In a message dated 2/1/02 3:24:07 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< I don't think I've read or heard a decent explanation as to why a hardworking public servant like Steve Cramer wasn't retained as MCDA Executive Director. I personally think he's done yeoman's (whoops, sorry Council Member Zimmermann) yeoperson's work with the jo >> Keith says try this; Steve Cramer, by my observations, was a willing executioner of bricks and mortar in the onslaught on affordable housing and neighborhood commercial property of the previous regime. Yes, he took orders well from Jackie and Sharon. This stealthy urban renewal campaign seemed to have as it's goal the deconcentration of poverty. Yes, board up and empty the buildings where poor people reside (are they mostly "minority"?), move them along to the suburbs or Mary's Place. The City wanted to acquire your property and knock it down. They did not have to pay you for it or pay for relocating renters if it "became" condemned, boarded and tax forfeited. And the MCDA was one stop on the way to the landfill. They shifted relocation-housing costs to the County shelters and hurt two generations of young public school kids and their desperate parents and many small business owners. So many people have commented here on the MCDA holding property vacant for years and ultimately tearing it down. They were not blunderers; that was the program. And Steve was masterful at it's execution. Presenting his agency as the "white gloved" receiver and caregiver of landlord mismanaged property, he was more like the grim reaper. Property owners' buildings fell to the attrition of the meanstreets allowed by City Hall and were Tax forfeited to the County. The City, by statute, bid in most all forfeited properties and held them to rot or gave them to their nonprofit buddies. Yes Steve, hold DeLisi's Bar building or the 1101 building (both on West Broadway) vacant and open to the elements long enough and they will deteriorate. Yes, you can then say it would take too many government dollars to restore them. These are just two small examples, there are hundreds more. The MCDA was like a sausage factory for neighborhood buildings; they went in one end as a building and came out the other end as a sausage. And baby, it is no fun watching MCDA brand sausage being made year after year in the hood. Keith Reitman, one step ahead of the sausage machine so far, NearNorth _______________________________________ 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
