Russell - knock it off... what do you mean by a "group of citizens?" They are about as representative as you are going to get. Having been around since before the beginning of NRP and when there were Planning/Dream meetings of appointees who helped "dream" up NRP (for three years) I can assure you we spent hours on the discussion of citizen involvement. I can also tell you as a community organizer there are a lot more people involved now than there ever were in the days before NRP. NRP requires that community wide mailings are done to all residents for development of NRP plans, plan modifications and many of the program activities within NRP. Now if people don't read their mailings and don't follow their local neighborhood activities in their local neighborhood newspapers - so be it. Not everyone in the city wants to participate - it is their choice. In Phillips and several other inner-city neighborhoods we have a new problem - translation into many languages. You might say we are shutting out all the new immigrants to our fair city but I know for a fact many groups are now using translators and writing in other languages in order to do community outreach. In your statement: "...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." I can't speak for Central (although I know quite a bit about it but don't live there so will refrain from comment) I can speak for Phillips. We spent a lot of time and process to elect representatives from our districts to the central NRP Implementation Committee and the organization's Board of Directors and various NRP committees in order to represent all our corners of the neighborhood. Those committees, especially housing, asked over and over again for financial statements - we never got them. When all is said and done - finding unopened, unreconciled bank statements in the bottom of an Executive Director's desk drawer leaves everyone in disgust and anger. Having staff people that didn't give us all the information or convulted the information so no one understood it when needed complicated the matter In Phillips we grew too fast, had too many staff, and lack of internal check and balance systems all over the place. The old adage: "money burns a hole in one's pocket" or "money is the root of all evil" certainly apply in this case. NRP staff really tried hard to get us to do it right. Trainings, hand holding, and all...the major problems were at the top - to people we were paying a big chunk of change to to keep the records straight for us. In Phillips alone we had over 600 people help write our NRP plan - that's a lot for this neighborhood, even if we are the largest. Our regions are rebuilding and growing again and as we try to heal and recover from our mistakes we are all taking great precautions so that those horrible 3 years (1995-1998) do not happen to us again. And last, but not least, Russell, in my years on the Park Board I have been to hundreds of meetings with citizens who have been very involved in the park and community activities. That number has increased dramatically since NRP and the ability of neighborhoods to write and implement their own plans. I still have a hard time reading your many posts to this list because it seems you are never happy with anything going on in this city. What are you doing to try to solve all the problems you mention every day? Maybe, you should get off the computer for a few hours and go over to your neighborhood meeting and help spend that money the right way. Please quit demeaning all of us who are trying to make this city work right. NRP hasn't received International and National awards for the "hell of it". We're one of the only cities in the world that has the incredible neighborhood involvement we have in Minneapolis. It's one of the things that makes our city great! Enjoy it or leave it. Annie Young Ward 6 - East Phillips in Minneapolis Citywide at-large Park Board Commissioner Working to build a sustainable community
