Thumbs up

To Minnesota responders for focusing attention on Florida’s response to disasters. It makes no sense to reinvent the wheel when Florida has had success in streamlining its disaster response. Disaster experts from numerous states, including Minnesota, traveled to Florida this week to learn more about its methods.

Deciding that its own response was a disaster, Florida officials after Hurricane Andrew in 1992 made major changes. For example, as the Associated Press reports, instead of scrounging for fuel, emergency responders from health, law enforcement and fire divisions were able to access a single statewide fuel center route during Hurricane Katrina. The program worked so well the state disaster agency was able to launch rescues in neighboring Mississippi two hours after the storm. Within 48 hours, they had set up a camp with food, water and supplies for six counties.

That unified type of response makes much sense and is one that other states are smart to steal for their own use.

Thumbs up

To the area residents who have worked diligently on the Envision 2020 process.

For months, a core group of volunteers from various walks of life have met to put together a blueprint for the city of Mankato through the year 2020.

The process has come to the point where the various ideas are being forwarded to the groups that can implement them. The visions vary widely, from urging the city to find or build a community center to a plan to bring area entrepreneurs together to support each other and pool resources.

Such planning efforts can easily be neglected after the initial burst of interest. But civic leaders in Mankato have a good track record on following through on such efforts in the past and the current Envision project is getting good support.

Not everything that is proposed will come to fruition. That is the nature of any long-term planning process. But having a blueprint that guides overall efforts for the next 15 years or so is a necessary part of successful community development.

Thumbs down

To the Republican leaders in the U.S. House, for clinging to an impractical and punitive approach to immigration reform.

Unlike President Bush and the Senate, the House has chosen to forgo any attempt to deal realistically with the millions of illegal immigrants already inside our borders — a low-pay workforce crucial to many sectors of our economy.