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Political perspective from Wes Skoglund
by Ed Felien
published July 14 2008
Probably the nicest person to represent South Minneapolis in any political jurisdiction in the last 50 years has to be Wes Skoglund. He was first elected to the State House from South Minneapolis in 1974 and re-elected from 1976 to 2000. In 2002, he was elected to the State Senate for a four-year term.
He’s retired now, but we caught up with him and asked him what he thought about the current political situation.
He thinks the smoking ban is wonderful. He was author of the legislation that banned smoking in state facilities, one of the forerunners of later legislation. Before the bill was law, visitors could come into hospital rooms with patients suffering from lung disease and start smoking. He also kept cigarettes out of vending machines that sold candy: “You couldn’t tell if a kid was buying a candy bar or a pack of cigarettes.” He also banned the sale of cigarettes at rock concerts.
He believes Pawlenty has been a disaster for the state: “His major accomplishments are that you can bring a gun to church, shoot a mourning dove, buy fireworks (now there are three times as many injuries to children from fireworks) and the bars can stay open to 2 a.m.
“Pawlenty’s veto of transit and highway funding was probably the major disaster of his career. As a result of that there are three bridges across the Mississippi River closed: the 35W bridge, the one in St. Cloud and the one in Winona. And there’s talk of closing one of the bridges in St. Paul.
“His support for the cities has meant more closed libraries and schools. He has no political courage. He doesn’t want to be accused of raising taxes, so his career is more important to him than a child’s education.”
About Norm Coleman, Skoglund says, “He gives shallow a bad name. When he ran last time he said he brought 10,000 jobs to St. Paul. Where are they? If you go to St. Paul to some of those downtown shopping malls—the stores are all empty. Where are the jobs?”
He says he was happy to let off a little steam talking to us, but most of the time he’s happy just being retired.
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