Regarding the "Trojan Horse" petition:
OK, here it is, the history of two petitions:
On Saturday June 30th a group of 30-40 neighborhood leaders came together
for the first meeting of what became "United Neighborhoods". At this
meeting the idea of a petition for a referendum was discussed. However,
because there were so many unanswered questions and a wide variety of
strategic concerns, the group decided not to go forward with a referendum
initiative immediately. Instead, the group set up 3 working groups.
1) Education/Outreach/Organizing Working Group: This group was explicitly
charged with drafting a petition which DID NOT call for a referendum. The
petition was to be used as a vehicle for communication about the situation
within neighborhoods and to express concern to elected officials. It was
the assembled group's will that this petition include strong language
reflecting the expectation that the City honor its commitment to fully fund
NRP but not lock ourselves into a specific strategy.
This working group wrote the petition immediately and circulated it to the
full body on Monday July 2nd. It was then immediately posted to the Save
NRP web site. Given this history, I hope you will agree that it is grossly
inaccurate to portray this petition as a "Trojan Horse". It's presence
preceded the circulation of the ballot initiative petition.
2) "Strategy" working group - This group was charged with surveying the
financial landscape (not just NRP - what does this mean for community
development work in Minneapolis in general), examining a variety of
strategies including alternative funding streams and legal challenges. The
idea was to gather more information before choosing a specific strategy and
to try to choose a strategy which everyone could unite behind. This working
group met this morning.
3) "Political Tactics" working group - This group was charged with surveying
the political landscape in terms of how securing permanent funding for
neighborhood based community development work is affected by competing
interests, the election year cycle, etc. Their meeting notes are posted on
the Community Zero/SaveNRP web site.
While all of this was going on, several neighborhood leaders became
convinced that a) a referendum was the only way to fully fund NRP; b) the
referendum had to be in November; and c) there was a crucial July 11th
deadline for securing the signatures necessary to accomplish which would not
be met if they didn't move immediately to launch this campaign. So, rather
than wait for all of the working groups to do their research and report back
to the larger community, they decided to act brashly/boldly/as leaders/as
crazy people depending on your perspective about the merits of their
actions.
This group of people named themselves the Minneapolis United Neighborhoods
COUNCIL (to distinguish themselves, somewhat, from the larger "Mpls United
Neighborhoods" group which had met Saturday; the Council members have now
recognized that this did not provide enough distinction and said last night
that they will call themselves "Neighbors for Neighborhoods" - you following
all of this??) and launched the referendum campaign on Tuesday July 3rd
(after the other petition was already circulating). There was some
discussion about the two petitions and whether this would cause confusion.
Most people felt that everyone volunteering to gather signatures on either
petition was capable of understanding and explaining the difference. Some
neighborhood activists are even circulating both petitions simultaneously,
explaining the situation and letting their neighbors decide.
Moreover, there are many people who are uncomfortable with the ballot
initiative who are eager to collect signatures on a petition which doesn't
name a specific strategy, they did not want to be held back. The Harrison
Neighborhood Association for instance deliberately decided to circulate the
petition asking the City to honor it's commitment without specifying the
mechanism by which this should happen. In any case, all of this work
serves to increase public awareness of the issue.
I certainly can understand why this has been a confusing situation. It has
only been 10 days since the first meeting was called on this issue. The
amount of energy and activity surrounding it since has been phenomenal.
While it feels chaotic, it is probably a miracle that there has been as much
communication and genuine attempts to work together as there have been. I
would like to thank both the Issues List and to the Community Zero/ Save NRP
site for providing additional forums for us all to be in communication with
one another.
Maura Brown
Harrison
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