Well I suppose there's a killjoy or a naysayer in every crowd, but I wouldn't voice an opinion unless I could support it.
Tim Bonham wrote: > I can't see that these suggestions from Mr. Atherton would work very well. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. In reality I'm trying to make a bad idea (the NRP) work as well as possible. Ideas need to be tested, or of course you can do nothing to increase community involvement; which as seemed to be the inclination of our neighborhood association. > >1. "Important" issues are not that hard to define. > > a) If it impacts more than 25% of your residents it's probably important. > > b) If you have to ask yourself if it's really going to piss anyone off > > it's > > probably important. > > c) If it hits any of the hot button topics like affordable housing, LRT, > > property assessments, etc., it's probably important. > Using this definition, I think that nearly EVERY issue would be > found to be "important". I'm having a hard time thinking of anything that > would not meet one of these 3 points. Right! Which is why we should have REPRESENTATIVE, instead of CONTRACTED OUT government. I believe that every resident should be informed about the actions of their NRP contractor, that's the idea of the NRP resident participation isn't it? But, there really are some issues that will not meet the requirements above. > >2. Your council member can mail everyone in your neighborhood without > > any cost to you for important issues. > There ain't no free mailings. The cost may not come from you > personally, but it comes from a city council budget paid for by your taxes! > [In Minneapolis, each Council Member gets a budget for office > supplies, printing, postage, etc. After the standard expenses of the > office, like answering constituent mail, etc. there is usually enough money > left for 1 (or possibly 2) mailings to the entire ward in the year. So the > Council Member has to either restrict the mailing to only part of the ward > (send to only registered voters, or only to homeowners, etc.) or else pay > the remaining cost themself (typically out of their campaign funds).] If you reread the above you will see that I never said it was free, it just doesn't cost the contractor anything. I think that a letter from a councilmember to a neighborhood (not a ward) to set up a mailing list is a reasonable expense. We received five or more letters from Ms. Campbell on the issue of streetlights alone, one of them rather nasty and self-serving. > > a) I'd suggest that you ask them to send out a mailing asking who would > > like to be on a mailing list and/or list server. > Who's going to maintain this list server/mailing list? (They do > take much work to maintain -- just ask our list master David Brauer!) In > my experience, email address change more often that postal mail addresses. Oh my, it's the "we work so hard and we're just volunteers" whine again. It just takes one person with a little bit of smarts and motivation. My wife set up our entire alternative neighborhood association website : http://www.prospect-park.org/ (be sure to take the graphical version of the neighborhood tour). > >Not everyone is going to > > and you can always use NRP funds for "administrative communications." > > > >3. If you have block leaders they can always flyer their blocks. My wife > >and I have flyered a large part of neighborhood before. And as block leaders > >we regularly flyer our block. > But does this get any response? I get so many flyers on the front > of my house (pizza delivery, new windows & siding, make money in home based > business, etc.) that they almost all go in the recycling without even being > looked at. It gets a response when people are interested in the issue and it's important to them. We got more than 250 people to a meeting on street lights with flyers. Regardless, neighborhood notification is putatively an NRP requirement for "plan modification" and should be for all decisions by contractors that affect residents. > >4. Como uses lawn signs for meeting announcements which is a great idea, > >that I could never get our association to do. > Possibly workable, if you can find location(s) that most people in > the neighborhood pass by regularly. > But is this legal? I thought there were specific regulations & > zoning permits required to put up signs. There are specific exceptions for > yard/garage sale signs and political campaign signs -- we had some > discussion last summer on this list about the fact that many political > signs were not done legally -- put up too early, and too many in a yard. According to the first amendment and recent a few court rulings it's legal. Michael Atherton Prospect Park _______________________________________ 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
