-----Original Message----- From: Rachel N Lewis Bravo to Jeanne Massey's reminder of government's actual responsibilities! "...real priorities of the city, county and state, namely affordable housing, transportation, education, among others..."
I want to read posts about what is happening at professional, city, county and state levels to make building affordable housing a normal part of what we as a society continuously and routinely do. I want to see some brainstorming on solving the multimillion dollar budgetary crisis in our public school system. Who's out there working in these areas and wants to get the word out about what you are trying to accomplish? [TB] The MN Constitution makes education a state responsibility which the state has delegated to independent school districts and provides some funding for roads and highways. Can anyone tell me where the RESPONSIBILITY for providing affordable housing arises or is it something that we just took on (and with some reasonable justification)? Do we have a "crisis" in our public school system? Do we have a situation where if we don't add more money people are going to die or suffer great bodily injury or if we cut spending people will die or suffer great bodily injury? Do we have a crisis or merely a situation that is less than ideal? Given that a solution has been developed by Superintendent Johnson and her staff, I would suggest that we merely have a situation that is less than ideal or less than some parents want. Looking at the proposed budget cuts, I certainly think a high school student can spend 30 or 40 minutes walking 2 miles to school. I'm not going to pretend to know the ideal class size, I have a hard time seeing that adding a single person to a class, 3 - 5%, is that significant. The 2 teachers in a 3rd grade class room was new to me, is this the most efficient way to teach 3rd graders? I see every group (schools, police, fire, snowplowing, etc.) saying we shouldn't cut their budget. They all seem to think they just can't hack a cut. I voted for the last school referendum, but I find it tiring when everybody keeps coming back for more. I don't consider myself rich, I'm not hurting, but certainly not wealthy. Something over 40% of my income goes to pay one form of tax or another and if I work more to make more money, over half of that goes toward some kind of tax. If I have to pay more in taxes, its probably going to come from some group that I give money to. The checks are only so big and that's all there is. I don't complain to much about the taxes, I certainly could live someplace where they are lower (and the weather might not even be as extreme in most years). When I moved here my state income taxes doubled and I can assure you that my income didn't. I'm not real interested in paying out more because some parent wants their kid to ride a bus to school. How many thousand dollars do we spend per kid in the Minneapolis Schools? Are we really using those dollars in the most efficient way? I'm not interested in a higher sales tax in my neighborhood because some employer thinks that they need a new facility to operate their business. How many businesses get their facilities purchased for them by the taxpayers? Maybe professional sports adds to our quality of life, but if that is the reason we are building stadiums we need to determine if that is the best use of money to add to our quality of life (who knows, maybe it is). Terrell Brown Loring Park terrell at terrellbrown dot org _______________________________________ 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
