Art of Distraction

At tonight's City of St. Cloud Council meeting, the council is set to decide on the conditional-use permit for a residential recovery center on Fifth Street next to St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School. The justification for the facility in a residential area is that it's a facility for Homeless Veterans. If this were not a blatant lie, then there would probably be little argument about the facility, and even if the current location were not found acceptable, other space in the community would probably appear quickly to serve the need of our veterans. The problem is that this is a Transition House drug rehab facility that the City of St. Cloud has had to deal with before. Excessive police calls some of which were to respond to violent and sexual offenders are just part of the checkered past of the Transition House facilities. Is this the fault of the Transition House staff such as Councilman Tom Griffin? No, it is not. The facilities have helped several individuals get past their addictions and return to being productive citizens and the Transition House board deserves credit for their efforts. The location of this proposed facility cannot be debated against the success stories of the organization, but against the worst.

One item at the last school board meeting was school security and working to keep our community's children safe at school. The difficult task of keeping school children safe is one that the school board and school staff have devoted a large amount of resources to and it seems absurd to add to this burden in any way. Although St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School may be private and not under the control of our local school board, the same safety concerns should be taken seriously by all concerned governing parties. Any council member who was not absorbed in projects of self interest would make much more of an effort to protect children. We hope the the entire council has the foresight to deny this location, or to at least put a conditional use on the property that would disallow drug rehab functions on its premises.

What the WayneWho staff finds interesting during the debate on this issue are the other distractions that have appeared before this vote. Investigations into the City Manager, arguments on how to fill out review paperwork, and a list of other departmental battles have all popped up and created a very divisive environment right before a critical debate on the safety of our community's children. While everyone is focused on how they can protect their backside from political attacks, very little investigation has gone into finding out what the community and the parents of the children attending the school think about the proposal.

We also find it interesting that the cast of characters helping to fuel the issues of distraction have stepped forward, and those who were perceived to be worried about the community's best interest have disappeared. Tom Griffin who is the CEO of the Transition House and stands to gain from this decision along with other supporters such as Chris Falkowski, editor for St. Cloud in the News who, from what we hear on the street, worked closely with Tom Griffin during his council campaign, have taken the lead on defending the facility. While we acknowledge and applaud Ms. Falkowski's activism when it comes to Veterans issues, we do have to question ties and if her position as the editor of a newspaper offered support to get personal items accomplished? "Is it news or is it spin" was the title for one of Ms. Falkowski's editorials, so we have to wonder if that was foreshadowing for the distractions we now see. We also find it interesting that the Landlords Association has disappeared from any of these arguments. When the "Preserve Project" was a hot topic, the Landlords cried they were trying to protect the community. Here we have a drug rehab facility being located in an area that will negatively impact the community, and we hear nothing? Distractions indeed.

The community just needs to do the research and watch its own back.