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[MUSIC PLAYING] GARY EICHTEN: And good morning. Welcome to Midday on Minnesota Public Radio, I'm Gary Eichten glad you could join us. It was something of A Tale of Two Cities, Minneapolis mayor Sharon Sales Belton reported on the state of her city yesterday, telling an overflow crowd at Plymouth Congregational Church that 1999 was a great year for Minneapolis.

Crime is down, the riverfront is sizzling, downtown development is booming, light rail is coming, heck, even the circus, is coming to town. But she also said there are too many people in the City of Minneapolis who aren't sharing in all this bounty, too many people who are homeless, too many students who aren't going to get a diploma this spring, and too many people especially minorities who are mired in poverty and unemployment.

Mayor Sharon Sales Belton has come by our studios today to talk about the state of the City of Minneapolis. And to take your questions and we sure invite you to join our conversation. If you're in the Twin City metro area, give us a call at 651-227-6000, 651-227-6000. Outside the Twin Cities, you can reach us toll free that number is 1-800-242-2828. 651-2770-6000 or 1-800-242-2828. Mayor, thanks for coming over today.

SHARON SALES BELTON: Oh, it's my pleasure to be here Gary. How are you doing?

GARY EICHTEN: I'm just fine. I wonder when you cross into Saint Paul, do they require a visa or a passport or anything? Or are you given free passage?

SHARON SALES BELTON: Well, on occasion norm has renewed my visa, and he and I are having a good time together right now, so I think I'm OK.

[LAUGHTER]

GARY EICHTEN: Now, yesterday you said really probably the most important news that you had to report was that crime is down so significantly in the city. What's happened? Is it just is it changing city policies? Is it changing demographics? What's going on?

SHARON SALES BELTON: Well, I absolutely believe that the best news that I told the citizens and shared with the members of the Minneapolis City Council last night that crime was down, lower than it's been in 21 years, that means since 1979. We attribute it to it to three things. Number one, we are policing smarter, and I think we're policing harder. I know a lot of people thought the code for initiative was way too aggressive, but it really has helped us to get the job done.

The other thing that I think is most important is that we're using technology to help us get in front of the crime trends. We've got information into the squad cars within minutes of things taking place and they can respond a lot quicker as a result. We feel really good about their efforts to date. We're going to start an even sharper initiative next year, and that's going to be accountability.

And we have divided the city, Gary, into these small little sections and we've identified key police officials who are responsible for driving crime down even further, and, again, small geographic areas of the city where they're responsible. We've got a good plan, the plan's paying off. We decided to get tough too, Gary. And again, I think it's important to send a strong and stiff message to the criminal element.

GARY EICHTEN: Are people aware? Do they feel safer, you think? I mean the statistics would indicate that crime is down, but the other half of the equation here is how people feel about this, their perception. And do you think people in the city actually feel safer?

SHARON SALES BELTON: You know, last night, again, celebrated the fact that crime is down lower than it has been in 21 years. But I also said that there's areas in the City of Minneapolis where drug dealing still takes place on the street. The job isn't done, we can't just go home and say well, OK, it's safe and be done with it. The perception is that crime is still prevalent. And the reality is that in some neighborhoods, you can still see evidence of it on our streets.

So we're going to push our police officers in the City of Minneapolis to continue the course of action that they're on. And then we want to do something else. We wanna focus on what we think is contributing to the crime stats in our community, much of it is fueled by the drug activity. So we're going to keep going after the drug pushers, the traffickers.

But we're also going to engage in dialogue with those who are in the chemical health community, and talk about ways that we can improve our message to those who are using drugs, creating the demand for drugs, and maybe helping them move closer to sobriety. And in March, we're going to start conversations with Hennepin County and some of our community-based chemical dependency providers, and think about a new protocol that will help us direct more people into treatment and aftercare.

GARY EICHTEN: Housing, affordable housing, it's an issue we hear a lot about, and apparently this has become a huge problem.

SHARON SALES BELTON: Well, it is absolutely a crisis, and there's no doubt about it last night at the State of the City Address, I praised the advocates for bringing the issue to the forefront. And they've got it on the front burner. And everybody that I'm talking to about housing issues is making a commitment to do something about it. City of Minneapolis increased our contributions to affordable housing by 24% in our budget.

Hennepin County put $2 million on the table, matched by Hennepin County, they've already started $1 million of McKnight funds moving forward to the county for critical responses right now. Met Council has agreed to build some 300 public housing units in the suburbs. Governor Ventura, just a few weeks ago, announced $173 million initiative to help address housing for those people who are transitioning from welfare to work.

Everybody is responding, and I think this is going to help make a difference. The problem is big, so it's not solved overnight. But the advocates have gotten the attention of a lot of people in the public and in the private sector and we will respond. Gary, I just want to impress upon the audience out there that this is not just a local problem. This is a statewide problem.

About a month ago, I was out in Detroit Lakes, and Frazee, Minnesota, and Moorhead, and New York Mills, and I was talking to the mayors there. They have a problem with the availability of housing. So we need legislators across this whole state to be responsive. And we need Congress to respond too, because it's a national problem.

GARY EICHTEN: The problem, as you know, doesn't just go away overnight. But if all the money that you're talking about is spent, well, that pretty much take care of the problem? Or are you still just kind of poking at it?

SHARON SALES BELTON: I think we're taking some steps at addressing it. The advocates in Minneapolis community would argue that in Minneapolis alone, we need to spend about $50 million. And I don't have a good handle on the numbers that we might need to spend, should we address the issue in the entire Metropolitan level or statewide? But I do know that there are advocacy groups who are spending their time thinking through those issues and probably have some more detailed information.

What I'd like to see happen over the next several weeks is for all of us to rally together, mayors across the state, counties across other state. And, again, impress upon our legislature that we need more from them and we need more from our congressional representatives in Washington. It's a combination of public and private sector dollars that is going to help us.

Gary, you said a moment ago, this is a big problem, I said it's a crisis. We can't dig ourselves out of this overnight. We have to be thoughtful, and we have to be methodical. There are a lot of different people whose housing needs are not being met, ranging from seniors, to households, where there are three, four, five and six children.

So where do we start, and where do we finish? We've got to do-- I think some work that's responsive to all these different needs over a period of time.

GARY EICHTEN: Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sales Belton is our guest this hour, and she's come by today to talk about the state of the city. She gave her Official State of the City speech last night, and thought it would be good to get her in today to talk a little bit more about some of the issues facing Minneapolis. If you'd like to join our conversation, give us a call here 651-227-6000, 651-227-6000. If you're calling from outside the Twin Cities, 1-800-242-2828 651-227-6000 or 1-800-242-2828.

The city, the state, the nation for that matter, has the lowest unemployment rate that anybody can remember.

SHARON SALES BELTON: Yes.

GARY EICHTEN: I mean, in general, if businesses are begging for workers.

SHARON SALES BELTON: Yes, they are.

GARY EICHTEN: And yet as you noted in your speech last night, there is an unusually large percentage of people, people of color, who don't have jobs. Why is that?

SHARON SALES BELTON: Well, Gary, I've been talking about this issue for a while. I wanted to highlight it again in the speech this year, because I think we're going to have to focus our attention on this problem if we really want to hold on to the quality of life that we so much enjoy in the City of Minneapolis.

If we want to continue to maintain a competitive position in the economy, which is increasingly global, we're going to have to do something about the fact that large pockets of people in our Metropolitan area are outside of the economic mainstream. So what do we do?

If you look at the problem, what we found, is that many of these people are lacking in the education and in the skills that they need in order to be competitive in the workforce. I know a lot of people will say, yeah, and they can find a job at McDonald's or Burger King and all that sort of thing, and that's all fine and dandy. It's not the kind of wage necessarily that's going to be able to provide for them to take care of their families and put a roof on over their heads and all of those wonderful things.

We need people to have the skills that they need to be competitive, to be self-sufficient, and that's the direction we need to go in. We need to be mindful of the fact that many folks don't start out with having access to good transportation and childcare, the supports they need so they can get to the work and stay at the job.

We need to work on those issues. And we need to do it in a way that is much better than we've ever done before. One of the things that we're advancing in the City of Minneapolis is an idea that's called, industry cluster. And what it says is that you pay attention to the growth industries that are in your community, you get an understanding of the skill levels that are needed by those industries, and you train people specifically to perform those tasks.

Now, some people have been out of the workforce for a long time and you got to start with them and in some very preliminary and elementary formats, like getting to work on time and being dressed appropriately and all of those things, so some have to start on that being ready for work continuum a little bit earlier than others. All that must happen if we're going to be successful with some of these individuals.

And so we're asking in the City of Minneapolis that we establish these partnerships with these growth industries, and that we focus on those folks in our community who are outside of the economic mainstream. We have three such industry clusters that we started talking about last year that are developed.

One is in construction, we're working with Summit Academy OIC, another is in the graphics, we're working with the American Indian OIC and the Dunwoody Institute, which is a wonderful organization, and we're working with American Express and the Easter Seals Organization on financial jobs.

And, again, all these industry cluster models are designed to link people who are outside of the economic mainstream with industries that are growing in our economy. This makes sense. There's a good program out there that has been doing some experimenting on this for a number of years now, called Twin Cities Rise. And they've proven that this model is successful. We've got to take it to scale.

GARY EICHTEN: Mark, your question, please.

AUDIENCE: I have a couple of things. I wanted to mention that I believe that the reason the affordable housing has disappeared in the cities, just because the tax incentives that were available a few years ago, to build apartment buildings and affordable housing have disappeared. Rather than proposing or spending $50 million on new housing like you mentioned earlier, why don't you put the tax incentives back in, so you make it viable for us to build more affordable housing?

SHARON SALES BELTON: Oh, Mark, I'm so glad that you said it, and then let me just clarify. The task force recommended that we spend $50 million. That decision hasn't been made. But they have assessed the problem and they believe that that's the level of expenditure that's needed in order for us to address the magnitude of the problem.

In the speech last night, I did talk about the tax credits. And I want you to know that there are people, other mayors across the country like me, who are trying to impress on our congressional representatives that these tax credits are absolutely important and they must be restored, so I agree with you wholeheartedly.

And in fact, I asked everybody who was at the State of the City Speech last night to draft a letter, write a letter to their congressional representative and CC a copy to me so that we know that our message is getting to our representatives. Again, this can't just happen out of Minnesota, citizens from across the 50 states have got to use this as a strategy to get the attention of Congress and get that private money flowing back in our community. Thank you so much for raising that issue, Mark.

GARY EICHTEN: Do you have a second question?

AUDIENCE: And then my next issue is, I used to have six affordable housing units in Minneapolis. And my main problem is that we get people in there that tend to erect the apartments and trash the apartments and give the neighborhood a bad name. And then we go to get them out, and the city and the county and the courts fight us all the way.

I mean, it's tough to evict someone in the Hennepin County courts, it's much easier in Saint Paul. But Hennepin County seems like the judges are all for the tenant, they don't give the landlord the benefit of the doubt.

SHARON SALES BELTON: Well, I don't know. I don't sit on the bench and I don't know enough about what the daily proceedings look like. But I will tell you this, Mark. One of the things that I've said, is that I do believe that there are people who disrespect private property. They need and are looking for quality, safe housing. And if they get it, they have some personal responsibility to maintain it. It is after all their home. I, in turn, also expect that the landlords will keep the property in good order.

Now when people violate that trust or the elements of that lease agreement, then I think that they should be evicted. And the other thing that I believe is that people who have been evicted from apartments who have done bad things, need to learn good things, need to learn how to respect and treat a property.

And I've long advocated that nonprofit organizations or others, I don't care who does it, but somebody needs to require when somebody gets an unlawful detainer that they go through some kind of training program something to help them get the skills that they need so they can be a better tenant.

So I think that there's some way for us to work through some of these issues, everybody has responsibility. Again, comparing Hennepin and Ramsey County, I just don't have enough information about how those two systems are working differently.

GARY EICHTEN: Next caller is from Hastings. Al.

AUDIENCE: Hi. Yeah, I used to live in Minneapolis for several years, and this is a little bit of a different topic. And I still enjoy going to the downtown and bringing my family to events. But it seems like every time I go downtown, I see another new bar that's opened up and supposedly what they call gentlemen's clubs, it seems to be expanding more and more throughout the city.

And I'm just wondering what the future plans for downtown are really are if it's gonna continue on this path to become more of a family-centered city?

SHARON SALES BELTON: Well, I absolutely believe that the City of Minneapolis is more family-centered. And you're going to see some exciting things are happening on the city's Mississippi Riverfront. Last night at the State of the City Address, I talked about the fact that the State Historical Society is going to be opening up, the Saint Anthony Falls Interpretive Center. At the Interpretive Center, Minnesotans and others from across the country can come and learn something about the great history of the State of Minnesota that started at Saint Anthony Falls.

We're very excited about that, and that project should open up within the next year and a half. Also on the riverfront is the Mill Ruins Park. You know, at a time in our-- I think it's our distant past, Minneapolis was the flour milling capital of the world. And, again, at the banks of the Mississippi River are some of the ruins of those old Mills, and you'll be able to walk through those ruins and learn something about the power of the Mississippi River and how that water power turned the mills and made the flour.

It's going to be really exciting, a real hands-on experience. The big news last night was we announced that Cirque du Soleil was coming to Minneapolis. And so right on the riverfront, we'll see the yellow and blue tents of the Cirque du Soleil. And more and more and more, you're gonna find more family-oriented activities going on in the City of Minneapolis.

Now don't let me miss out on telling you about the Milwaukee Depot. Because under this train sheds of the Milwaukee Depot, you're gonna be able to bring your children, your grandchildren, nieces and nephews, the whole family, up to a hotel, a skating rink, an outdoor market, and just have loads of fun in downtown Minneapolis. Yes, there's going to be bars, and hopefully there's going to be a grocery store too.

GARY EICHTEN: Al brought up the question of downtown development, and of course that leads us automatically into that what seems to be an annual question, Block E.

[LAUGHS]

There it sits right in the middle of downtown Minneapolis, prime real estate right in the heart of the entertainment district. And I guess what the latest now is yet another extension. Is anything ever going to be built there?

SHARON SALES BELTON: Now when I think Block E, I first have to go back to my memories of Block E, and how many of you out there listening, remember Moby Dick? Now they had a great Reuben sandwich, but there was a lot of other things going on in there that I think people don't want to talk about.

Block E has proven to be a challenge. We've had a lot of different developers bringing forward ideas about it. I don't know. I'm optimistic that our conversations with McCafferty Inco will actually result in a development.

I know it's been long in coming and every day that we don't close that deal, I think people get more and more-- oh, I don't know, weary about whether or not something will absolutely happen there. Block E is our 100% entertainment corner. I mean, that is the place where everything comes together.

And if we can bring a good project to that corner, Gary, so many other wonderful things are going to happen down Hennepin Avenue. It's like what happened with the state Orpheum Theatre. I mean, you look down there now and it's all tight, I mean, it looks good.

So you do Block E, and then maybe we get to deal with the Block, or the subject matter that the gentleman just talked about a minute ago, about the gentleman's club, that's a very nice way of talking about those girly show places. But if we can get Block E done, it's more likely that we can take care of some of the other blighting influences that we also see on Hennepin Avenue.

I want you to know something about the extension, it is short. I believe that on March 4, which is just three or four weeks from now, the Minneapolis City Council will be taking a final position on Block E, and we will decide that we're going to sign a development agreement and make this project happen. Or, I don't even want to say the words.

GARY EICHTEN: Start over?

SHARON SALES BELTON: You said it, I didn't.

GARY EICHTEN: Would you be willing to march out on a limb and give us a date as to when the first shovel full will be moved on Block E?

SHARON SALES BELTON: You know, I've been thinking about that. And I've been thinking that if everything goes right, we ought to see a shovel, I would prefer a backhoe, something a little bit bigger. But July.

GARY EICHTEN: In July.

SHARON SALES BELTON: July.

GARY EICHTEN: And if you have to start over, could be several years again?

SHARON SALES BELTON: Oh, I would say July 2003 or 2004.

GARY EICHTEN: Osman, your question for the mayor please. Whoops. Gone away there. Ellen, you're up next, go ahead, please.

AUDIENCE: This is Ellen from Minneapolis. And you've been talking a lot about development, which was not my question though. I just hope that when you think Block E, you visit Trafalgar Square. My heart is broken with the loss of the pedestrian thruway and the Nicollet Mall, and I hope that you can bring some of that back on the Hennepin Avenue.

But what I really wanted to call and talk about was, the lack of assistance for landlords to do repairs. I'm a housing advocate, and I work a lot with mortgagors who have gone into foreclosure. And typically, I see a lot of landlords who own a duplex or a three or four unit, they're not getting the rent to make the mortgage payment. Do they have any assistance to do necessary repairs so they do get city fines?

And I would love to see some programs to help these people out because they do offer a very valuable service in terms of affordable housing. And I'll take my comments off the air. Thank you.

GARY EICHTEN: Is that part of the approach that you think that the city is going to be following?

SHARON SALES BELTON: Well, actually, I want the caller to know that in partnership with our citizens through the neighborhood revitalization program, many of our neighborhood groups have put together revolving loan programs that both homeowners and renters and landlords can participate in.

And so I don't know what neighborhood she lives in. But if she is a resident of the City of Minneapolis, one of the things I would encourage her to do is to bring that idea back to her NRP group. In the 10 years that NRP has been in operation, they have spent over $76 million in housing, and again, on a wide range of opportunities.

And I think that there are a lot of people who really have affirmed through their action plans that rental properties are an important element of the housing mix that is available in the community. And I'd also like to dispel another myth that's out there. It's not just the low-income people who are renting housing.

For a lot of reasons, people don't want to be homeowners. Now of course like to see as much home ownership in the City of Minneapolis as I possibly can. But I don't make any value judgments about people because they decide to be a renter or a homeowner. So you'll find the residents of the City of Minneapolis, those who are involved in our NRP, really receptive to some of the ideas that we heard.

I also want to say to the caller that there's a group of individuals who are working right now on putting together a pedestrian level of streetscape for Hennepin Avenue. Now the plan hasn't been fully presented to the city, but I expect over the next several months that we will get their proposal and then we'll be talking about how through a public private partnership we can bring more pedestrian character to Hennepin Avenue.

GARY EICHTEN: Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sales Belton is our guest this hour. She's come by our studios to report on the state of the city. And if you'd like to join our conversation, give us a call here 651-227-6000, 651-227-6000. Or outside the Twin Cities 1-800-242-2828. We'll get to some more callers in just a couple of minutes.

SPEAKER 1: Programming on MPR is supported by KARE 11 news, a tradition of community service and award-winning journalism. Local news with a national reputation. KARE 11.

SPEAKER 2: The Sound Money Personal Finance Fair is going on right now, and you won't want to miss it. Find out how to protect your IRA from the IRS. Get Erika [INAUDIBLE] 10 hot stock picks. Learn about women and money from Ruth Hayden. Yes, it's all at the Sound Money Personal Finance Fair, going on right now at International Market Square in Minneapolis. For tickets, call 1-800-228-7123, or visit our website at soundmoney.org.

GARY EICHTEN: Time now for news headlines, here's Greta Cunningham. Greta?

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: Good morning, Gary. President Clinton says there's still hope of finding a last minute solution to the deadlock in the Northern Ireland peace process. He says he's working with members of his administration to try to save the agreement. Today is the deadline Britain set for the Irish Republican Army to lay down its weapons, and London appears ready to strip power from the province's Protestant Catholic cabinet based on the IRAs apparent refusal to disarm. Northern Ireland Secretary says talks are continuing today.

Inspections continue at the nation's major airlines following the discovery of a damaged tail wing piece of the crashed Alaska Airlines jet. The airline has grounded two more of its own jets. It has also taken out ads in newspapers to thank the public for its support after the tragedy.

Nelson Mandela returned today to the tiny South African village where he was born, for the opening of a museum honoring his life. Today is the 10th anniversary of Mandela's release from prison, he was confined for 27 years for opposing his country's racial segregation policies. Mandela went on to become the president of South Africa, he retired last June.

In regional news, Governor Ventura is keeping quiet on his political future until his 1 o'clock news conference, at the governor's residence in Saint Paul. But officials close to the nation's first Reform Party governor, say he now wants to drop all ties to the party and maybe set up a new organization.

Ventura is said to be fed up with the infighting in the National Reform Party. The forecast for the State of Minnesota today calls for sunshine statewide. High temperatures from 5 above in the north, to near 20 in the south. Tonight it will be cold statewide with clouds in the west, clear skies in the east. Low temperatures tonight ranging from zero in the southwest, to 20 below zero in the northeast.

At this hour, Duluth reports sunshine a temperature of 4 above. It's sunny in Saint-Cloud, a temperature of 3 above. Rochester reports sunshine and 8 above. And in the Twin Cities sunny skies, a temperature of 10 above zero. Gary, that's a check on the latest news.

GARY EICHTEN: All right. Thanks, Greta. 25 minutes before noon, this is Midday coming to you on Minnesota Public Radio. Our guests this hour, Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sales Belton, joining us today to talk about the state of the city. Mayor, one of the things you mentioned yesterday in your official address was the fact that a relatively large number of students in Minneapolis are not going to be able to get a diploma this spring because they haven't passed the basic skills test, and a particularly acute problem among minority students.

What happened? Did the school system fail them? Have they failed to take proper responsibility for their education? Have their parents not done their job? What happened?

SHARON SALES BELTON: Well, first of all, I think it's everybody's job to ensure that our children are getting a good education. And I think it is one of the best things that we can do to make sure that more of our seniors are going to be prepared to pass, that graduation test is to start earlier in the educational process.

Two years ago, we launched a program called Everybody Reads. The focus is to make sure that kids are reading at grade level by third grade. This isn't my idea. This is based on scientific study and research that says if kids are mastering basic skills by third grade, they're more likely to have higher self-esteem, they're less likely as they move through puberty to get in trouble and to get hassled.

So it makes sense to me that we would be working with our young students earlier, and I asked people to do that last night. We need more volunteers coming into our public schools and working alongside of our teachers. We need more volunteers working with our kids at the after school programs offered by the YWCA and the Boys and Girls Club, and all the other wonderful organizations that are serving their youth.

Our parents need to be on the case. They need to be asking their kids every night. Do you have homework? Did the homework get done? There's homework helpers offered by the library. There's homework help offered by teachers of our public school. We just have to coordinate this thing better.

Personal responsibility is really the key here. And everybody's got to take personal responsibility. One of the students talked about the fact that he kind of blew it off, he really didn't take it seriously until it was the last minute. Now he's cramming. I don't know if he's going to be able to cram enough to make it by September. I hope he does. Because if he doesn't, he's going to have trouble landing a good and decent job and transitioning into adulthood in the way that we would hope for him.

So I feel badly, of course, about the level of this statistic. But I want you to know that I do not believe that it is hopeless. There is enough time for us to rally around these students that are at this threshold right now to get them through the door. But when we do that, we must understand that an army, an army of citizens, parents, and others, need to get involved with these kids who are going to be coming through this threshold the next round.

Best bet, start early, stay the course with these children. The future of our city, our region, is connected directly to how well they're doing in school.

GARY EICHTEN: Michelle, your question please.

AUDIENCE: I don't have a question. You answered so much of it just in the last minute. I am a teacher at an alternative school in Minneapolis, and it is too late to be making sure they're OK in 9th grade.

SHARON SALES BELTON: Right.

AUDIENCE: That's really what I have to say. I work with my children in first, second, and third grade, my own personal children, every single night for a half hour or an hour of homework. It cannot happen with us teachers alone. And I just applaud you for being bold enough to say it takes personal responsibility. More and more people need to hear it.

And I teach the kids in the alternative school who can't make it in the public school for one reason or another. And I see every day that it is too late when in 9th grade. And it isn't without hope, but I mean for them to really have viable skills, it's way too late.

So I really encourage parents, every single parent, grandparent, neighbor, everybody, talk about reading, reading, reading. And early childhood needs to be pushed even more in community education. And if you can have any influence on that, I encourage that too.

SHARON SALES BELTON: Well, you can count on me to be speaking up on these issues. You know, I was fortunate to serve on the city council when Don Fraser was the mayor, and Richard Greene was the superintendent of public schools. And I remember, those many years ago, we walked in the door and said, look, we can't deal with these problems and issues that are coming through our door without the help of the city.

Our future is tied together and we need you to be advocates for public education. Well, I'm an advocate of public education, and I'm an advocate for strong partnerships between the community, and the teachers, and the parents. And if we do this right and we make improvements every year. And if we make the commitment, to do it right and do it better, we can get this job done, Gary.

Remember we talked about the fact that the majority of the people who are outside of the economic mainstream are people who are of color? Well, I would ask them to take the time to look at what happened to them when they were in the educational experience. Did they graduate at the top of their class? Did they graduate? Could they read and write when they left school?

And I would venture to say that many of them couldn't and didn't. Last night in the speech and this is probably going to get me in a little bit of trouble, but I did say when people do get in trouble and are before the bench, and by that I mean that the judicial bench, we need encourage our judges to help us in this educational dilemma.

And when people come into the courtroom and they don't have their high school diploma, they can't read and write, they don't have their GED, there are a number of nonprofit organizations out there, that will work with them. Sentence them as a part of their probation to get their high school diploma or their GED.

If they go to the workhouse or something like that, tell them they got to get their high school diploma or their GED before they get out the door. Help them have the tools that they need so that they don't go back into that revolving door in the criminal justice system. I know everybody believes this but we've got to take some proactive steps to get this job done, to tackle this problem, and everybody's got a role to play.

GARY EICHTEN: You pushed hard for a return to neighborhood schools in Minneapolis, has that made any difference? Or the NAACP has suggested that in fact it's probably exacerbated the problem made it worse by increasing segregation in the city.

SHARON SALES BELTON: Well, see, I don't agree with the NAACP, and I've said that before. I think the issue isn't necessarily about segregation, although I think segregation is a problem. I don't believe that we ought to be concentrating poverty in any part or section of the city. And we've been working hard in the City of Minneapolis against that. In fact, I led a charge years ago that talked about trying to move forward to establishing a housing policy that talked about mixed-income neighborhoods.

We're building a mixed-income neighborhood are planning to on the near north side, again, in an area of the city where poverty was concentrated, where people didn't really seem to move as quickly as we wanted them to out of the jaws of poverty and the ugly things that come sometimes with that. And so we thought if we could make our neighborhoods more integrated, kids would do better.

One of the things that I want to tell you about the drive for community schools, is that I wanted kids to have the option. And look at community schools as a choice. I wanted our kids to have the option of being able to go to school in their neighborhood. I wanted their parents to have the option of being able to walk down the street, across the street, into the classroom to sit there with that child, be with that teacher, monitor what's going on in that school and be a part of it, and change it from within.

I think the NAACP hasn't acknowledged the fact that children still in the City of Minneapolis can be bused outside of their neighborhood, across town if they want to, or they can walk down the street to the school right there in their neighborhood.

I think they're missing the point. This is about accountability, this is about teacher accountability, parental accountability, administrative accountability, community accountability. But this idea and notion that you just pluck some kid down next to somebody who's got a bunch of resources and a bunch of money and that's going to mean automatically they're going to learn, I don't think is in keeping with the facts.

I also think that we need to make sure that our public schools are equipped with the tools that they need, so that our kids can learn. I might need an extra computer. I might need more books. I might need better staffing in a city, in a school in an inner city. Well, if that's what I need for our children to learn in that school, I should have that.

And so on that point, I think the NAACP and I agree. But the villain here, the problem is not the community school. It's a bigger problem. And that's what we need to be paying attention to.

GARY EICHTEN: Bruce, your question for the mayor?

AUDIENCE: Hi, Mayor. I would like to take you back to the affordable housing issue for a moment.

SHARON SALES BELTON: Sure.

AUDIENCE: And I actually take a different point of view on it. I think that actually, it's kind of like as a glass half-empty or half-full. And I think you take a perspective of it being half-empty. I live in Minneapolis, I own a home. And I think there is affordable housing. And while I agree, there needs to be some changes and improvements. I think that the answers lie more in the surrounding communities.

And the participation with those mayors and the people in the community with coming up with answers for affordable housing rather than necessarily the taxpayers and the citizens of Minneapolis. I was wondering if do you have a process for participation with the other mayors, for instance, with Edina or Eden Prairie or Plymouth, to come up with solutions rather than just looking at Minneapolis and the citizens and taxpayers?

SHARON SALES BELTON: Well, I think that there's a lot of work that's been going on for quite some time with regard to suburban communities, suburban mayors being in dialogue about housing being affordable. And I think there's a myth or a misconception out there that our suburban mayors don't believe that there's a need for affordable housing in their communities.

They just like I, watched the lives of their citizens change for a number of reasons-- people lose their job, people's jobs are downsized, therefore they have to downsize their housing, people divorce. There's all kinds of things that a cause of suburban mayors to need or to call for affordable housing in their community.

And caller, I want you to know that probably for the last five years, mayors from the metropolitan area, there's a handful of us, maybe 10 or 12, have gotten together to talk about our metropolitan agenda around housing, around transportation, and around other issues of the infrastructure and really are trying to move and proceed with one voice.

In fact, I think our collective support helped the legislature embrace the Metro Livability Act. We mayors support that. We mayors believe that there ought to be a pool of money made available to the Met Council that would help us address issues of housing, transportation, and economic development.

So I think you'll see more things happen along this line. I just don't think that particular work gets a lot of coverage. We've asked the advocates for affordable housing to also take the message of the need across the metropolitan area. Because we do think that with more partners in the discussion, we'll be able to get more done.

GARY EICHTEN: Light rail transit, House Republicans at the legislature are going to try to repeal the state funding for the program. And if that happened presumably, the line would not be built. Their suggesting instead high speed bus ways. I imagine you would prefer the light rail line?

SHARON SALES BELTON: Yeah, I'm an advocate of the light rail line being built first along Hiawatha.

GARY EICHTEN: For transportation purposes or for development purposes?

SHARON SALES BELTON: For both, for both. You know, Gary, I've actually gotten up early in the morning and got on a bus that was taking residents from north Minneapolis out to Plymouth to a job fair so that they can talk to suburban employers about opportunities to be gainfully employed. I stood in the lines with them as they were trying to fill out applications so that they might have a chance to get one of those jobs.

And, again, one of the barriers that they talked about was that of transportation. There was a little bus that picked us up, I don't know it, maybe 20 people could fit on the bus or whatever, was packed with people who were looking for opportunities. Challenges once they get the job, if they get the job, they got to figure out how to get to work on the bus every day.

Now if they got the little child that they got to send to the daycare first and everybody's got to get on the bus corner and kind of get out there. I mean, it makes it a little bit challenging to take three or four transfers to get to the destination.

So we got to think a little bit differently about how we can make that easier. Now there's a lot of different answers, maybe the daycare is at the work site, and the kid and the worker get on the bus and they go to the same destination. Well, I don't want to say that light rail is the only answer and the only solution.

But the truth of the matter is mass transportation ought to help us move our citizens more readily to where those employment centers are. Hiawatha will do that. There's a big employment center between the City of Minneapolis-- the airport and the Mall of America, who works at those jobs.

Many of them are low-skilled workers. The wages are good, they've got some benefits, but we've got to be able to get out there and get out there with relative ease. The development potential for light rail is also good, and growing the tax base is important.

The estimates that I've seen with light rail suggest that some 50,000 new jobs can be created as a result of some of this investment. I wish, the House Republicans would try to accept the idea that it is possible for us to move forward and make investments in roads and bridges that are needed in outstate Minnesota, greater Minnesota. And as well-understand that in the metropolitan area where we're seeing more density and population, we have to have some alternative ways of getting people into the downtown.

Have you seen 15 buses line up along Marquette Avenue at 7:15 in the morning? I have. And I know what it does to the thousands of other cars that are coming in with single occupants into the downtown to park in the parking facilities of the downtown. We need some alternatives.

Minneapolis, the metropolitan areas needs are different friend than some of the other parts of the city. It is smart for us to recognize that the federal government is willing to pay part of the bill for light rail, if we do it in the City of Minneapolis and in the metropolitan area. I think it's not wise for the Minnesota legislature to turn down a commitment of federal dollars to help us rebuild the transportation infrastructure of the State of Minnesota.

GARY EICHTEN: We're just about out of time, but let's squeeze one more caller on here quickly. Rich, a real quick question please.

AUDIENCE: Yeah. Thank you for taking my call. I'm just interested to know if there are any discussions going on about the Twin Stadium, and if that's being considered any further for downtown development?

SHARON SALES BELTON: Well, let me tell you. Right now in downtown, we got about $20 billion worth of development going on. $20 billion last year when I was here, I said $1 billion, now it's 20. We've got more development activity going on in Minneapolis than New York or than in Chicago. Not per capita, just plain more, and we're really excited about that people are confident in our community.

Now when I talk about confidence in community, and I talk about vitality. I think professional sports does contribute some vitality to the downtown, or to the city, to the state, to the region. And so I'd like to see that discussion continue. Unfortunately caller, I don't believe that it's going to really be on our plate for the year 2000.

GARY EICHTEN: Is there a place for the Twins anymore? Now the Guthrie is going to have that nice spot along the river that you had talked about for the ballpark. They're going to or they're talking about renovating the Metrodome for the Vikings, Vikings only. Does that mean the Twins will be leaving town?

SHARON SALES BELTON: No way. I want you to know-- well, I shouldn't say no way cause who knows what's going to happen in the future? But if the question is, there a site in downtown Minneapolis that could host the Twins? I think that the answer to that is absolutely yes. Our staff has already identified four alternative sites. When we identify the riverfront site, Gary, we had four the sites of then. The riverfront site was the cheapest because it was owned by the public. And it was the most magnificent because it was on the banks of the Mississippi River.

But if we use that site for the Guthrie, we still will have alternatives. One of the things that I want you to also know is that there's a big discussion going on in Minneapolis. It's not big in terms of numbers, but it's big in the sense that people are talking about how can we approach this issue differently? Maybe we don't need the giant-sized baseball stadium that people were talking about. Maybe smaller is better.

There's architects all over the country who are talking about smaller is better. We've had Philip best in town talking about that. And the last point that I made, is that I think the public want to see, the private sector put more money in than the public sector. But I will tell you this. The baseball and football discussions won't go away. I think people love the Minnesota Twins and the Minnesota Vikings.

GARY EICHTEN: You run for re-election next year?

SHARON SALES BELTON: Absolutely.

GARY EICHTEN: You are?

SHARON SALES BELTON: Yes. You heard it first.

GARY EICHTEN: Run for governor then?

SHARON SALES BELTON: Oh, I didn't want to talk that far into the future.

GARY EICHTEN: But a possibility.

SHARON SALES BELTON: Well, you know I got to tell you this. This is my home state. I love it. And I enjoy public service. And I would do all that I can for as long as I can to serve the public.

GARY EICHTEN: Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sales Belton, thanks for coming in today. Mayor Belton reporting on the State of the City.

On the next Word of Mouth, the Walker Art Center's new show. Let's entertain life's guilty pleasures. Which looks at the ever blurring lines between art and entertainment. It also has a couple of pieces likely to make visitors a little uncomfortable.

SPEAKER 3: I have to ask you about these sculptures here.

SPEAKER 4: This is a dressing room. This is a bench.

SPEAKER 3: No, no, no, the other one's.

GARY EICHTEN: The show that made editor Euan Kerr blush. Tonight at 6:00 on Word of Mouth. Time now for The Writer's Almanac.