Barb Lickness said: >I believe that NRP has empowered a group of >citizens that have and will continue to change the >face of City Hall as we know it. I understand and embrace the value of getting people involved in our government and I appreciate the efforts NRP has made to do that. But Barb's statement is quite illuminating relative to my original points. She says NRP has empowered a "group of citizens." So that begs the question: Who are these citizens? They have not been empowered by the residents of Minneapolis. This "group of citizens" is not accountable to residents and there is no clear accountability in the system. And this "group of citizens" is not a representative group. It is the people who show up and can show up because of the system that has been created and how it operates. (And I don't mean any disrespect to those who do show up.) So even though we've increased citizen involvement, we have mistakenly shut out numerous voices in the process. And in some instances we've created processes that are burdensome to regular citizens. We have yet another layer of government bureaucracy to go through to get our voices heard. NRP may have it's advantages, but it has a few really big disadvantages. Two of them are that the system does not have clear accountability to the people and it does not represent the voices of the people. This lack of representation and accountability, I believe, ultimately was the failure of Phillips and Central. And is probably the biggest hole in the system that will encourage failure in other neighborhoods. Because we have a system of citizen involvement we take it to mean the voice of the people. That is an erroneous assumption. And the overlay of the big bureaucracy compounds the first two. And for those of you working hard in the NRP system, please do not be offended by my challenges. I appreciate your hard work and intentions. However, I think it is time to address these issues in a thoughtful and hopeful way; not just defend NRP because it is the utopia on the hill of neighborhood involvement and that we have a whole lot of systems in place to defend that utopia. Russ Peterson Ward 9 Standish R U S S E L L P E T E R S O N D E S I G N "You can only fly if you stretch your wings." Russell W. Peterson, RA, CID Founder 3857 23rd Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55407 612-724-2331 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
