Steve Cross, my neighborhood association president,
responded to a post that I had made in which I stated that
my neighborhood association had become more exclusive
by changing its grievance policy and bylaws. Mr. Cross
implies that my statements might lead readers to make
assumptions that are unwarranted. To help prevent such
a misinterpretation from taking place, I would like to provide
readers with additional information by quoting directly from
the past and current policies.
I know that there has been some talk that exchanges like
these are too small in scale to be relevant to a city wide
audience. To people who hold this opinion I say, "Think
of this as a case study of what can go wrong with
the NRP process." I will try and provide a context by
presenting a personal history and theory of how the NRP
has failed to provide due process and equal protection.
As Barbara Lickness (an NRP staff member) points out
about NRP contractors:
"These groups are Neighborhood Associations (NA) which
in most cases are formed as 501(c)3 Corporations in
the State of Minnesota. Many of these NA's were in
existence long before the NRP started."
The fact that many neighborhoods associations were in
existence prior to their contacting with the NRP, sets the
stage for some of the problems that followed. In the case of
Prospect Park, which has the City's oldest neighborhood association,
the power structure and social dynamics within the organization
were already well defined. This has in turn, limited to some degree the
participation of other neighborhood residents. It was interesting
to me that during the conflict over street lights, speakers would
preface their remarks by stating how long they, or previous
generations of their families had resided in the neighborhood,
as if this somehow gave their opinions more weight than
those who had moved in more recently. Please note that when
were are discussing the distribution of tax dollars, length of
residence is not generally relevant and if it influences decisions it
may be a violation of equal protection.
Existing power structures within neighborhood associations also
has a direct influence on Plan development (the process
whereby funds are allocated to specific projects). Admittedly,
the NRP requires associations to encourage neighborhood
participation (as required by State statute), however as Bob
Miller (the NRP Director) has told me personally, there is no
specific level of participation required. As long as the association
makes some attempt to involve residents, a plan can be approved
even with less than 1% of the neighborhood participating. Given
this structure, the pragmatics of the situation almost assures that
Plans will not be representative of the interests of a cross section
of a neighborhood. This is because, as Mr. Cross points out:
"The problem is that even when there is an honest attempt
to involve the whole neighborhood, as there is in our
neighborhood, it's "the usual gang" that show up to do the
work. Some people regard that result as a conspiracy."
In fact, what is going on is that most people are too busy
with work, family, and just surviving from day to day, to
have time or interest to participate in neighborhood doings."
Regardless of whether this is a conspiracy or not, the fact is that
the views of a majority of residents are not represented. In fact,
many residents maybe completely unaware that the process is
occurring and are never informed of the outcome. At one point,
I tried to propose methods that would encourage more neighborhood
involvement, Mr. Cross rejected all of my suggestions. It seems
that for the most part our neighborhood association believes that its
membership newsletter and ads in the neighborhood newspaper fulfills its
obligation of neighborhood participation, regardless of how many
non-PPERRIA members show up.
On the surface, this apparent apathy on part of residents may seem
to be justification for their disfranchisement, but normally we elect
representatives who make budgetary decisions, the decisions are not
contracted out. I believe that the lack of true neighborhood participation
violates both the spirit of the NRP and the Minnesota State Statute
469.1831 that created the NRP:
"Subd. 6. Citizen participation required. (a) The neighborhood
revitalization program must be developed with the process
outlined in this subdivision.
(b) The program must include the preparation and implementation
of neighborhood action plans. The city must organize neighborhoods
to prepare and implement the neighborhood action plans. The
neighborhoods must include the participation of, whenever possible,
all populations and interests in each neighborhood including renters,
homeowners, people of color, business owners, representative of
neighborhood institutions, youth, and the elderly."
I don't believe that the "the usual gang" is sufficient to fulfill the
statutory requirement. I therefore believe that the NRP program, as
currently implemented, violates due process.
At this point I would like to give you a little of the recent history
of the NRP process in our neighborhood. When our Plan was developed
it included a provision for providing additional street lighting. The
provision stated:
"Increase lighting on streets: Offer two improved street lighting
options to property owners. Option one is to add higher
wattage lights to existing and additional 25' wooden poles.
Option one could be paid for entirely with NRP funds."
Option two is to replace the existing lights with ornamental lights
on 15' posts spaced about 120 feet apart. This option would provide
the most effective street lighting, but would require property owners to
pay for 75 percent of the cost of the ornamental lighting."
Most of our battle over the street lights revolved around one sentence
in this provision: "Offer two improved street lighting options to property
owners." The problem was that both options were never presented
to property owners. Only the second option, which required significant
property assessments, was presented in a petition that was circulated to
residents. There is a lot of controversy as to how much information
was provided and how fairly this option was presented to residents. I
know that I was told that, my signature would not be binding, and there
would be a meeting where the final decision would be made. This turned out
not to be true, and the final meeting turned out to be an informational
meeting given by Joan Cambell. The reality was that when the petition
exceeded 51% it was a done deal.
Several residents who felt that there had been procedural errors in the
NRP process regarding the lights filed a grievance with PPERRIA,
which along with other grievances was denied. Others, organized a
special meeting of PPERRIA to discuss the lights and asked that a
true accounting of the level of support be taken. This meeting
did have true neighborhood participation; we had flyered
every residence in the area. A motion was passed that asked the
city to assess the true level of support for the street lighting. This
motion was rescinded two weeks later at the the PPERRIA annual
meeting which was packed with PPERRIA members, not concerned
neighborhood residents.
Our special meeting was the first serious neighborhood opposition
that PPERRIA had ever faced and I believe that it resulted in the
consequences I cited in my previous post; namely that the leaders
of PPERRIA realized that their decisions could be challenged and
might be overturned by the neighborhood. I believe that PPERRIA's
leaders have since taken steps that insure that a successful challenge
to their power can never be successful mounted again. At this point I will
respond specially to points made in Mr. Cross' post. [Note, I am
going to change the order the points in of his message for better
clarity.]
To be continue tomorrow...
Michael Atherton
Prospect Park
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