The City of Bemidji hopes to escape long, costly litigation over racist hiring practices in construction of the Bemidji Regional Event Center resulting from failure to implement the affirmative action policies of the City of Bemidji by eliminating the position of "City Planner" the only way they could find to fire Rita Albrecht without facing more costly litigation from her... as is typical, to protect the "good ol' boys club," they had to "throw the baby out with the dirty bathwater" by eliminating the position of "City Planner" in order to avoid explaining why they tolerated and allowed Rita Albrecht to work with one-hundred million dollars of tax-payer funds in such a racist manner intended to exclude intentionally impoverished Native American Indians from bettering their lives through employment opportunities.
I attempted to post this comment on Rita Albrecht's blog posting on her blog--- Albrecht has refused to post my comment to her blog posting on her blog--- Bemidji Bits--- which can be read here:
http://bemidjibits.blogspot.com/2010/01/last-days-of-community-development.html
I invite Rita Albrecht to respond to my comment and I will post her response to my blog.
Rita Albrecht claims in her blog profile:
I am passionate about promoting civic engagement and hope that discussions on this blog will spur readers to get involved. I hope you will comment on my posts--whether you agree with me or not! Thanks for reading my blog.
Apparently her invitation to comment extends only to those with her like-minded bigoted and racist views since she has refused to allow my comment to be posted... like affirmative action, democracy is something to be "on the books" but not practiced.
Here is the comment I attempted to post in response to Rita Albrecht's blog posting lamenting the elimination of her position as if she ever did anything for the community she was hired to be a "community planner" for--- not working people nor people, like Native American Indians who have faced racist abuse for the better part of the last one-hundred and fifty years or longer in northern Minnesota, most notably in and around Bemidji--- but for the lily-white racist establishment of the forestry, banking and mining industries along with the foundation flowers of the Northwest and Blandin foundations who try to eliminate poverty by giving poverty new, more acceptable names:
Rita Albrecht;
Getting rid of you was the best decision the City of Bemidji ever made.
I am sure you can find employment with the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association; or, like your daughter, a job with one of the racist and corrupt politicians in Minnesota.
I think it is terrible you intend to milk the unemployment compensation system for everything you can get out of it as part of your campaign for revenge just because you are upset your position was eliminated when you know darn well you have many jobs just waiting for you among the politicians who have been bribed by your good friend John McCarthy and the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association.
That you did nothing to implement, let alone see to it, that affirmative action policies assuring Native American Indians the right to training and employment in the construction of the Bemidji Regional Event Center is shameful; this is not the hallmark of a good city planner; but, rather, that of a die-hard racist bigot.
You obviously are not suited for public employment; you belong employed among the corrupt politicians in the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party who are responsible for keeping Native American Indians out of the decision-making process for so long--- including as participants in the Minnesota State Legislature.
That you demonstrated such deep concerns for the shrubbery to be planted around the BREC in an attempt to hide and obscure the racism without demonstrating one iota of concern for affirmative action enforcement is testament that you acted in your capacity of a "city planner" committing the most atrocious and egregious racist acts rising to "malfeasance" and "misfeasance" on the part of a public official that has now resulted in the City of Bemidji, Kraus Anderson Construction and the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development being dragged into costly and expensive litigation simply because you chose to push your bigoted and misguided racist views as public policy.
And the very worst part of all of this is that even when it was pointed out that you had acted illegally and improperly in such a racist manner, you did nothing in your capacity as a public official to make sure that existing affirmative action guidelines would be enforced in hiring the maintenance and service staff of the completed BREC with workers receiving real living wages instead of the sub-poverty level wages for which the hospitality industry, including the Indian Gaming Industry, is so nefariously and infamously known for in Minnesota and across the country of which VenuWorks--- the private firm hired to manage this public facility, the Bemidji Regional Event Center in quest of huge corporate profits--- is a party to... one more favor you did for the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association and your friend John McCarthy along with local tribal leaders who fear real living wages being paid to Bemidji Regional Event Center employees will push wages at their casinos up.
Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
Note: The minute Rita Albrecht cashes her first unemployment check she should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law which requires she be seeking gainful employment.
Through her own blog posting, Rita Albrecht has stated her intent to violate the law in collecting unemployment compensation as a form of revenge against her former employer, the City of Bemidji--- there simply is no other way to read Rita Albrecht's very own blog posting. Unemployment compensation is intended to help unemployed workers through tough and troubling times and economic hardship... not for racist public officials who have been terminated for their racist crimes in failing to implement affirmative action policies in hiring as a way to combat the racist, intentionally maintained poverty of communities of people of color.
Native American Indians living in the City of Bemidji, comprising 25% of that city's population suffer over 70% unemployment and over 80% live in conditions of the most deplorable and disgraceful poverty with three large Indian Reservations near-by suffering the same kind of racist induced debilitating and shameful poverty which is the intentional creation of a racist, corrupt and rotten-to-the-core political, social and economic system where Native American Indians are now seen by a bunch of mobsters as the base and foundation for cheap labor in their Indian Gaming Industry.
Rita Albrecht knew exactly what she was doing, and who she was doing her dirty deeds for, in failing to implement the City of Bemidji's affirmative action policies in the construction of the Bemidji Regional Event Center...
Rita Albrecht was doing a political favor for her friends John McCarthy and Minnesota State Senator Tom Bakk...
McCarthy whose clients, members of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association profit from cheap labor...
and Tom Bakk, the golden boy of the historically and presently racist building and construction trades unions who wanted to make sure that Native American Indians would not make it into the ranks of the building trades unions while working in constructing the Bemidji Regional Event Center...
for the racist Tom Bakk, it is all he can stomach that a handful of Native Americans are already members of the building and construction trades unions--- the racist Bakk, now a MNDFL candidate for Minnesota governor, can't stand to see any more Native American Indian members among his union members.
It is no accident that Tom Bakk has been one of the major benefactors from the bribes handed out by John McCarthy and the mobsters comprising the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association.
These mobsters and the politicians like Tom Bakk they pay off and the public officials these elected politicians appoint, like Rita Albrecht; are content to reap the exorbitant profits in billions upon billions of dollars from the Indian Gaming Industry as they turn a blind eye to the poverty this Indian Gaming Industry has helped to create and maintain.
As any school child understands: When you pay workers poverty wages; poverty for them, their families and the communities they live in will be the result.
One only has to ask one very simple question to see the hypocrisy in all of this:
How is it that the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association has spent millions of dollars for campaign contributions in Minnesota; yet, not one dime of this money has been used to elect Native American Indians to the Minnesota State Legislature where they could be part of the decision-making process? This is the trillion dollar question that John McCarthy and Mr. Stanley Crooks need to answer.
Why tribal elected officials and Shar Knutson of the Minnesota AFL-CIO are not asking this trillion dollar question also needs to be answered. The head of the "Summit Hill Club," Brian Melendez, who also heads up the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, refuses to tolerate any discussion pertaining to this question.
Which begs another question: Why?
In addition, there is another, final question, begging for an answer from State Senator and wannabe Minnesota Governor, Tom Bakk who complained in opposition to the "Freedom To Breath" legislation requiring all workplaces--- except for casinos to be smoke-free; that the Minnesota State Legislature had created an "unlevel playing field" for the rest of Minnesota's hospitality industry. Well, we now need to ask Tom Bakk why it is he isn't calling for "leveling the playing field" for the rest of the hospitality industry in Minnesota by taxing the Indian Gaming Industry when, in fact, taxing the Indian Gaming Industry at the same rate as the rest of the hospitality industry and other businesses in Minnesota would immediately solve all the financial problems of the State? A little detail and fact that tax-payers might want to ponder and consider as they head for the polls is 2010.Rita Albrecht in her blog boasts of being a listener and supporter of Minnesota Public Radio... is it any wonder that the major "advertisers" on Minnesota Public Radio are the members of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association and so conveniently none of these topics or subjects are ever broached by Minnesota Public Radio?
It is interesting that "reporters" like Tom Robertson always manage to cover the events sponsored by the members of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association but have not once since this casino industry has existed for well over twenty years in Minnesota, have Robertson and his "newshounds" at Minnesota Public Radio ever deemed it appropriate to explain to Minnesotans the fact that more than 40,000 Minnesotans are employed in these smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws.
For anyone seeking an answer as to why tribal officials who are so quick to point out the many violations of human rights under the the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights one has to wonder why Tom Robertson and his "newshound" colleagues of Minnesota Public Radio have never ventured to ask those like Leech Lake Band Tribal Attorney--- Frank Bibeau--- why these Draconian conditions in employment exist in the Indian Gaming Industry.
For that matter, one has to wonder why local public radio station KAXE, funded principally by the members of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association and the racist, anti-labor Blandin Foundation has never dared to touch any of these issues? Now, there is some grist for State Senator Tom Bakk and Minnesota Governor wannabe to choke on.
A point of interest:
No one can argue that Bemidji City officials, including Rita Albrecht or the Mayor, that they are unaware of the racist poverty afflicting their community because the Bemidji Food Shelf is directly across the street from the Bemidji City Hall and the offices of the Headwaters Regional Planning Commission.
Note, Albrecht says in her blog post:
"The City will pay me about $585 a week to stay home until I find a new job (or for 72 weeks, whichever comes first)."
What an interesting figure... most casino workers are lucky if they get paid this much working 50 hour weeks six days a week in smoke-filled casinos--- apparently heart, lung and cancer are their bonuses for working long hours.
Stanley Crooks forces all of his 5,000-plus employees at the majestic money-making Mystic Lakes Casino to sign a statement as condition of employment, declaring they know they will be fired for participating in union organizing activities which is in complete violation of the National Labor Relations Act... and, when fired for union organizing, the State of Minnesota refuses to pay casino workers employed in the Indian Gaming Industry unemployment benefits to which they are legally entitled by statute. Rita Albrecht gets paid $585.00 sitting home doing nothing as part of her act of revenge while casino workers get heart and lung diseases and cancers along with a life of poverty---
America!
America! Land where the Indians died on every hill and mountain side... my country 'tis of thee...
America! Ain't it great!
This is all part of what the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party and its partners, the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association and the National Indian Gaming Association, refer to as "economic opportunity" and "community development."
Most people with a sense of justice just call it exploitation, racism and poverty.
.