NewsNight Minnesota; 7064; NewsNight Minnesota Episode from 12/21/1999; SD-Base

NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is a production of Katy CA with the stations of Minnesota Public Television. OK we're going to open up tonight's show by introducing ourselves to harden. Is there anybody who doesn't know that. My mom. OK I'm Mary last hour this is NEWSNIGHT. Ken Stone is supposedly off tonight working on a story. Know what he thinks. Well back here in the studio we'll sit down with Representative Bill Luther and one of the best journalists around Dave Nema. He's here to preview his new documentary. Very good indeed but first we're going to have the headlines. Minnesota is made possible in part with support from the Blanton Foundation creating a stronger Minnesota by bridging rural and urban communities and by the McKnight foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life for Minnesota families business and technology reporting on NEWSNIGHT. Minnesota is supported in part by the law firm of grape plant providing legal and business council for more than 125 years.

Beginning our headlines tonight. The Katy Poyer abduction Task Force announced a legislative initiative today that seeks to integrate Criminal Justice Information Systems. There are more than a thousand state criminal justice agencies and few of them share critical information. Mothers from several high profile abduction cases came to the Capitol today to announce the initiative with state lawmakers to push for better sharing of criminal information systems. I don't even know where to start. Thank you. We've been looking for Jacob for a long time. This is not an emotional response to something that just happened to Katie or to Kelly. I believe that every parent in this state believes that if something happens to their child if they down one on one and say My child is missing that the police know what to do. That they'll know who's in the area that these agencies will talk to each other.

Yesterday December 20th marked our eighth anniversary of Kellie's death. She was 12 years old and soon to be 13. In 24 hours after Caylee's death the PCa had gathered a 6 to 7 month County area of all the sex offenders that were there 40 percent to one. They went door knocking were never found. 40 percent and we're a small county. When we were told that Katie was missing. I felt like it was. The TV show Law and Order. That is going to be solved within 55 minutes. And it wasn't. The first three hours. As statistics show it's the most critical. After that. Poll. Are looking at things. Turn to a different role. What we're asking for if we had this in place

is that it might again. I'm like. That's a lot better than I don't think so. Everyone we don't know whether they're restricted from owning a firearm. We have incomplete fingerprint records and arrest records. We have no photo images. We have incomplete sex offender registration information. In complete conviction felony gross misdemeanor conviction information. This is the single biggest issue facing the criminal justice system today. We need to have the information in order to make some sound informed decisions. The figure roughly is in the neighborhood of 15 million. In this day and age we have a surplus. There is nothing more basic than the safety of our communities the safety of our children and families. And with this kind of surplus the boat loads or whatever the figure we're using about the surplus. This is critical. We don't have to raise taxes. We have the money.

This is the kind of investment we last made we have the money in Minnesota to do something we've made many good laws over the last. 10 years that I know of. But we don't fund them. We don't know where the sex offenders are because we didn't put the money into keeping them keeping track of them we have a lot of projects that are really good and there are a lot of caring people in law enforcement with and in the whole system who do not have the funds to do the job that we're expecting them to do the time is now to put some money into building the system and to making it work for checkups for Kelly for Katie for every one of your children out there. In Cali Jones case we have a 45 to one hour window of opportunity when her crime happened. If we have a system that sex offenders were registered in all the facts are known about it do you think that would help. You bet it would. Problem is that I see is that criminals know about this. So this is why it happens. They know that. You know. We changed the

name 14 15 times. Maybe if we had it in place I have a home this Christmas. But I don't. And the last thing one night when I talk to Kate on the phone was I'll see you tomorrow Mom. I love you. There is no tomorrow. The task force will announce more proposals in the future dealing with tracking of sex offenders crime prevention and convenience stories. Say Paul Mayor Norm Coleman announced today what he called an early Christmas present for the city of St. Paul. Coleman says Conseco finance will add about 700 employees to the 14 hundred that already work downtown. But the deal comes at a price. The city is going to spend three million dollars to provide parking for Conseco employees. Coleman says a city like St. Paul sometimes have to offer big money to keep companies from leaving town. Just a couple days before Christmas when Conseco says that they're going to stay in St. Paul they're going to grow in St. Paul. You know that's that's critical. The reality is for a company

like this there are simply other options out there and I was having other options in other communities in which parking is easier to solve. And which there's green space I mean there are always challenges in keeping jobs and of course city hall employees will work at the Landmark Center and at First National Bank they'll be shuttled there from a new parking facility to be built under the Lafayette bridge. Two of North America's biggest railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Canadian National are planning to merge the six point two billion dollar transaction would create the largest railroad company on the continent. The new company North American railways would have 50000 miles of track some shippers are already protesting the merger saying a giant company wouldn't be responsive to the needs of smaller customers. They Minnesota Court of Appeals has turned down a challenge over the tobacco money paid to Michael's three Cs law firm received firm was hired by then Attorney General Skip Humphrey on a contingency fee basis. So when the state got more than 6 billion dollars from

tobacco companies the receipts firm was paid four hundred forty million dollars. Now several Republicans filed suit claiming Humphrey did not have the right to sign such a contract but the Court of Appeals ruled the group did not have any legal standing to challenge the deal. All right tonight we're continuing our discussions with Minnesota's legislative leader is there back from Washington Reid charging among the home folk. Tonight we welcome from the 6th District Democrat bill then I want to thank you so much for coming down I want to start out asking you about the press conference I believe you had. Just a few weeks ago because we have part of that on Newsnight and you were talking about you're with the senior Federation I believe and talking about the prices people are paying for medications. What's your general take on that right. Basically I released the results of some studies that showed that if you're an HMO an insurance company or even the government or certainly someone in Mexico or Canada you can buy prescription drugs at a price much less than what a person can buy going into a pharmacy here in this country and particularly in my district. It's just plain wrong.

And so what I'm doing is working on legislation with others in Congress to change that situation which of course then has prompted the pharmaceutical companies to target four of us in the country that are working on this with ads claiming that we are upsetting the current situation for prescription drugs. Those are very deceptive ads as well and so basically what we're doing in the press conference is letting people know the truth is that the part about what I'm hearing is just because you. You may get a certain drug in Canada or Mexico may not mean you're talking about the same quantity you don't buy that argument. Well we actually made sure the study was done with the same drugs we were talking about apples and apples. But what's really deceptive about it is coming on with some group called Citizens for Better Medicare. Now when you think of that name on a group you think a few senior citizens sitting around the coffee table working on this issue. In fact it's money being pumped in by the pharmaceutical industry. If they had a case they could come right on TV and say where the pharmaceutical industry in this is our position and we could have a rational discussion.

They're not doing that because they cannot make a case for treating people that unfairly. And so that's why exactly why we're working on legislation to make sure that our most hard pressed seniors are the ones that are getting the lowest priced health care. So what realist really is going to happen on this is I've been hearing a lot of different proposals from a lot of different representatives and senators. What can we expect. Well hopefully we can even start talking about Medicare coverage of prescription drugs. The president has a proposal but we need to work out the financing of it along with the other issues regarding the solvency of Medicare. But what we what we're trying to do is to move the agenda forward making sure we don't just stick with the status quo something has to be done. People are being eaten up by the cost of prescription drugs and something has to happen. And we need to move on to that in the next session of Congress. All right like John like privacy rights even working on that. But that's all very much so. It's my position that a person's personal information terms of their expenditures their medical information their checking account that's their personal

information and they should be able to control it. We had a major bill that allowed to find the financial industry to consolidate and so we're going to be looking at a lot of mergers a lot of consolidation among insurance companies financial services companies banks of brokerages and there are some arguments in favor of that. But the problem with that is that people who who thought that they had given their information and that it was being treated confidentially. Now that information particularly with the Internet can be traveling all over. And it's just plain wrong to be taking people's information without their permission. So I've been conducting that fight. We weren't as successful as we would have liked on that bill. And so now we are pushing a freestanding bill to try to insist on the privacy my catch in Minnesota has been doing a very good job and has really set a benchmark for the country we want to make sure that same standard gets applied across the country. All right now this is what your third term right. Are you going to cringe when this time here

comes up when you're talking about reelection and you have. Your colleagues are probably scared to death to do anything major because they don't want to spoil the whole pie by next year. What do you say to your constituents in a situation like this I mean because people are looking for you to do something but everybody's in a holdback position. Well clearly I'm not in the hold back position in terms of the positions that I'm taking on both privacy and prescription drugs. And you just have to hope that the people will see who is out in front on these issues conducting these battles. There are not easy battles when you get hit by millions of dollars of special interest money like on the prescription drugs by deceptive efforts like that. It's not easy but these are issues that have been in Congress for a long time should have been dealt with way before now. And I think in many respects the public is way ahead of Congress and it's very frustrating to see that kind of status quo mode in Washington in fact this session. Very little got done and it's unfortunate because there are pressing issues the American people understand

that and it's time Congress gets onto them so I'm going to be one of the people out in the forefront pushing on those issues. And I'll let the voters decide the election. If you can push anything next year beside the things we've talked about what would you say work on this right now what would it be. It will be education to the issue of the future. I'm convinced is education. We've fought world wars we've put a man on the moon as we look to the next millennium right now and that's an appropriate thing for us to be talking about right now. It's education that's going to decide the future of this country in the future the people of this country. We need we need the most educated workforce in the world. And we're clearly dealing with a global economy and that's going to decide our future so that will be the issue we need to be spending a lot more time on as a country. All right Representative Bill Luther know your last name. My first THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. Family one thousand two hundred

eighty two dollars. As a result of auto accident there's never enough. You just met Randy Osborne he tells a story about poverty that stats and politicians can't see that and other stories of families living through welfare reform in the locally produced documentary on the outside looking in. And you can see that tonight at 9 o'clock on Katie CA Channel 2. That's in the Twin Cities and for you greater Minnesota viewers you can check the local listings and here to tell us more we're pleased to welcome Dave Namor of course former WCCO reporter and he now teaches at the University of St. Thomas and

was one of the producers of on the outside looking in first of all they have to say what a pleasure it was to hear your voice again. And one of those many people who grew up listening to you and it's wonderful to hear you again and I'm wondering initially when you went into this. How did you choose the families and what was the process. Mary there were families that came to my colleague Thomas a sociologist by the name of Stephen a librarian had been active in dealing with one of the mothers. And I knew another of I knew Chad Thompson a 25 year old young man. And then we knew some nuns on the Northside women who did good work on the street and they introduced us to these other families. So we don't make any pretense of presenting a representative sample leisured people who said to us look come along you can put a camera in our faces and come along for the ride. And I was always amazed because these are tough lives they live and sometimes I have to imagine that there are folks sitting out there thinking that their welfare queens out there who are living somewhere high and mighty live. It's not it's not so it takes a lot of energy just to survive the

life. And I was amazed by the grace of these people saying come on in and take a look. You say they're not a representative sample. What were you cognizant of balancing race and gender in issues like that because they do follow those rules fairly well and in balancing it wasn't it wasn't a race issue we're trying to look at people who are suffering and people who didn't get their fair share. And I thought that we saw a lot more of them than I would have expected in the past 20 years since 1985 the top quintile of Minnesotans have seen their average income go up from ninety thousand two hundred twenty thousand dollars. And for those at the bottom Mary it's less than $15000 a year. And it just struck us that there's something wrong with that not everybody is participating equally. And when you look at a guy like Randy I was born who says to his kids at the end of the month can you go a little easy on the food. Then it sucks the air out of your lungs when you listen to stories like that. And I have to

feel that there is some more that collectively people could do. You mention the good times we are in this amazing economic boom for some the 6 billion dollar surplus. What do you think the contrast here is just startling for you were maybe experiencing these great economic times to see kind of the other half or the other fourth as you mentioned. What we hope that somebody would come along and say look these are all very human faces and we didn't dredge up the only people in the Twin Cities who are living like this we found we found people live that anyone could find if you or she is looking you can go down to the homeless shelters in Minneapolis and find people standing on the street corners the cops call it the Holcim in trail. You can you can find people who are hurting all over. And I think what we'd like to say is that look you know has a very human face and if you're going to tell people to go to work and no one would deny the value of going to work then you also have to provide them with some basic level support. Mary you can't go to work if you

if you are clinically depressed. It's hard to go to work if you don't have a telephone to call an employer. It's harder to go to work if the job is out near the airport in Bloomington a you don't have a car and you don't have bus fare. It's hard to go to work if you can't find somebody to take your kids. You mention this puts a human face on it it does it it accomplishes that basic tenet of journalism to humanize and I think we have a clip here that shows a great example of the humanity and how you got them to be honest I want to go get a job. They're going to take money from regret. You're welcome. How is that helping you when you get a paycheck I want to see this. So then they can cut some money off of your grant. How is that helping you. Sparks interview with a bus company makes it clear that she also needs training in how to present herself to an employer. Then I asked him what I'd do if some gang members got on a bus. And started a fight. I said I stopped the bus pocketing comment then try to break it up and then

break it up. I thought hands off the bus that was the wrong answer. Well Dave that's clearly a very candid response how do you think you develop that trust to be able to get that type of sound from a person. Well Mary I'd like to say that we had their trust but I think after after a while at least they weren't quite as suspicious and there's something something really nice about do you need a spark she's going to tell it how it is and I think most people were able at least to begin to tell us how it is. I was glad that we got at least to show you a little a little a little snippet of their lives and one of the things that I was thinking is that you know there are a couple of things that that would be really useful in a society one is to use to for I had more affordable housing. You know if you're going to go to work then you've got to have a stable home life. And there isn't enough affordable housing. The Anita has been on the move eight times. She moved eight times in eight weeks to wind up eight hundred feet from where she started.

And that's what we see I don't want to ruin it for people at the end but I don't know if you would call all of these people success stories at the end we people are in and out of shelters. And would you call any of these five families a success story in welfare reform. No not in the traditional sense but the families are all together. The mothers are still taking care of children. The father is still concerned that his children have enough to eat at the end of the month and no family has disappeared. They're not off the radar screens but no one has as found that kind of success that the rest of us are enjoying. How about the state statistics though it says 25 even up to 50 percent of people who are on welfare are supposedly working now. They are. And Mary I don't argue with that with the people who are far better experts than I am but those are the easy ones. We've now got the easy ones who use just a little nudge say in here you just need a little push and you're in the workforce. Well now we're at the high. If the hard core problems and that's going to take more than a little nudge is also going to have to have some kind of a safety net that says look we can do more to get you ready to go out there.

Dave Namor a pleasure to hear your voice on the airwaves again and again. I know what I'll be doing at 9:00 o'clock tonight be there for the outside looking in general tell me why. You wrote your response. It was drawn to you. This is your greasy blood. Right folks we are on a roll out with a piece of music that warmed Hearts last season Howard Moore's stage production of how to talk Minnesotan has become a standard in these parts of the country. The play is back on stage at the Plymouth playhouse. We enjoyed these characters

so much thought we'd show it one more time have a look. Read By the way ESPN. With my brothers and all this with my brothers they're nice others in the suit and are her brothers and

sisters and all we can feel are told is actually Sharon shows how happy we all ran up they are very very old shack in the woods and that kicks the dangling grubs and worms and maggots from sticks the boys in the world with the boys and the others in the really big others and there's none in the way to take an days off to play outside of a

new. Others in charge hahaha. Others that even happen. There's a nice welcome you know you were wilder then right. Oh other than rice. They don't get it do you. I love that. Let me play out how to talk Minnesotan Dude check it out.

Yeah they're pretty got there hon I love that yeah do you think that was good. Now and that special is on tonight at 9 o'clock. Yeah that should be really good the documentary. All right you want to talk innocent last time I did people got me to stick to my African. Yeah but I'm Norwegian I can get away with it. Very good. Yeah you can go and say good night right. Thanks for joining us tonight. All right you know your mom you know Mark. NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is made possible in part with support from the bland and Foundation creating

a stronger Minnesota by bridging rural and urban communities. And by the McKnight foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life for Minnesota family business and technology reporting on NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is supported in part by the law firm of great plant providing legal and business counsel for more than 125 years.