Three points in favor of annual caucuses: First, there are those of us who come out every year for the annual meeting of our NRP neighborhood organization. This builds increased accountability and institutional memory into that organization. Second, consider the folks whose oxen have been gored by inattentive or inimical city council people - unless these aggrieved citizens had the forethought to have attended their precinct caucus many moons ago, their current political itch will remain unscratched. Will they remember this vexation many moons hence when they have a chance to enable a capacity to comment yet many more moons in the future? Or will intervening events sidetrack this intention? By the numbers: I made a point of attending the 2000 precinct caucus so I would have standing in the 2001 conventions. Had I failed to do so, my hypothetical frustration in 2001 would not impact the current municipal cycle and I would have to plan to attend the 2002 precinct caucus in order to have standing in the 2003 municipal cycle by which time the flame of my current desire in 2001 will have to have burned through a lot of fuel. The system now in place is great for the advanced conjugation of verbs (past perfect, future perfect), but serves more as an incumbent protection device than a vehicle for incumbent sensitivity to the electorate. Anybody planning to run de novo has to build a delegate base well in advance and get folks to hold that thought for a very long time. When someone retires from the council, aspirants must energize a dwindling delegate population and have no mechanism for bringing new talent into the system in a timely way. Finally, it happens that I moved last year and hence am relegated to last alternate in my new precinct. Perforce I am a second-class citizen for this municipal cycle. I happen to be motivated to come forward in my new precinct, so I will be visible to this year's class of candidates when convention time rolls around. I can only speculate about other 2000 precinct caucus displacees, but I suggest that were there annual precinct caucuses there would be fewer political refugees and such transfers would take place without the last alternate stigma attached. Annual caucuses would mean a credible expectation of new faces at the precinct caucus with a concomitant hope of prior experience, turning what is now a personal probationary status into a universally understood perception of full-fledged asset each and every year. Fred Markus, Horn Terrace, Ward Ten _______________________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
