Candidate Connolly,
Tim, I love your idea of the town hall meetings! In fact so do a lot of
other people, which is why they participate in them on a regular basis.
They don't call them Town Hall meetings, since Minneapolis is not a small
town. Instead, they are called neighborhood meetings.
There are 81 small towns, about 7,000 people each. Over 2000 people a month
activly participate. The number of person hours tops a half a million in
any one year. They get together on a regular basis, talk about issues facing
their community and what they are going to do together to resolve them. Most
of the time at least one councilmember is present and various
representatives from local city departments as well.
Lyndale for example has a monthly meeting of the general membership of the
neighborhood association where anyone can come and give ideas, imput, vote
on reccomendations and make issues heard. At my "town hall meeting" we have
had discussions of affordable housing, appropriate economic devolopment,
transportation policy, and youth involvement in the community. Lisa
McDonald has been an active participant. Park Board, School Board, MCDA, and
other city staff have as well.
I know many of the other neighborhoods operate in a similar manner. Some may
have better participation, some might have better structures, some might
limit broadbased participation, and unfortuently a couple might be going
through a rough learning curve at the moment. . . but that is the
perrogative of the members of that town -- to run their own town hall
meeting!
There are two types of town hall meetings: those that are just to give ideas
and feedback to the elected officials, and those where the people of the
town come together to resolve issues, vote on proposals, and sign up to do
real work. The first is citizen feedback, the second in citizen
participation. The first is representative democracy; the second is
participatory democracy. Both are needed.
I am glad you had this inspired idea, and I look forward to seeing you at
the town hall meeting in your neighborhood!
Joe Barisonzi
Lyndale
10-7
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