by Rochelle Olson, June 13, 2005
» Portable toilets, wading pools and a problematic superintendent search will be flashpoints in this year’s Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board election campaign.
A wave of challengers have surfaced in a push to reshape the board’s controlling power and its philosophy.
Three board members — John Erwin, Marie Hauser and Vivian Mason — have decided against seeking reelection. Therefore, the nine-member board will have at least three new faces.
In recent years, the board has been held up to ridicule because of high-profile dysfunction, the most prominent, of which was the superintendent search of 2003.
The board had been searching for a replacement for Superintendent Mary Merrill Anderson, whose contract had not been renewed.
Both superintendent finalists, however, withdrew in mid-December.
Rather than go back to the pool of applicants, then-board President Bob Fine tapped Jon Gurban, whom he had known since high school, who had not applied or been interviewed for the job.
At a rancorous meeting, the board voted 5 to 4 to hire Gurban as an interim superintendent. A year later, the board hired him permanently. «
Read entire article at Star Tribune web site.
Minneapolis Park Watch 
The most laughable part of the article was Christine Hansen claiming to run on a “reform agenda.” As the Pat Scott’s handpicked candidate for the seat being vacated by Vivian Mason, she is anything but a reform candidate. Hansen would just become the new Kummer on the Board.
I believe Rochelle Olson tried to write an accurate article. She or her editors, however, made a couple of factual errors. One of them is this one. The real reform candidate in district 4 is Tracy Nordstrom. Hansen is simply a Kenwood dilettant.