And at the Highway 52 public meeting held recently, I figured Governor Jesse Ventura wouldn’t have taken it and I wasn’t going to either! But I had to chuckle at the reporter’s version of what I said!

Although - he was correct!

But I had carefully tried to phrase my comment so as not to alienate the government team leading the program. After all, they had spent time working on their presentations and driving down to Cannon Falls.
 
But after being crammed in the hot stuffy public meeting room waiting for the meeting to begin, and having to sit through a half hour or more listening to a representative from the governor’s office telling us the virtues of his license tax and light rail promotions before we even got into the topic we had come to hear about... well I was “in a snit.” Quite frankly I would much rather have been back home watching JAG on television.

After the governor’s rep was finished I raised my hand and spoke up. I said I hadn’t come to hear about this. I had seen all the good brochures the MnDOT team had made and the aerial photos and I wanted to hear about the highway project and what the people in the audience wanted to say.

(Now the other reporter nearer the front didn’t know I was the one who had said this and he wrote: “...a lady in the rear of the audience suggested that the transportation big picture and Jesse’s plans were not what folks came to hear about... that they should cut to the chase and besides it was hot in the back of the room. The team did just that!”)

And I got the thumbs up approval type signals from the guys in the back.

And yes, the leader of the MnDOT group did seem to smile and get on with the meeting. But as government goes, their next speaker did a nice presentation with overhead projections but let’s face it. I figured I could have compiled the whole thing down to 10 minutes max.

And as far as Governor Jesse is concerned... I graduated from the same high school he did. Although I am a few years ahead of him. Maybe some of it rubbed off on me.

Although I still wonder who his English teacher was! But then someone might wonder about my Journalism teacher!

A recent article in a twin city newspaper reported: “Then Ventura, who spent the previous day touring Denver's light-rail system, proceeded to rail against the practices of the press, particularly those who cover him in Minnesota, accusing them of hypocrisy and calling them dangerous.
 
“Some of the audience said they understood his disdain for journalists -- and blamed it on the voraciousness of the media in Minnesota.”

Ahh... maybe next time I’ll learn to say, “Cut to the chase fella!”

It’s too bad you can’t record some of these public meetings like you can TV programs and just fast forward through the stuff you don’t want!

Actually, I guess that’s what you have a reporter there for!

Maybe I could write my memoirs during the boring stuff.

And write yours too probably!