Having never met Ms Becker or worked with her I cannot comment on where she
gets her information as to the level of difficulty of questions I or my
associates can answer. Basically, the telephone rings and we answer it.
Maybe the caller is concerned about snow plowing. Maybe the caller wants
information on a boarded building. Maybe the caller wants to set up a
meeting. Maybe the caller wants to voice an opinion. Maybe the caller is
looking for a low interest rate loan. Maybe the caller lives down the
street from a drug house. I could go on and on but I think you can see
where I'm going with this...
The point is, we never know what issues we're going to be dealing with from
moment to moment. We're not elected, or appointed -- we're civil servants.
If there is anyone in the council offices paid to truly serve the public
without political affiliation, it's the associates, or as you may know them,
the secretaries.
I appreciate Ms Becker's attempts to justify why a councilmember is
unresponsive, but caution her not to make me or my associates part of the
equation.
Linda Richardson
Council Office Associate, Ward 1
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carol Becker [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 8:34 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [Mpls] Number of councilmembers
>
> 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
>
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