The JADT proposal for redevelopment of the Riverview Supper Club site is the unfortunate result of a badly flawed process for the development and implementation of the Above the Falls Plan for the upper river corridor. Discussions about this individual project miss the point. The Graco river front expansion was equally bad for the river corridor, and the metal shredder is about to rise on the river bank. That's three for three so far. Why is this so?
The bigger picture is 1) we are dealing with a Plan that does not reflect any community consensus, 2) any individual project review within the framework of a lack of consensus for the whole Plan will become a circular argument with little chance for resolve, 3) the community has allowed itself to be manipulated yet again by the "divide and conquer" mentality, 4) the opportunity for establishing a truly inclusive Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) has been lost, and 4) the flawed Plan, approved as a "concept," has now become a blueprint, used by both "sides" to prove their case. For nearly ten years, the Mississippi Corridor Neighborhood Coalition (MCNC) has promoted an urban river experience that eschewed the "hard edged" design of the Central Riverfront in favor of more passive green space and a place of urban quietude. There was no urgency to move before we had the best plan in place and no reason to settle for less than the best plan. What we got instead is a real estate developers dream and a ribbon of green and geese. MCNC helped form a coalition of neighborhoods, businesses and environmental groups into the Mississippi Corridor Community Alliance. The Alliance emerged as a strong advocate for a meaningful and inclusive stakeholder participation process to help reframe the Plan through better public participation. The Alliance hammered out a draft stakeholder participation process, held public meetings to refine it and presented it to the city as a starting point for developing the CAC. But the Alliance CAC proposal never had a chance to be fully discussed as whole cloth by the 50-person Working Group brought together to refine the participation process. Unfortunately, some members started cutting deals to solidify their place on the CAC and their individual agendas. Some were afraid to appear controversial or to offend certain constituencies. Furthermore, the Working Group meetings were badly facilitated, and many community members just stopped coming. Eventually, it came down to 9 or 10 "Implementation Committee" members who have made the decisions, without any attempt at either geographic or interest area representation. Land owners, including rental property owners, are not automatically included in the CAC. There is no built-in process for assuring that communities of color, faith communities or community organizations such as the Urban League or the Chamber of Commerce will be included. We had a chance to pull off a truly inclusive and meaningful citizen participation model, but we blew it by splintering off into factions and not remaining true to our original goals. The city has won again. Trying to "fix" this bad JADT project is another distraction to keep us from addressing the larger issues. My hope is that a new mayor and several new council members will bring a fresh approach to upper river corridor redevelopment and to a Citizen Advisory Committee process. Fran Guminga Bottineau, Ward 3 _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
