings each have different fathers. After her two brothers were removed, Hall said Krengel — who's always had trouble getting and keeping jobs — lost her welfare checks and turned to boarders as a source of income.
"I don't know what went wrong. It's pretty bad when your mom's at the bottom of society. It hurts," Hall said. "She has given up a lot for alcohol. She gave up her children for alcohol. She's given up herself as a person for alcohol."
Shortly after the hearing, Krengel expressed anguish over the fate of her beloved cats, which she has been unable to locate for many days. "This is probably tearing me apart more than any other factor …," she wrote in a fax to the Pioneer Press.
The sentiment doesn't surprise her sister. "She cares more about her cats than her kids," Krengel Reinhardt said.
Contrary to her sister's claims of growing up in an abusive family, Krengel Reinhardt said "we all were treated extremely well by our family, including Alice, who was spoiled rotten." Their father, who died in 1995, paid off Krengel's mortgage in 1991.
Krengel Reinhardt said her older sister showed early promise, but also the same traits that seem to have blossomed into mental illness: an inability to comprehend the consequences of her actions and denial of reality.
"Nothing has ever been her fault her whole life," Krengel Reinhardt said. "That goes back to baseball games" when she refused to acknowledge being out on a play.
At Krengel's best, she was physically attractive and "a brilliant, top-notch, straight-A student without opening a book," Krengel Reinhardt said. The sister traced the start of Krengel's descent into drinking to her college days in Bozeman, Mont.
After the court hearing, Krengel Reinhardt offered to take her sister back to North Dakota with her. But Krengel spurned the invitation.
While Krengel admits that her neighborhood is not the best place for her, with the temptations of Marty's Bar and 40 Acres Liquor Store less than a block away, she won't consider selling the house where she's lived since 1987. It's worth an estimated $183,000.
"I'll die fighting for what I believe in most," Krengel said. "That is my house."
--
Posted by Anonymous to ademocracy at 10/22/2006 11:01:20 AM
Reprinted from the Pioneer Press-
Alice in no man's land
West St. Paul officials have taken unusual steps to rid the city of a nuisance: They seek a one-year order barring a resident from her home, which police say is used as a flophouse.
BY BRIAN BONNER
Pioneer Press
CRAIG BORCK, Pioneer Press
Alice Krengel stands in the spot where she sleeps on a mat on the floor in the Dorothy Day Center. Despite owning her own home in West St. Paul, Alice Krengel is homeless. Years of alchoholism and problem police calls to her house have exhausted the city's patience.
More photosAlice Krengel, West St. Paul's No. 1 public nuisance, is living on the streets again — for the third time in six years.
The city says Krengel has been using her home for years as a flophouse for criminals, drunks and drug users. Police went to her house 41 times this year alone. Deciding enough was enough, the city forced Krengel out on Aug. 7 and boarded up the home.
Her status as a homeless woman who owns her own home makes her an anomaly. But her alcoholism, which she admits, and possible mental illness, which she disputes, make her more typical of Minnesota's chronic homeless.
City officials are fed up after having spent hundreds of hours and thousands of taxpayer dollars responding to problems at 823 Allen Ave. Her neighbors and relatives are just as exasperated.
City Attorney Kori Land went to court last Tuesday to ask that Krengel be barred from her own home for a year for habitually violating the state's public nuisance law.
Krengel, 55, has been on the streets almost three months, after a temporary court order in the city's favor. She is guilty of trespassing if she sets foot on her property without police escort or permission.
District Judge Leslie Metzen is expected to rule on the proposed one-year expulsion in November. The judge will decide how much nuisance a city is forced to tolerate from one household and how far officials can go in separating someone from his or her property.
"This is the first time I've heard of somebody who is homeless and has a house," said Laura Kadwell, the state's director for ending long-term homelessness. "It sounds to me like somebody should be advocating for her and looking at mental health and chemical dependency issues."
Land said the city has simply run out of options. "The city's resources have been expended over the last six years to the point of exhaustion," she said.
Land said officials would rather take the responsibility for ensuring the security of Krengel's vacant house than continually respond to problems when she and her guests stay there.
The city's goal in removing Krengel from her house, Land said, is to "break the cycle" and force her to disassociate from troubling acquaintances who use her and her house, with or without her permission.
The one-year ban is an unusual remedy, Land said, but justified by Krengel's inability to control what happens on her property.
"My hope is that she will get help in that year," Land said. "Believe me, I am looking for any creative solution I can find. The city wants to get to the heart of the problem so it doesn't continue a year from now."
SEES HERSELF AS A VICTIM
Krengel showed up for Tuesday's court hearing wearing dark blue shorts and a blue tie-dye T-shirt. She carried her ever-present drink tumbler that she regularly refills with Diet Pepsi.
When she's sober, Krengel can be well-spoken and outgoing. When she's drunk, she is known to be foul-mouthed and capable of violent outbursts.
In January 2003, Krengel pleaded guilty to hitting a tenant over the head with a frying pan, an assault she still denies.
While West St. Paul is in the heart of the metropolitan area, the St. Paul suburb of 20,000 residents has intimate features of small-town life. Officials have come to know Krengel well.
As a rookie police officer in 1988, part of Police Chief Bud Shaver's orientation tour included a stop at Krengel's house. Eighteen years later, veterans still tell rookies "they'll meet Alice quite frequently during their shifts," Shaver said.
Outside of her official duties, Land has had pleasant conversations with Krengel at St. Matthew's Catholic Church on St. Paul's West Side, where the attorney has served meals to the homeless.
"Actually, I feel bad for Alice," Land said.
But Krengel sees none of the concern and compassion.
She sees herself as the victim of a conspiracy between city officials and Metzen, the judge. She said police are picking on her while ignoring more serious crimes taking place in the neighborhood.
Their goal, she said, is to seize her two-story, four-bedroom house and subdivide her large lot for a new house and extra tax revenue. The officials are seeking to accomplish their mission, Krengel said, by keeping her out of her home long enough for her to fall behind on bills.
"I would rather have had 30 days in jail instead of this," Krengel said. "It's inhumane. We don't treat dogs like this."
Krengel's lawyer, Julia Althoff, is asking Metzen to let Krengel return home.
SIMILAR ORDERS TWICE BEFORE
A.
lthoff said conditions at the house have improved since Krengel entered into an agreement with the city on Aug. 22, 2005, to stay sober, not permit alcohol in the house and allow police officers inside for random inspections.
"She said it would get better, and it got better," Althoff said.
Krengel, acknowledging that she has trouble controlling who comes and goes from her house, said she sought restraining orders to prevent four men from coming onto her property.
But West St. Paul officials told Metzen that Krengel has repeatedly violated terms of the August 2005 agreement.
In the last six years, police have documented 180 trips to Krengel's house. Responding officers have measured blood-alcohol levels of 0.30 percent or higher in men at the home. Officers have gotten infested with fleas while inspecting the home.
Neighbors living on each side of Krengel's home told Metzen they are relieved to have her gone.
Tim Stiles started keeping a written log in recent years but didn't call police about minor incidents, such as public urination and loud arguments. "It was a revolving door as far as tenants," Stiles said.
Another neighbor, Mike Frame, said the men who hung out at Krengel's house were mainly concerned with "drinking, arguing and partying."
The city has gotten court orders to kick Krengel out of her house twice before, in 2000 and 2003. Inspectors both times declared the home unfit for human habitation, mainly because of unsanitary conditions. Krengel said they caught her both times on bad housekeeping days.
She was out of her house for about a year the first time and re-entered after a childhood acquaintance who owns a small construction company fixed the problems. She was out for about three months the second time.
Also in 2000, Dakota County social workers found her to be an unfit mother and removed the youngest two of her three children, sons who are now 20 and 15. Her oldest child, a daughter now 31, left home in 1993 at age 18. The subject of her children brings Krengel to tears.
Krengel traces her problems to early childhood and blames her adoptive parents for favoring her three adopted sisters. She said she is an outcast from her family, which includes an elderly mother in Eagan.
'OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY'
Two of Krengel's relatives are not necessarily opposed to what West St. Paul is doing, as long as the judge or someone else orders her to submit to inpatient chemical-dependency treatment and undergo a mental health evaluation.
Krengel's younger sister, Diane Krengel Reinhardt, 53, of Langdon, N.D., and Krengel's daughter, Angela Hall, of Burnsville, came to Tuesday's court hearing.
"I don't think kicking her out for a year is going to solve anything unless she has six months of inpatient treatment followed by six months in the halfway house," Hall said. "Her reality is different from normal reality."
"By taking her out of the house, we're not tackling the issue," Krengel Reinhardt said. "We need to get her into a safe environment."
Hall said she never had a mother-daughter relationship with Krengel. At age 12, Hall started calling her Alice, rather than mom. Once she moved out, she "pretty much never looked back," Hall said.
Krengel never married, Hall said, and the three siblings each have different fathers. After her two brothers were removed, Hall said Krengel — who's always had trouble getting and keeping jobs — lost her welfare checks and turned to boarders as a source of income.
"I don't know what went wrong. It's pretty bad when your mom's at the bottom of society. It hurts," Hall said. "She has given up a lot for alcohol. She gave up her children for alcohol. She's given up herself as a person for alcohol."
Shortly after the hearing, Krengel expressed anguish over the fate of her beloved cats, which she has been unable to locate for many days. "This is probably tearing me apart more than any other factor …," she wrote in a fax to the Pioneer Press.
The sentiment doesn't surprise her sister. "She cares more about her cats than her kids," Krengel Reinhardt said.
Contrary to her sister's claims of growing up in an abusive family, Krengel Reinhardt said "we all were treated extremely well by our family, including Alice, who was spoiled rotten." Their father, who died in 1995, paid off Krengel's mortgage in 1991.
Krengel Reinhardt said her older sister showed early promise, but also the same traits that seem to have blossomed into mental illness: an inability to comprehend the consequences of her actions and denial of reality.
"Nothing has ever been her fault her whole life," Krengel Reinhardt said. "That goes back to baseball games" when she refused to acknowledge being out on a play.
At Krengel's best, she was physically attractive and "a brilliant, top-notch, straight-A student without opening a book," Krengel Reinhardt said. The sister traced the start of Krengel's descent into drinking to her college days in Bozeman, Mont.
After the court hearing, Krengel Reinhardt offered to take her sister back to North Dakota with her. But Krengel spurned the invitation.
While Krengel admits that her neighborhood is not the best place for her, with the temptations of Marty's Bar and 40 Acres Liquor Store less than a block away, she won't consider selling the house where she's lived since 1987. It's worth an estimated $183,000.
"I'll die fighting for what I believe in most," Krengel said. "That is my house."
--
Posted by Anonymous to ademocracy at 10/22/2006 11:01:20 AM
posted by Bob at Sunday, October 22, 2006
21 Comments:
Yellow Journalism!
What's "yellow journalism?"
Isn't that when the contents are so one-sided and reported as to not piss off the city that it's made so comical that you wet yourself with laughter?
Or maybe it's written on really archaic paper?
Alice is sick with alcoholism and thus her case comes within the meaning of being disabled. She should sue the City for violating the "Americans with Disabilities Act." It should be pretty easy to prove. I don't think the City has thrown any other alcoholics out of their homes. Maybe someone should notify the U.S. Department of Justice. While they are at it, they could take a look at the lawsuits the landlords have broguht against the City. They learned their lesson in Milwaukee when I lived there, and it wasn't that long ago either. Some of the City Council people went to prison for their illegal actions with housing inspections.
Hi All,
Mr. Neal, do you speak of this blog, or the article you left the comment under?
Because if you speak of the blog then you obviously have not read all the information provided in the links under my profile, or the content of past topics.
Your statement is typical of a hit and RUN. Is this anyway for someone proclaiming to be a world champ to act? Please elaborate further to bring clarity to your statement.
Reprinted from WIKI-
Yellow journalism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Nasty little printer's devils spew forth from the Hoe press in this Puck cartoon of Nov. 21, 1888, showing that the evils predated the Yellow pressYellow journalism is a pejorative reference to journalism that features scandal-mongering, sensationalism, jingoism or other unethical or unprofessional practices by news media organizations or individual journalists.
The term originated during the circulation battles between Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal from 1895 to about 1898, and can refer specifically to this period. Both papers were accused by critics of sensationalizing the news in order to drive up circulation, although the newspapers did serious reporting as well. The New York Press coined the term "Yellow Journalism" in early 1897 to describe the papers of Pulitzer and Hearst. The newspaper did not define the term, and in 1898 simply elaborated, "We called them Yellow because they are Yellow
Ya sure got me going. When I saw scandal-mongering, sensationalism, and unethical or unprofessional practices I was sure you were talking about the St. Paul City Council. You have disappointed me Bobby!
Stephen is looking for some attention to his blog so he post some dumb comment here hoping people will log onto his blog.
Stephen looks for high traffic blogs like Ademocracy to leave his calling card. PATHETIC.
I personally know the champ who will rule the world! And getting back on the subject: What do you think about a president who will literally send the IRS at your door for an audit, if you support, or are a news media that is critical of him? This is what Clinton did way back when. It was a very small news media at the time. Beat up the little guy, where have we seen this before? When Bush was faced with the same thing, to his credit, he did NOT use the IRS to terrorize his objectors! It's the same type of treatment that many have received from various arrogant government and at different levels. Okay let's start with St. Paul. Why do you think we remain anonymous? Of course, we will suffer their own brand of IRS attacks. Only we suffer with our properties and rights. And the way it is presented or reported through the main secular news avenues sells it like "this is how is it so shut up and get used to it". That's yellow journalism. There is not yellow journalism here for one thing nobody is paying us a salary to post here. We are not brown nosing, or butt kissing. Inasmuch as we are telling the truth about real experiences and we don't want to rule the world, just live in it without corruption. How would you like to have someone hold you up with your own gun, shoot you in the leg and then you have to pay him for his gas driving over to you and your bullets that he used to shoot you? When the city drives over to your property to "select" you as the recipient of every nit picking little defeciency on your property with their bandits that are paid through our taxes. You then go before the same people where you are told you are going to remove that bullet yourself and you only have 7 days and if you don't do it their way, you then have the leg amputated. These people are then sanctioned by citizens who think they are being blessed with a secure and safe neighborhood.
Next we'll be having a city lottery with stones as the prize.
The city of STP and it's band of merry thugs are filled with weak-immoral people who will attack those that are down. That is why in the end they WILL reap what they sow.
9:09 AM You forgot to mention that at his blog you can only use two word sentences and you must be at least a 9 on the rictor scale for looks but intelligence doesn't matter.
I've confered with Alice... She logs onto our Town Hall meeting when she gets access to a computer.
I want you to know Alice I care about your situation. A bunch of us do.
You are in my prayers.
This isn't about Stephen Neal or his blog, this is about a human being made homeless because of her illness! Are people really that narrow minded to think it is better to have a person with these types of illnesses wondering the streets? I would hope not but it sure appears that is the case. Someone needs to focus on the well being of Alice as a human and treat her illnesses, she sounds as though she is a great lady with potential if given proper treatment and the support she desperately needs. There is hope and a future for everyone, to fix any problem you must first have the right tools. The only way an addict knows how to deal with a problem is to cover it up and make the pain go away, this is how the mind of a person with addiction works, its always poor me I know I have been there. Until someone actually supports you in a true meaningfull way an addict is not going to be successful in recovery, there has to be that feeling that you will be accepted and have a future without unnecessary roadblocks. You need to believe in the person in order for them to believe in themselves and remember they are sick with an illness, it was not their goal in life to become an addict but in reality it happens to people of every race, age, the rich and the poor and it could happen to someone very close to you as well. Next time you look down on a person because they have an addiction, remember it could happen to someone very dear to you also.
Nancy (formerly of St.Paul)
Hey 9:02 be carefull about the ass wiping Stephen might enjoy it and want more........lol
Bob, I took this from World Net Daily. It seems there's a lot of this craziness going on out there. The fines seem all too familiar! This site has a lot of good articles that don't pacify the government or anyone else in particular and in fact it reports things that the main stream media will not! Joseph Farah is the editor.
Smokeless and clueless in Omaha
Posted: October 25, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking that Washington has cornered the market on government madness.
It is hardly the case, as the city leaders of Omaha, Neb., showed us earlier this month.
Not only did the city council cave into the pressure of the anti-smoking Nazis – banning cigarettes in 97 percent of public places – but this group of tyrants went further than any in America thus far.
City officials in Omaha, with the support of the police department, called on citizens who witness violations of the new prohibition to call 911 to report them.
Silly me, I thought 911 calls were about emergencies. Apparently, smoking in a no-smoking zone is considered a high crime in Omaha – right up there with murder, rape and robbery.
There was, I am happy to report, one voice of sanity expressed amid the madness.
Bucking the voices of the establishment, Douglas County emergency director Mark Conrey said people should not call 911 every time they see someone light up in a restricted area. He said the very idea threatens Douglas County's emergency system.
I would think so. In fact, don't police and emergency responders in most cities across the country deliberately discourage all but emergency calls on 911?
Nevertheless, despite the plea from the man in charge of making the emergency system work, Omaha police and city officials insisted residents should use 911 to report smoking law violators.
Maybe it's a bid to raise cash, as penalties are $100 for the first offense, $200 for the second and $500 for the third and subsequent infractions.
Or maybe this is the type of crime city officials and police officers feel confident they can actually deter. Maybe these are the type of "criminals" they can actually bust – and without much threat to their own safety other than the possibility of inhaling second-hand smoke.
Maybe it seems like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill here. Maybe it seems like I'm picking on Omaha officials. Maybe it seems to you there are more important issues facing us than the smoking ban in a Nebraska city.
If so, then you are missing the point entirely.
This kind of insanity, this kind of tyranny, this kind of misguided political correctness is going to be the death of our great country if we're not careful.
These laws have a way of multiplying. Despite challenges to the anti-smoking bans in cities across the country, despite the way these laws hurt businesses, despite the way they destroy freedom and "choice" and "diversity" and all the other lofty buzzwords used by the very people inclined to impose such draconian laws, not one anti-smoking ordinance has yet been repealed.
Do I care about smoking?
No, not that much.
But I do care about freedom.
This is typical and it is all about the money. Lazy Police at the request of the gutless politicians are going after the law abiding people because they are seen as a "revenue stream." Not only that, it is a lot safer. they know we will not shoot them.
Everyone here bashes the edemocracy crowd, but it is not just them, the whole country does not give a dman about what happens anywhere to anyone as long as it is not happening to them. In fact they are glad to see it happening to you, because the busier the government is with you, the less time they will have to pick on me. That is the reason all these cowards stick up for the government and their crazy policies. The people in this city and country really deserve all the shit they have in their life.
Can they really completely clean up this site for residential building?
Judge lowers price of land sought by city
Cost of disputed Exxon Mobil parcel will be prorated
BY JASON HOPPIN
Pioneer Press
A Ramsey County judge has saved the city of St. Paul millions of dollars by effectively slashing the price of a disputed piece of property targeted for a massive neighborhood development.
Exxon Mobil Corp. owns the 37-acre swath of land, a polluted former tank farm. The city prevailed in a long-running court battle to acquire it through eminent domain and is planning a massive new neighborhood along West Seventh Street as part of a broader 65-acre development known as Victoria Park.
The only question left is the price of the land. Exxon Mobil said the city should fork over what it's worth today, but the city argued that it shouldn't have to pay for increases in land value that occurred while the company fought the case all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Judge Judith Tilsen's ruling is significant because the Ramsey County assessor's office has been dramatically marking up the price of industrial land throughout St. Paul. Tilsen's ruling means the city will pay a price for the land closer to the $3 million it was worth last year, rather than the $9.6 million range it is valued at this year.
Tilsen ordered a panel of real estate experts to set a final price within 180 days.
Exxon Mobil originally offered to donate the land to the city as long as it wasn't used for residential development. The company argued that the site is too polluted to be safely redeveloped into homes, a charge city officials dismiss.
It's not clear what the company's next step might be.
"We haven't had a chance to review the judge's ruling nor to consider our future legal options," said Brian Dunphy, a spokesman for Exxon Mobil Pipeline Co., the division that owns the site.
Meanwhile, models for a small town-home development are already open, and Shalom Community Alliance is set to break ground in January on a campus of senior housing.
Overall, more than 850 homes are planned for the site, which is bordered by West Seventh Street, Otto Avenue, Shepard Road and Montreal Way.
I wonder what the city of St. Paul would do if they did not have their crooked little Court in their pocket all the time. I thought it was just the landlords that had the deck stacked against them. If a big oil company can't get a fair shake with all their money, who the hell can?
Why weren't these "criminals" that used her house as a "flophouse" in jail or treatment? Why can bars and liquor stores sell the devices to use and abuse and then make her pay for it with her home?
I know the oldest son that was taken away from Alice. I may not know her but I do know her son very well. She put her children through a lot.
Having been a teen that used to frequent Alice's house, I felt the need to respond. I was first introduced to Alice by 2 other neighborhood teens 1 night while looking for someone to buy us liquor. Alice had built a neighborhood wide reputation as it would seem, as "the go to person" for our underage liquor needs. At times, Alice would even "borrow" us money to get liquor which admittedly, we never paid back. Alice had 2 of her children living with her at the time that I was there, 2 young boys who's names I won't print here for obvious reasons. One of the 2 children suffered from some sort of mental disability. Alice would take myself and other teens, on tours of her home, showing us the various brand new items that she was able to purchase with money that she reported to have received from the government, including such items as, a video game console and surround sound, a computer, a television, the list goes on. You couldn't help but notice however, the piles of filth, garbage, and debris, or the foul stench of rotten food, animal feces, cat urine. (Alice had at least 10 cats at the time, not including the kittens.) A thick, pungent odor could often be smelled well outside and sometimes even across the street. There would be so much junk, that there were only walking paths through it. It was the type of place that you felt dirty for just looking at, let alone going inside. You couldn't help but notice the youngest child, running around the house completely nude, no diaper or anything, playing with dirty silverware on the floor. As a teen and not knowing better, I recall laughing 1 time with my friends as we had noticed that the child had urinated on the floor. This same child was also known to be found wondering around the house outside, at times more than a block away, naked and crying, while Alice would be passed out drunk in the house, or at time even in the front yard. There wasn't a single room in Alice's house that wasn't packed almost to the ceiling with junk. Alice had also been notorious for riding around on her 3 wheeled adult size bicycle, going to garage sales and thrift stores, buying what she would claim to be "antiques" yet, at least to us, seemed to be just plain junk. In fact, not only was Alice's house packed full of these "antiques", but so were her garage and giant barn sized storage out back. To us, Alice seemed a bit more than weird, yet, Alice's house was the place for us kids to go when we needed a place to drink or smoke pot. Many times, there would be someone living with Alice, selling the same pot that we would end up being able to smoke there. I even recall once where the older of the 2 sons, had gone into his moms (Alice) room and stole a bag full of marijuana and traded it to us for prize tickets and video game tokens from a local arcade. None of us were really surprised when the boys were eventually taken away. Everything I have just written or said, is the truth, and is the way I remember it. These are my personal opinions and observations. After having read the article here, I felt that I had to share what I recall of my time at Alice's home. I do feel that I should also add, that I recall watching the police park across or in front of Alice's house for long periods of time, daily. I do think that Alice made some bad decisions, and provided a place for some bad stuff to go on, but I think that the police, the city, and the county, were wrong in the way that they went about handling the situation.
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In fact, some of the claims made by Alice regarding the city wanting her property, doesn't seem so far fetched at times. West Saint Paul has a program called P.A.C.E. (Pro-Active Code Enforcement) which according to them, is to maintain Quality Housing Stock and Quality Businesses, to Address Building, Housing and Property Maintenance Concerns, To Improve The Livability Of Our Neighborhoods And Viability Of Our Commercial Districts, and To Encourage Rehabilitation and Redevelopment Of Blighted Properties. Under the PACE Program, the City claims that it inspects every property for exterior housing, building and property maintenance violations within selected eight to twelve block areas called "Identified Inspection Districts". Inspection Districts are claimed to be selected on the basis on the frequency of CASE Calls and the proximity to other PACE areas, however, I am willing to bet that if you were to look at the cities low income areas, would happen to be the exact same districts targeted for pro active inspections. The City also has a HOUSING REPLACEMENT PROGRAM, which according to them, "is designed to address homes that are beyond the scope of rehabilitation." The program sponsors the replacement of deteriorating lower value housing on scattered sites throughout the City with larger, higher value single-family housing. Replacement is achieved through "voluntary" acquisition from a "willing" seller or from a homeowner "requesting" demolition assistance in order to make his or her own housing replacement plans financially possible. At times however, it seems that it is almost a way for the city to target and remove low income families within the city, in order to acquire their property, demolish their homes, and rebuild homes designed and targeted for a higher income bracket. Again, this is just my personal opinion and or observation.
For those interested, here are links to the Cities PACE and Housing Replacement Programs home pages.
http://www.ci.west-saint-paul.mn.us/index.asp?Type=B_LIST&SEC={B5CEC4DA-B0C1-4774-9CDB-A9495B1DF2CD}
http://www.ci.west-saint-paul.mn.us/index.asp?Type=B_LIST&SEC={85789BC4-E0CB-4D30-8C62-5DC156699ACF}
Alice is addicted to drugs and no one can help her now. thanks for sharing this..
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