To the Editor,
Re: “Council divided on daycare capital funding," Nov. 1, St. Paul Journal.
Mr. Banman, I am extremely upset by this article you have written. I am Lorette Andersen, do you know me? Not at all! If you had done your homework before spouting off your mouth, and researched about Lori Stokes and I, you would have known not to suggest that we asked the Town council for money to help us repair our building because my husband was mayor.
Lori Stokes and I ran the “Little Saints Daycare" which was a Teenage Parent Program in the Regional High School. The funding for our program was taken away by the government, a long story. Lori Stokes and I continued to run the program for the rest of the school year with a three-quarter cut in salary. Why would we do this? Because we care about the children and parents of this town! Now, Lori Stokes and I are both working at the St. Paul Child Care Society. When the tenants of the building, which we bent over backwards to help both financially and supportively, moved out of the building and left us with major repairs, we needed help financially. St. Paul Child Care Society is a non-profit society. We are in desperate need of help financially to repair the rented side of the building, which consists of both an upstairs and a downstairs, which your Journal misstated twice as saying: renting the downstairs.
For you to imply because my husband is the mayor and that is why we approached the Town council was way out of line. I am my own person and because I asked for help financially through the Town of St. Paul on behalf of the St. Paul Child Care Society, my husband had nothing to do with any of this, I would have approached the Town even if my husband was not the mayor.
Our society had been approached by a potential renter and time is not on our side. The repairs need to be done ASAP. Did you, Mr. Banman, come and talk to us at the Society to hear our side of the story? No! Plus you put an old picture of our sign out front of our building in which we haven't had that sign up for some time now. That shows me that you really didn't do your homework and just went by hearsay. Unfortunately, Councillor Don Padlesky was another person that went through hearsay and did not even bother to come and talk with us, with his statement in the Journal that one guy said: “If my business starts to shrink, can I come see the town to help me out?" Councillor Padlesky, the difference is again we are a non-profit society, businesses aren't. Maybe you need someone to explain the difference to you.
We asked the Town of St. Paul and the County of St. Paul for help financially. Without this help we will not be able to rent out the one side of the building (which we rely on), as we do not have the funds to fix that side right now. What started out as a plea for help financially got twisted around, my husband being the mayor and I, the mayor's wife, should have not even entered the issue. As you recall, Mr. Banman, the mayor did abstain from voting. I think journalism should be about facts and not making issues into a juicy story for the pleasure of the writer. This town has a lot of positive things going on but you decide to write down everything as a problem. Negativity is not what most people want to read about. We need to start being proud of our town and how it is run.
Lorette Andersen
(Not on the behalf of the Society but myself)
St. Paul
