Dean Zimmerperson writes: > It continues to baffle me why anyone would think that it is a bad thing for > a neighborhood to be divided by a ward boundary. I should think people > would be happy that their neighborhood has two city council members looking > out for their interests.
I'll be honest: I'm ok with neighborhoods that are split roughly 50-50, but I pushed so hard for intact neighborhoods in part to prevent the sort of thin-slicing that appears in parts of the draft redistricting plan. For example, Ward 13 has about 9 blocks of East Harriet - Ward 8 has the other 80 percent if I'm reading the draft map right. I've already mentioned a classic thin-slice of SW Phillips in the 8th - though that will probably get attention since Robert Lilligren lives there. (By the way, can some email off list the names and borders of the new split-up Phillips neighborhood?) I'm sure there are others I can't glean from a hand-drawn map not linked to neighborhood boundaries. The risk with thin-slicing is that you really don't have two council members looking out for your interests. Having only a teeny slice of a neighborhood naturally drops it down a council member's priority list, if for no other reason than you'll probably spend less time in a neighborhood where you represent less people. Like it or not, neighborhoods are city-endorsed participation groups, and there are only so many meetings a council member can attend regularly. Also, representing a thin slice makes it tempting to defer to the "majority" council member who has the bulk of the ward, weakening direct representation. Now having had the pleasure of working with six council members in my three years on the Kingfield board, I can say I'd rather have an excellent council member in a split-up ward than a poor council member in a single ward. But I'd really rather have one, or at most two, excellent council members who each have significant interests - politically as well as other interests - focusing their attention to the neighborhood. I should also mention that it looks like the Commission did an admirable job of keeping neighborhoods together - which makes it important that they be able to explain the thin-slicing where it occurs. Also, Dean, thanks for the correction on the map's partisan angle. Why did the Republicans dissent? David Brauer King Field - Ward 10 _______________________________________ 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
