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- - - }- Original Message ____- From: Schroeder [mailto:gr ryschr er atthi.aem] Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2003 6:20 PM To: Beets, Neal Mayor John Kysykyczyn Subject: Addition to May 12th Meeting agenda Date. 05112/03 Item. Iv. . Communications City pages Neal - Please add this article from City ]gages to the May 12th Agenda under communications. Thanks Greg ns 11 iq As anyone who reads a newspaper knows, these are wretched times to be mayor Of a Minnesota city. Most days, Gov. Tiny Pawlenty appears to be either fundamentally indifferent or downright hostile to the fate of the cities. The state budget crisis has provided him with ideal political cover to yank local govemment aid, which is a fundamental component of many municipal budgets' Thus, for the foreseeable future, the measure of success for big -city mayors like Minneapolis's R.T. Rybak and St. Paul's Randy Kelly will not be whether they can improve the quality of life in their respective cities; it will be whether they can 'hold hail at bay until their terms expire. But mayors can play another important role. They can entertain. An no mayor has been as consistently entertaining as the cent mversi al boy mayor Of Roseville, John Iysylyezyn. Now we don't claim to be familiar enough with ysylyczyn's record to pass meaningful judgment on his policies and polities. But whatever else you want to say about him ( "time to buy a vowel," maybe ?), the guy has a sense e f humor. Last summer, when members of an anti - ysylyczyn group protested in front of his house and called for his resignation, Kysylyczyn gleefully entered the fray with a placard of his own. It read "Death to the Mayor."