MANIFESTO OF A MADMAN PART 10
SOUR NOTE
FACE OF EVIL
THE MOUTHPIECE HAS FALLEN OUT OF THE HORN AND ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!
535. Before we get on with analyzing the Mayor’s letter, I’d like to give you an update on the shooting at the Park Tavern from Saturday’s paper.
Brooks: On the patio of the Park Tavern, a community gathers to heal
The Park Tavern was always there for St. Louis Park. Now the community will be there for a grieving workplace.
By Jennifer Brooks
The Minnesota Star Tribune
September 7, 2024 at 11:45AM
The Park Tavern reopened Wednesday, as if it were any other Wednesday in its long history with St. Louis Park. Even though everything else has changed.
Bouquets lined the length of the patio and the scarred crater where the car slammed into the hill beyond. Photos fluttered in a warm September breeze.Kristina Folkerts and Gabriel Harvey. Smiling with their arms around the people they loved most. Thirty years old forever.
There’s been a Park Tavern, or some version of it, in St. Louis Park for so long, no one is quite certain when the business opened its doors. Sometime around 1906 is the St. Louis Park Historical Society’s best guess. Wednesdays in St. Louis Park wouldn’t feel the same without the Park Tavern and the people on its welcoming patio.
It’s been a Texaco station and candy shop. It’s been a tavern where the games shifted with the generations: Bumper pool, video games, bowling. Owners changed, locations changed, but the Park Tavern stayed the place St. Louis Park came to celebrate the good days. Promotions. High school graduations. A friend moving up in their career.
Until Steven Bailey pulled into the parking lot with four times the legal limit of alcohol in his system — and hit the accelerator. He destroyed two lives and changed countless others. He crushed bones. He ripped families apart.
But this isn’t a story about the man behind the wheel. This is a story about the community behind the Park Tavern.
On Wednesdays, the retired teachers of St. Louis Park meet on the patio. The patio reopened on a Wednesday, so they returned.
Their server that afternoon was a former student. So was the restaurant’s owner, Phil Weber, who paced the line of bouquets and Park Tavern T-shirts his patrons left at the patio, an act of reclaiming it as their own.
“It’s so humbling and so heartwarming and so overwhelming,” said Weber, who said he has been deluged with emails, text and phone calls of support since that awful day. “I’ve been [owner] here 45 years, so I know we’re part of the fabric of the community, but you sort of forget. You’ve been in people’s lives for generations.”
Richfield resident Ron Anderson walked up and pressed $20 into Weber’s hands. A little something for Kristina Folkerts’ three little girls.
This was the place Anderson came to bowl and meet people when he lived in St. Louis Park. This is the place where he met his wife on the bowling alley. The place, he said, “holds so many memories for me.”
“I feel for these nurses too. All these good people,” he added. “What a senseless thing.”
Weber has heard so many stories like that.
“We have so many people meet and then they hold their bridal showers here and then they hold their rehearsal dinners here. Sometimes we even have wedding receptions here.”
During the pandemic, Weber sometimes let families use the patio for celebrations of life, just so they had somewhere to gather and grieve that wasn’t a sterile Zoom call grid.
Around the patio table with the teachers — some had taught Weber, some were his classmates at St. Louis Park High ― almost everyone had a story about something the Park Tavern had given back to the community, from sponsoring any hometown sports team that asked, to hosting a graduation party on this patio for the seniors who missed out on their 2020 commencement.
“All you have to do is mention the ‘PT’ and everyone knows what you mean,” said Darold “Deb” Wold. Now in his 90s, Wold started teaching at Park High in 1959.
They traded stories about the old Park Tavern location on Minnetonka Boulevard and its great pepperjack cheese burgers.
“It’s been such a part of the community for such a long time,” said Bruce McLean, who graduated with Weber and wore his Park Tavern sweatshirt for the occasion. “Anything you ask. If you’re doing a fundraiser, he’ll give you coupons for 30 people bowling. He just never says no.
“That’s why we came back today,” he added. “We wanted to show Phil and the staff here that we appreciate them and we want to support them.”
The smallest gestures — a lunch order, a bouquet, $20 from a stranger — have been a balm for the grieving staff. Kristina Folkerts grew up at the Park Tavern, where her mother, Lauralee, also worked. The nurses from nearby Methodist hospital had come there to toast a colleague who was moving on to the next stage in her career. They were helpers, all.
“The community outreach has been the biggest spirit-lifter,” Weber said. “People know that these kinds of establishments are part of the heritage of a community and have been in people’s lives for years and years.”
Weber turned to stare at the flowers, photographs and written tributes to two lives as brief and beautiful as a Minnesota summer.
“But boy, when you go home tonight,” he said. “Hug your loved ones.”
COMMENTS
Celebration of life, mourning, crying, smiling, laughing, a veritable buffet of emotions. But all these people have one thing in common. Like I said in the last blog, they just all want to be together. Some want to support others that need it and some need to be supported. They don’t want to stay at home alone to grieve. They don’t want the Park Tavern to be closed. They have a need to be around others. And I must say that I’m amazed that the owner was able to get opened in three days. My hat’s off to him and all of his staff and customers that made that happen.
536.
SO BACK AT HOME..UGH!!!
In the last Blog we spoke about how the Mayor reacted to the Only shooting on March 18, 2022. So today we will analyze how he reacted to the second “incident”, the Non-Shooting-Shooting on May 26,2022. Maybe he would have had a softer reaction to that. Maybe something like the reaction of the Park Tavern incident. No chance in hell. He doubled down on his own stupidity but that should come as no surprise. Since it didn’t happen on our property I think he should have said nothing quite frankly. He knew or should have known the facts. The police reports had all been done by 5 AM and he had access to them. All of them say that it didn’t happen at the Palace. And by the way, do you know of any business anywhere that was shut down because of an incident that didn't even happen on their property? I don’t. You can go to Blogs 17, 18 and 19 for more in-depth details but here is a timeline of that day.
1:00 AM May 26, 2022
The non-shooting-shooting occurs
5:00 AM May 26, 2022
The police reports are complete
8:01 AM May 26, 2022
Melissa Hyatt starts her messages to the Mayor
8:38 AM May 26, 2022
City attorney Prell sends an email to my attorney
8:52 AM May 26, 2022
My attorney sends me an email
9:20 AM May 26, 2022
I sent an email to my lawyer
10:15 AM May 26, 2022
I sent another email to my lawyer
11:00 AM May 26, 2022
There is a meeting between the Mayor and City Attorney. No info available.
4:40 PM May 26, 2022 (15 hours after shooting)
The infamous press release is sent out by Officer Jago
7:09 PM May 26, 2022
I sent an email to my lawyer about the press release
COMMENTS
JIM “JOSEPH” PAINE
MORNING JOSEPH STALIN AND MIKA NcNAZI
MELISSA “MIKA” HYATT
Did you notice that the Mayor is only concerned about whether the police responded. He didn’t ask if anybody got hurt, which was my first question to Jordan when I heard about it. And Melissa told him that the bartender got punched in the face. That was not true. It was the security guy we had that got punched when he threw the guy out. And then she goes on to say that we need to be shut down. Who do you think is more disgusting? Joseph or Mika?
537.
Now back to the “MANIFESTO OF A MADMAN.”
THE LONG LETTER
The Mayor said:
“At the first meeting I asked her to explain what changes she proposed to the bar. She gave a verbal description of a country themed bar with enhanced security and, at my request, formalized this proposal in her business plan. I also asked her to reach out to her neighbors and work to convince them that her new tavern would not only fix the many problems it had faced under her management but would be an asset to the area. At our second meeting, she not only presented her plan but informed us that she had reached out to the neighbors and won their support. Of her immediate neighbor that had been most impacted by the Palace, she said they were now "best friends" and that she "fully supports me getting the license". Finally, I asked if she had received proof of financing to carry out the significant renovations described in her proposal. She had not. She plans to make some basic facade changes and renovations without the use of a contractor until she could afford major improvements she envisions.”
Pretty much everything in the above statement is correct.
538. He then went on to say the following:
After reviewing her proposal, consulting with the neighbors, and considering the facts that led to the closing of the Palace, I concluded that JJ's Bar is essentially the same establishment as the Palace Bar under a new name and without meaningful improvements. I believe that we should expect many or all the same problems to occur. I am therefore asking the Council to deny the license for the following reasons:
COMMENTS
Well, telling the truth lasted about as long as Jordan’s friendship with Melissa Hyatt did.
The Mayor said that he “consulted with the neighbors”. I have no proof of that so today I am sending an email to him. Here it is:
brian noel
From:brian noel
To:painej@ci.superior.wi.us,Rebecca Scherf
Wed, Sep 11 at 1:04 PM
On the Dec 6, 2022 letter, the Mayor said the following:
"After reviewing her proposal, consulting with the neighbors"
So, my request is as follows:
Could you send me the results of your consultations with the neighbors.
Thank you,
Brian Noel
539. In the following sentence he said the following:
I concluded that JJ's Bar is essentially the same establishment as the Palace Bar under a new name and without meaningful improvements.
COMMENTS
Actually Jordan did an extensive and impressive plan and I will feature it on an upcoming blog for all of you to see. Caesar’s Palace here in Vegas is opening a new bar here soon and I think that if she would have sent him those plans, he would have nixed those as well. And by the way his opinion is based on what exactly? As far as I know he has never done or accomplished anything outside of government. If I had a list of a thousand names of people I could consult with when it comes to business, Jim Paine’s name would not be on it.
540. Then he goes on to say.
“I believe that we should expect many or all the same problems to occur. I am therefore asking the Council to deny the license for the following reasons:”
COMMENTS
Well I believe you’re a corrupt liar and a fraud and we will deal with that on the next Blog.
541. So I’d like to leave you with an interesting story I read the other day. It has nothing to do with the Blog or the Palace or Politics and God knows, we can all do with a little less politics and politicians for that matter.
The FedEx Founder Bet His Last $5,000 In A Vegas Gamble And Saved The Company – ' ‘Sometimes It Pays To Be A Little Crazy Early In Your Career'
Ivy Grace
Tue, Aug 20, 2024 3 min read
Within just a few years of starting FedEx, Fred Smith faced a critical moment that would determine the future of his company. What began as a bold idea written in a college term paper had quickly grown into a real business, but by the mid-1970s, FedEx was on the brink of collapse. Smith made a gutsy decision to save his company, which involved a gamble.
Smith founded Federal Express in 1971, inspired by his idea in 1965 while studying at Yale. In his term paper, he proposed that companies could significantly speed up delivery times by changing their shipping strategies. However, Smith's professor didn't see the potential and only gave him a "C" for the paper. But Smith wasn't discouraged. After serving two tours of duty in Vietnam as a Marine, he returned to civilian life with renewed determination.
In 1971, Smith bought a controlling interest in Arkansas Aviation Sales. Here, he truly understood the challenges of shipping goods quickly and realized that his Yale term paper idea could be the solution. By 1973, FedEx was operational, providing overnight delivery services across the United States. The company grew rapidly, but as fuel costs soared, FedEx drowned in debt.
By 1974, the situation was dire. FedEx had just $5,000 left in its bank account, and Smith's efforts to secure more funding were repeatedly rejected. Bankruptcy seemed almost inevitable. However, Smith wasn't ready to give up. On a fateful trip back from a failed pitch to General Dynamics, Smith made an impulsive decision that would change everything. He detoured to Las Vegas and took the last $5,000 of the company's funds to the blackjack tables. Smith won $27,000 – enough to keep FedEx afloat for a little longer.
“The $27,000 wasn't decisive, but it was an omen that things would get better,” Smith later said about the gamble. This unexpected win gave him enough breathing room to raise another $11 million in funding. With this new capital, FedEx weathered the storm, and by 1976, the company's revenue had climbed to $75 million. Two years later, FedEx went public, solidifying its place as a major player in the shipping industry.
By 1983, FedEx had hit $1 billion in revenue. Today, it's a global logistics powerhouse, generating nearly $70 billion annually. Reflecting on his journey, Smith once wrote in a Forbes essay, “No business school graduate would recommend gambling as a financial strategy, but sometimes it pays to be a little crazy early in your career.”
Smith's willingness to take calculated risks, combined with his deep commitment to his employees and vision, turned FedEx into one of the world's most successful companies.
Sometimes, when the odds are stacked against you, a bold move can make all the difference. So whether you’re thinking about your own business or just looking for some inspiration, remember that a little bit of "crazy" might just be what you need to succeed.
542. I hope you enjoyed today’s Blog and we will see you soon.
Brian
