In my post yesterday I said it wasn’t Washington DC unless you could see someone protesting something somewhere in town. Today, I need to substitute the word “protest” with “parade”. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I caught a little bit of the DC area St. Patrick’s Day parade.
It was a great parade. I snapped the photo (click on the photo to see it in a larger size) on the far left from the observation deck of the Washington Monument. It was striking view. Not a cloud in the sky. And it wouldn’t be a St. Patrick’s Day parade with pipes & drums, Irish step dancers, and a subtle political statement that there are indeed 32 counties on the island of Ireland and that all 32 of them ought to be in one country. Not offense to my British friends, but I feel the same way.
Tomorrow we start our series of legislative meetings. We meet with Congressman Oberstar, Senator Coleman and Congressman Kline’s office tomorrow. The meetings are interspersed throughout the day. Chief Esbensen, Council Member Butcher and I will meet at 8am at the conference hotel to brief for the day, then go see the opening keynote speaker. We have to sneak out early to head over to the capitol to meet with Congressman Oberstar. Our issue(s) for him: Light Rail Transit. We want his support for the Southwest Transitway LRT project. The City Council favors it. So does the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce. We see some momentum for LRT right now, so getting Congressman Oberstar’s support – while he is chair of the House Transportation Committee – is very important.
After that, we meet with Congressman Kline’s office. Our issue for this meeting is WAFTA. The Western Area Fire Training Association site is actually in Congressman Kline’s district. Most of the cities involved in WAFTA, however, are in Congressman Ramstad’s district, so it’s important that we talk with both offices about the environmental issues at WAFTA. We need help from both of them.
We end our day on Capitol Hill with a meeting in Senator Coleman’s office. We’re net expecting the Senator. It’s a Monday and he is very busy. We will meet with his staff and talk about LRT, WAFTA, public safety radio rebanding (too complicated to talk about here), Homeland Security Funding for city governments and and Community Development Block Grants.
It will be a long day, and I’m looking forward to it.
