Our fearlesss leader asked for a recommendation about serving on CLIC. So the first question is, what's a CLIC? The Capital Long Range Improvement Committe (CLIC) has existed for forty plus years. Its job is to receive information from the various city agencies that have capital needs and recommend to the Mayor and Council which projects should be funded and when.
Members from each ward have a chance to provide additional information on projects in their ward but I have never noticed any "ward politics" on the committee. Although you would have to ask a council member to confirm, I have been told that many of them appreciate the committees work because it helps keep ward politics, pressure to bring home the pork, largely out of the capital program. The time commitment involves two all day meetings and a number (6 to a maximum of 10?) of lunch hour meetings. The all day meetings are when city staff comes to make their presentations supporting their projects. We rate everything from new fire stations and police stations to new park board pools to water purification plants to bridge replacements to alley retaining walls. The presentations are interesting because usually the head of the department involved attends. The Police Chief will be there for the police presentation, The Library Director for the Library and so on. Occasionally there is a need for a tour of some of the facilities. If you like the new show CSI about police lab work you would have liked our tour last year of their facility, which is in drastic need of improvement. Although the staff does a wonderfull job, pushing a vast amount of research through, they do not do so in the state of the art facilities seen on TV. Not yet anyway. One problem we have noted is that once the projects are rated, many new members have felt that their involvement is over. The rating atually takes some "homework" time but gets easier once you have gone through the first year. The fun actually begins after the ratings are in however as we then prepare our actual report and recommendations to the Mayor and Council. Overall it appears that the majority of our recommendations are followed, although there are always some adjustments made. Pay is lousy, but then it is a volunteer group. Compensation includes free parking and on the two all day meetings we actually get lunch provided. One small bit of politcs came into play some years ago when a certain council member was irritated at CLIC and voted to rescind their budget for lunch at every meeting. Contact your council member or the Mayors office if you're interested. Each Council member appoints two people from their ward and the Mayor is allowed five appointments. Bob Gustafson 13th __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Great stuff seeking new owners in Yahoo! Auctions! http://auctions.yahoo.com _______________________________________ 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
