Wildwood Passing Lane

A short time ago,there was a letter in the Stillwater Courier about the recent transportation forum.  The letter claimed that the forum was sponsored by the Wildwood Passing Lane.  That was not true. Now the Dean team is telling other stories in an attempt to create a vast left wing conspiracy, including a smear against the Mahtomedi School District. 

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Both the forum and the 2008 RITE of Spring were co-sponsored by the Wildwood Passing Lane Association, a non-partisan organization.  Flyers for both of these events used the WPL Association name. 

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You might ask yourself "what's the difference?"

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 Wildwood Passing Lane was formed as a DFL Links group about 2 years ago to serve as a meeting place for progressives in the Mahtomedi Area.  We are an informal group with no formal structure and no checkbook.   A quick review of the Campaign Finance Board information would indicate that our group does not fit their definitions of regulation since we do not spend money and we were not created to support a particular candidate.

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When the 2006 elections were over, our members, an action-oriented set of characters, asked what we could do within the community.  The answer was the 1st Rite of Spring which attracted over 800 community members in 2007.  This event was our idea, but we had no problem attracting community partners, including churches, community groups and Mahtomedi Community Education which served as fiscal agent.

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 Our members recognized that our DFL Links association was hindering our ability to partner with others in the community.  We also recognized that most local community issues are non-partisan in nature.  So a group of us created Wildwood Passing Lane Association, a non-partisan group.  Dean says that he can find no record of this organization, yet a quick web search at the MN Secretary of State's office shows us right there as a community association.

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A number of us threw some money ($50 - $100) in the hat and those funds have been used to co-sponsor non-partisan educational efforts including the RITE of Spring 2008 where we again had over 800 attendees and facilitated the recycling of 40,000 pounds of electronics.  We just recently co-sponsored the Transporation Forum noted above by paying the room rental.  Neither group provides any financial support to any candidate.

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 I wanted to take this opportunity to let people know the distinction between the two organizations.

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Wildwood Passing Lane, through this Zanby web site, allows anyone to sign up to receive our information.  I know that we have people registered who we have never seen at a meeting.  The letter writer seemed to think that they knew a lot about Wildwood Passing Lane and noted our viewing of the very interesting documentary "Uncounted" that they discounted as a conspiracy movie.  I did not know that watching a movie could be subversive. Election integrity is an important issue.

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They did not mention that Senator Ray VandeVeer has come and met with our group for an active and respective discussion of the issues.  He earned all of our respect, even as we disagreed on many issues.  Ray was scheduled to join us again this year but had to cancel at the last moment due to Senate business.  We like to explore all sides of issues. 

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By the way, Matt Dean has ignored repeated invitations to come to our meetings.