Vices and all, she was people's politician

Dateline Minneapolis notes the recent passing of Sandra Hilary, the former Minneapolis City Council member and Hennepin County commissioner.

Hilary was a remarkable public official, perhaps most remarkable in the way she shared the pathologies of some constituents.

This reporter remembers getting the tip from a colleague back in 1994 that Hilary had become a compulsive gambler. We hear lots of wild talk in this business; with no little skepticism I headed immediately to her office two blocks away to quiz her. To her credit and my amazement, she immediately fessed up to gambling losses that reached into the high five figures.

Make no mistake: Hilary hurt badly some of the people closest to her by borrowing from them to feed her habit and then seeking bankruptcy protection.

It wasn't the first time she'd seen the seamier side of life. She'd grown up with an alcoholic father. She'd dropped out of school at 16. She'd been a teenage mother, an abused wife, a drunk. She'd spent a night in jail.

This background shaped her ability to articulate the needs of her largely working-class constituency, and that's what people recalled when they heard of her death in Iowa, where she spent her final years.

"She really stood up for people," said Council Member Lisa Goodman. She never forgot her roots, added Diane Hofstede, the latest council member to occupy the Third Ward council seat Hilary assumed after she beat the candidate of the old North Side machine.

"Nothing came easy to her," reflected Council President Barbara Johnson. She recalled the flame-haired Hilary as fun to be around. Johnson recalled the time she got so wrapped up in a campaign literature drop for Hilary that she forgot to pick up her daughter after school.

Hilary was an original. Dateline Minneapolis last heard from her about a year ago when she called from Iowa out of the blue. She was on oxygen, so the health signs weren't good. But her death still seemed untimely.

Read more about Hilary's life here.

Brickbats

Lake Street's noisiest developer, Basim Sabri, had a typically arresting way of making his point during his recent appeal of a city requirement for his latest development.

Sabri plans a 77-unit housing development in the Whittier neighborhood. He'll incorporate an old brick factory that's on the Midtown Greenway and add four stories of new construction.

Council Member Gary Schiff proposed, and the Planning Commission adopted, a requirement that the entire exterior be composed of brick. Sabri was willing to incorporate the best brick from the old building, but wanted a stucco-like exterior over its more inferior brick and the new building. Schiff cited a city requirement that the exterior rear and side walls of a building "be similar to and compatible" with the front.

Besides throwing brickbats over the requirement, which he considered onerous, arbitrary and nonsensical, Sabri spent around $200 to send a load of bricks to most City Council members and a few bureaucrats.

Each package contained three bricks. One type was the current building's best brick, which he said came from early in the last century and was impossible to match. The other two were lesser-quality bricks that make up most of the building's exterior. He argued that they can't be matched to the best brick.

The council rejected his appeal. Now he's planning an administrative appeal to the city's zoning office, which is using his bricks as a doorstop, before deciding whether to sue.

No pushback?

Dateline Minneapolis was wondering whether anyone would challenge our characterization of the rarity of the leap that Mayor R.T. Rybak may decide to make from Minneapolis to the governor's office.

We worded it carefully: "No Minneapolis politician has gone directly from local office to governor since Floyd B. Olson did so three generations ago."

What about Arne Carlson? He did serve as a Minneapolis alderman, but he went on to serve as a legislator from the city and then as state auditor. And he was living in Shoreview when elected governor.

Olson jumped directly from Hennepin County attorney to governor in 1930.

Outakes

"All the welfare people are in one place."

--Judith Martin, urban geographer and former Minneapolis Planning Commission chairwoman, when asked why homeless and pro sports facilities tend to cluster near each other in downtowns.

Steve Brandt • 612-673-4438