Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Tenth Ward Update: Candidate David Schorn blunders into Ward 10 City Council race


This is the second part of an ongoing series about the hapless white dude city council candidates of Ward 10. Read Part I here.

A guy named David Schorn has entered the race for the Ward 10 City Council seat currently held by Lisa Bender. Schorn is the second candidate to announce a challenge to Bender.

Here are some quick facts about David Schorn that you can pick up from his campaign Facebook page. First, he doesn't know where Ward 10 is. He thinks the Lyndale neighborhood is in Ward 10 (close, but it's actually next door in Ward 8). Geography isn't his strong suit, but he is able to list wrestling, football, tennis, running, swimming, and weight training on his candidate resume.


Schorn was elected to the neighborhood association board (LHENA) on April 19th. He started campaigning for City Council on April 24th on nextdoor.com. The problem is LHENA bylaws prohibit candidates for office from sitting on the board (he still hasn't resigned). This has led some observers to say that David Schorn is bad at planning for the immediate future.

David Schorn is also badly misinformed about Wedge neighborhood controversies involving the local developers known as "The Turkey Guys." First, some things you need to know about the Turkey Guys: 1) they made lots of money selling turkey sandwiches at the state fair; 2) they own and build rental housing in the neighborhood, such as the world famous Rocket House; and 3) they are the subject of controversy among a special contingent of concerned residents (not for their sandwiches, but for their houses).

I suspect that new candidate David Schorn (who seems like he's only just begun to grapple with many issues) has recently been exposed to a lot of turkey talk: as in, Turkey Guys did this and Turkey Guys did that. This may have caused Schorn some confusion. As you can see in this exclusive screenshot obtained by Wedge LIVE, David Schorn thinks the Turkey Guys are from Turkey the country, instead of  Turkey-To-Go, the booth at the state fair.

Private Facebook reply from Schorn campaign page.

Turkey the sandwich, not Turkey the country

Schorn also has some terrible policy ideas. He would like to solve our housing affordability crisis (which is driven largely by a housing shortage) by stopping housing from being built. And what does the slogan "Parking and Traffic Solutions" mean? Not even David Schorn can tell you. These aren't really policy ideas so much as local issue buzzwords combined into a terrible acronym on his campaign's dasharez0ne-style Facebook header.


David Schorn is a "low vacancy rate" denier.

Also troubling, considering Schorn's slogan is "Listening to Neighbors," is his disregard for the rules of the neighborhood electoral process. In a story you'll only see reported on Wedge LIVE, David Schorn cast an illegal vote at a CARAG meeting last night. Schorn is not a resident of the CARAG neighborhood and is therefore ineligible to vote at CARAG meetings.

And let's not forget there is a second Not Lisa Bender candidate in Ward 10 named Scott Fine, who announced his campaign in February. Fine is a web developer with no candidate website, no obvious signs of an active campaign, and he can no longer be reached by phone. Neither Schorn nor Fine have yet registered a campaign committee with Hennepin County; until they do so, both candidates are prohibited from spending or raising more than $100 on their pretend campaigns.