My Response:
Wow, and my wife sometimes accuses me of putting words in her mouth. I have nothing on Jeff Rosenberg in this category.
My reason for mentioning Minneapolis was an effort to keep it Minneapolis specific and because I felt that another contributor would rather blame littering on societal issues rather than the perpetrators (who probably are residents of Minneapolis and not those stupid, evil people from outside your city limits). You want me to suggest a remedy? Here's one: don't tolerate it. Know what your kids and your neighbor's kids are doing. Get together with your neighbors and pick up your streets. I pick garbage up along my road all the time. Yes, we have litterers out here, too, and if you notice I am not blaming the residents of Minneapolis who travel though the countryside on their way to Grandma's Easter dinner.
People litter because they neither care about, nor respect anyone else. There's nothing complex about it.
Dennis Plante responds:
It'd be great if it were that easy Tom. Unfortunatley, the racial dynamics are a tad more complex in north Minneapolis then they are in Waconia Twnshp. I know. I grew-up in a place like where you currently live.
It's pretty tough to know what your neighbor's kids are doing when they're uprooted every 6-12 months because of an unstable living environment. The kids I nvested time getting to know on my block last summer are mostly gone now.
It's also fairly tough to get African American neighbors to stand-up against even minor offenses like littering and dealing pot on the street corner because either a) they're too busy trying to make ends meet, or b) they perceive "the system" as more of a problem (and it's not entirely unfounded). As a matter of fact, I'll give you a good example. Last summer, some of us talked a young, single african american mother (she's a MTC driver btw) into getting after the kids that were shooting craps on her front sidewalk. She ended-up getting roughly a dozen stitches in her mouth. Apparently, one of the young women involved in the activity took exception to her not so subtle request. Her house is now up for sale.
The residents in North Minneapolis travel to Grandma's (for easter dinner) in the suburbs much less often than the people from the suburbs travel to North Minneapolis to perpetrate crimes. The request for impact statements I received earlier today were for offenders that ALL lived in the suburbs and came into MY neighborhood to commit their offenses. It's actually pretty typical. How many people from North Minneapolis have you arrested in Waconia in the last year?
The point all of these posters are trying to make which you seem to be somewhat resistant to, is that this is a societal problem that is very complex.
Dennis Plante Jordan
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