Demystifying Vance Boelter’s unremarkable tenure on the Governor’s Workforce Development Board 

Sparse who served on the Governor s Workforce Advancement Board with Vance Boelter have much memory of the man accused of assassinating Rep Melissa Hortman and her husband and shooting Sen John Hoffman and his wife I think I remember one time developing out in a small group with Boelter mentioned Carol Anderson co-owner of Anderson Dairy Farms But I can t tell you what we talked about because I don t remember I mean to me the guy was just an average guy right There was nothing distinctive about him there was nothing memorable I guess about him I don t recall a single thing about him Republican state Sen Carla Nelson R-Rochester explained I may have interacted once or twice with Boelter but otherwise did not know him disclosed Steve Kalina president and CEO of Minnesota Precision Manufacturing Association I mean I m sorry man wish I could remember this guy announced Robert Blake CEO and founder of Solar Bear Solar Installation Services MinnPost spoke to eight current or former members of the Governor s Workforce Maturation Board to get their accounts of the board s work and how members are chosen its relationship with the governor or any politicians and how Boelter fit into the picture The quotes above are from members who served on the roughly -person board with Boelter in Looking back at available meeting minutes from Boelter s two terms his name only came up in a smattering of motions to approve prior meeting minutes Why focus on a board that meager Minnesotans likely knew existed before this weekend Because despite Boelter s relatively unmemorable time as a volunteer appointee online commenters have pointed to the board in attempt to explain the murder suspect s politics and probable motive in the days following the targeted attacks against DFL politicians While it is true that Boelter was appointed during both the Mark Dayton administration in and reappointed during the Tim Walz administration in both DFL governors the board is nonpartisan The governor s office is responsible for putting thousands of helpers of all parties on a range of boards and commissions according to an email from Walz s office These unpaid nonpartisan external boards are created by the Legislature and serve only as advisory bodies the office approved But the nonpartisan nature of the board didn t stop people online from using it as a reason to falsely tie Boelter to Democratic leanings This fueled a confrontation Monday between Democratic U S Sen Tina Smith a friend of Hortman s and Republican Sen Mike Lee of Utah after Lee posted on X that he inferred Hortman was killed because of Marxists blaming those on the left and Walz The posts have since been deleted It was far from the only situation where right-wing voices claimed online that Boelter supported Democrats Right-wing YouTuber Benny Johnson called Boelter a left-wing Tim Walz appointee as the Minnesota Star Tribune pointed out earlier this week and a slew of people took to social media amplifying that misinformation Nelson a Republican senator who has served multiple terms on the workforce board stated she is not a huge X consumer and tried to stay off of the social media platform following the weekend shootings She declared any violence should be condemned It s irrelevant what his political persuasion is or was or isn t she mentioned I don t know and I don t really want to know People are barking up the wrong tree if that s what they re thinking about I think we ought to be thinking about the survivors and the Hoffman family Doing the administrative work of the state It s a pretty boring board no one has inquired me about it until now mentioned David Dively executive director of the Minnesota Council on Disability an independent regime agency But while the work may have felt tedious the board has the vital job of advising the state authorities so that Minnesota s present and future workforce is being prepared for the industries projected to have the greater part demand for workers All the stakeholders try to align state funding and local governments job training programs with the economic opportunities we think will be available down the road explained Dively who is a current member of the board and served with Boelter It s a pretty nondescript thing he declared describing how until the weekend s tragedy the board flew under the radar as one of specific state boards councils and commissions But I would say it s not meaningless It s just doing the administrative work of the state Of the eight board members interviewed bulk could not point to a specific accomplishment or outcome that they were bulk proud of during their time on the board Various did have areas they were particularly pleased to have worked on such as Anderson s efforts to bring attention to rural Minnesota Various suggested that their work was more about the nuts and bolts of how to get the leadership educational institutions and the private sector on the same page regarding workforce necessities than completing any marquee project According to federal and state statute the Governor s Workforce Maturation Board has to include business and industry community-based organizations tuition local regime organized labor state agencies the state Legislature and other representatives of the workforce progress ecosystem the Department of Employment and Economic Enhancement DEED disclosed in an email The board has more than members DEED declared and includes representatives of the Disability Council the four ethnic councils other smaller agencies and the Departments of Corrections Schooling Human Services Management and Budget and DEED whose staff set the agenda and which has overall responsibility for the board From the Legislature it included two state senators and two representatives split evenly between the DFL and Republican parties Hoffman DFL-Champlin who is recovering after being shot on Saturday is on the board and was on the board while Boelter was a member The mentoring sector is represented by vocational programs area colleges and larger universities such as the University of Minnesota The suspect Vance Boelter was one of the members from the business sector former board member and Burnsville Mayor Elizabeth Kautz revealed in an email The board s legislative assessment the last one that listed Boelter as a member concluded with recommendations for policymakers including increasing marketing for job training programs opening up opportunities for Minnesotans living with disabilities creating an Office for New Americans that would help refugees and foreigners find employment and other services and boosting Minnesota s profile as a destination for workers through a publicity campaign Boelter s time as a volunteer According to the board s webpage Boelter was initially appointed to the board in while he was an executive at Western Refining He later served on the board while he worked as a general manager of a Marathon Speedway gas station and in he was a general manager at a -Eleven The -year-old from Green Isle served two three-year terms We were both appointed under Gov Dayton Gov Walz reappointed him and I was not reappointed Kautz commented These are not partisan appointments she added a fact that was echoed by all board members interviewed There s been a lot made about the fact that this individual is appointed by different Democratic governors Dively of the Disability Council revealed But I would have a hard time personally seeing anyone on that board as a partisan actor I m not sure if politics or partisan phrases even come up It s just a very nonpartisan apolitical place has been my experience he announced Anderson and Kalina both concurred with that description of the board Reflecting this the board s minutes and presentations do not credit individuals with any outcomes or ideas generated so it is hard to get a sense of what Boelter might have contributed One thing that he is cited for handling at a number of meetings though is the fairly mundane task of moving to approve the minutes of the previous meeting Dr Vance Boelter made a motion to approve the Minutes was a phrase that came up several times in the documents A screenshot of part of the minutes from the Governor s Workforce Expansion Board meeting on Oct a virtual meeting during which Vance Boelter made a motion to approve the previous meeting s minutes Credit MinnPost screenshot How workforce board members are appointed To get appointed you do not work through a political party or through your local representative It goes right through the Secretary of State s Office Carol Anderson disclosed After someone applies through the secretary of state a background check is conducted at the outset of a volunteer s three-year term and again every time a member is reappointed When you apply for this board they will look at your resume and they ll also do a criminal background check I ve had that done plenty of times when I am reappointed she reported How deep they go I don t know she added of the background check Another member from Boelter s time on the board is Nerita Hughes who was responsible for gender pay equity issues on the board and is a former chair of the state s Council of African Heritage described it as a thorough background check They even did a tax background check where they will pull your taxes she revealed Boelter did not have a criminal background only three parking violations and a speeding ticket all between and according to Minnesota court records I will equate it to applying for a job Hughes stated You send in your resume you send in your interest letter which addresses why you would want to serve on that board and what skill set you are going to bring to that board As for qualifications members are chosen based on the board s requirements and the availability of applicants Dively of the Minnesota Disability Council reported there was a perennial shortage of qualified applicants for the hundreds of open positions on boards and commissions Parts of the website for the Minnesota secretary of state were down for maintenance through Wednesday but an archived version of the site s application portal established that there were vacant seats across all Minnesota advisory boards and commissions as of May That sounds about right Dively mentioned This participatory form of ruling body where private citizens rub shoulders with lawmakers and executive bureaucrats to find shared solutions to common problems has generally been seen as an asset that boosts civic engagement and buy-in from the general The same goes for how broadly accessible population servants are to Minnesotans at the State Capitol and elsewhere which was often seen as a net positive for the masses and authorities But the events of the weekend manifested that this can be a liability as much as an asset In response to the fact that Boelter knew the home addresses of numerous lawmakers the state is working to scrub private information about individual employees from various ruling body websites My understanding is that they may have taken down the Secretary of State site to do specific privacy checks revealed Dively himself a state employee at the Minnesota Council on Disability Interactive open transparent cabinet is not unfailingly aligned with safety right he revealed It s a tough spot for state authorities The damage done from misinformation Larry Jacobs a professor at the University of Minnesota s Humphrey School of Constituents Affairs has spent over three decades studying population opinion elections and constituents approach He watched closely as people took to the internet to speculate about the weekend shootings Without delay you saw conservative podcasts and social media seizing on unfiltered positions using the workforce commission as confirmation he was definitely a loyal Democrat Jacobs explained It has since come out that he is genuinely conservative Jacobs pointed to the papers uncovered in Boelter s wagon that included the names of Democrat lawmakers and abortion-rights advocates The Star Tribune broadcasted that material circulated by the Minnesota DFL proved Boelter voted in the presidential primary electoral contest but not as a Democrat The Minnesota Republican party did not release records with a spokesperson saying the party considers that statistics to be private under current law The Associated Press also shared earlier this week that those close to Boelter reported he was highly religious and conservative and that he had attended rallies for President Donald Trump But this didn t quell the online speculation and countless will not see or believe the facts that have emerged after false proposes were made Jacobs revealed In his long career studying residents opinion the professor and researcher explained people s ability and willingness to process and critically think about information presented to them has shifted It wasn t that long ago in which you had fact checking and in which politicians who commented false things would be called out and even sometimes they would apologize or issue corrections Jacobs mentioned And those days are just a memory Now there s a vast arrangement of people on social media podcasters and other political voices that literally manufacture stories he explained This happens when people find a kernel of information as news breaks Jacobs added People are going to take it and then spin the yarn they want out of it he announced This sort of twisting of a narrative isn t exclusively occurring on the right Jacobs noted MPR News had Jacobs on a live show Monday During the segment a caller tuned in and berated MPR for talking about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania Jacobs disclosed They declared the Trump assassination attempt never happened This is a product of the same phenomenon Jacobs explained Following the attempted assassination evidence continued to emerge We ve got FBI reports we ve got local television we ve got local law enforcement we ve got an individual who was killed at the site Jacobs declared Once a narrative has been spun it s hard to unspin it from the minds of those consuming misinformation he explained People just have a flight of fancy and their own ideology and prejudices enter into the reality that they want to create Jacobs disclosed I think that s the change We ve gone from a world in which people had certainly partisan attachments or program preferences but it was constrained to a few extent by the reality of the situation Now we re in a world where people are manufacturing storylines through their partisan loyalties and their political ideations The post Demystifying Vance Boelter s unremarkable tenure on the Governor s Workforce Enhancement Board appeared first on MinnPost