Re: [Mpls] Number of councilmembers

[Carol Becker]

Many of the people, when you ask them what their major concern is about their council members, say that they called their council members and did not get a phone call returned.    Now each ward has about 30,000 people in it.  In most places in Minnesota, this is a pretty good sized city. In each council office, there are three people to return phone calls to all these people, a secretary, who generally answers only the very easy questions, and the Council Member and the Council Member's aid.  In many wards, it simply isn't possible to return all the phone calls that the ward gets in a day.    In addition, many people complain that they don't see their Council Members at neighborhood events.  On the other side, Council Members are often double or triple booked trying to make it to as many events as possible.    Increasing the number of wards would significantly improve constituent services.    Carol Becker Longfellow