I am about to commit a heresy.
But first...I must ask of our List Moderator, the
esteemed Mr. Brauer, what constitutes in his mind "a
serious candidate" for office?
Is it money, organization, the backing of influential
citizens, the ability to do polls and tailor your
message to a particular audience or neighborhood, a
winning smile, prior government service or experience
with electoral politics? Some of these? Not
necessarily any of these? What?
And...is a person who has all these things necessarily
someone we want to lead us?
NOW
I think it is time we scrapped NRP. I think it is
wasteful and innefficient. It is unrepresentative
democracy. I believe we can achieve the same goals
without all the squabbling and partisan bickering.
If my memory serves me right, or my recollection of
history is correct, NRP came about as a result of the
perception that the City Council and Mayor's office
were too focused on downtown development to the
detriment of outlying neighborhoods that felt their
interests were not being addressed.
As I listen to the discussion of infrastructure fund
and internal service fund gaps and lack of litter
containers and collecton, and inadequate snowplowing,
etc., I have to say "what has changed?" The buzz is
the same as it was prior to NRP.
I want to live in a city governed responsibly by a
mayor and thirteen councilpeople who make the hard
decisions we pay them to make and spend our money
wisely and well keeping in my mind they cannot please
all the people all the time.
NRP it seems to me was an avoidance of that reality
and was a bribe paid by politicians to citizens so
that they could keep their jobs and create the
illusion that we could have our cake and eat it too.
I also believe it is party-building and patronage. I
do not think it necessarily serves the best interests
of the city as a whole as much as it rewards some of
its parts more shrewdly administered.
With all due respect to Mr. Brauer and all the other
neighborhood presidents and officers, I did not vote
for you and I do not entrust you to spend taxpayer
money. It is nothing personal. It is not that I do not
believe some may have done and would continue to do
good work and act responsibly and spend prudently.
To the degree that NRP may have engaged people who
otherwise would not have become involved in their
neighborhoods, I think it is good. I suspect though
that those who are involved in their NRP groups are
the people who in the past would have written to or
phoned their councilperson or who were active
political supporters and who had the ear(s) of their
candidates or elected officials.
There is a myopia in this town that seems to think we
are the only city in the country with neighborhood
involvement or that are system is best. It is the same
delusion that somehow we are cleaner, better, less
corrupt in Minneapolis. Other cities achieve similar
neighborhood goals with less expense. And other cities
have a much less naive attitude that allows for more
questioning and less passivity.
I would propose that eliminating NRP should be a part
of a reorganization of our entire planning/economic
development/community development area. I think that
one problem that might have been responsible for the
idea we needed NRP was a lack of communication between
City Hall and the citizens.
We can correct that at the ballot box by favoring real
people you can converse with as opposed to politicians
who talk at you and are glib or who promise the moon
and all the wonderful things they're going to do when
elected.
We need to exert some fiscal responsibility and with
the mayor and city councilmembers all touting their
megaprojects combined with miniprojects coming out of
each NRP group we are trying to do too much.
Meanwhile very real deficits in infrastructure funds,
internal service funds etc continue to fall behind in
their contributions and we face real problems.
What good is it for instance if East Phillips or
Midtown works to rejuvenate its section of Lake Street
and because we have not kept up with bridge
maintenance we are forced to close a bridge over the
29th Street trench that cuts residents off from, say,
Bloomington and Lake.
The idea of closing some of those bridges has been
floated at City Hall as a solution to cutting the cost
of improving the city's infrastructure.
Instinct tells me there is a better way to deliver
services and make neighborhood improvements. I do not
come to this position without serious consideration
and I do not deny the good work done by NRP groups.
Also, I do not mean to suggest the elimination of
neighborhood associations, just their scope.
I apolgize for any vagueness. I make no pretension to
be anything other than a generalist and a thinker. I
know many of the list members are involved in NRP and
I submit this for your comments.
Tim Connolly
Ward 7
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