I saw in the news last night that the City of Minneapolis has increased its pothole repair budget by $500,000 to deal with the havoc this odd winter and spring wreaked on Minneapolis roads.  Last month, the Hennepin County Board nearly doubled the county’s 2010 bituminous overlay program (a $3 million increase) to deal with potholes on county roads throughout the metro.

Wise decisions and good prioritization.  Hooray!

The lead story tonight on Fox9 was Tom Lyden’s coverage of Minneapolis’ decision to spend $180,000 to market tap water to its residents.  Tom apparently couldn’t get the Mayor or anyone from the city council to talk to him, so he called me.  I was happy to oblige.  Great story:

Writing on The Mayor Blog, Jeremy Hanson, Mayor Rybak’s Communications Director and Press Secretary, has posted an entry entitled “In Defense of Artistic Drinking Fountains” in which he takes issue with Governor Pawlenty’s criticism of the $500,000 Minneapolis recently spent on artist-designed water fountains in Minneapolis.  I posted on this issue last week.

In the post, Hanson claims the following:

The drinking fountains in question are funded with dedicated revenue streams that are completely separate from the City’s General Fund and have nothing to do with the amount of local government aid (LGA) the City gets from the State.

Rybak complains while spending $500,000 for artsy drinking fountains in Minneapolis

Governor Pawlenty today announced his unallotment decisions.  Among his comments was an admonition to Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak (who is predictably incensed by the cuts to local government aid) that he should start setting priorities for the city budget and stop funding  ”$50,000 artistic drinking fountains.”

I had completely forgotten about those fountains, but amidst the cries from Rybak and St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman that LGA cuts would threaten public safety and force their respective cities to cut even further into bone, I decided to refresh myself on last year’s decision by Rybak and the Minneapolis City Council to spend $500,000 on artist-designed water fountains (ten fountains at $50K each) to be placed throughout the city.

A Star Tribune story last year described this expenditure as a “continuation of the city’s ongoing public arts program, which has brought the city projects ranging from an oversized bunny sculpture at East Minnehaha Parkway and Portland Ave. S. to artist-designed manhole covers.”