David says: Here are the final council wards - sorry, don't have a super-detailed map yet.
Let the public comments begin...again! http://members.tcq.net/david/finalwards.jpg [TB] It looks to me that the biggest changes are in Wards 6,8 and 9 with minor adjustments in Wards 2, 10, 11 and 12. It appears from the map that the items with by far the greatest amount of comment at last nights public hearing (5th Ward and Downtown) are unchanged from the tentative map. Frankly I think much of the objection stated last night to having all of downtown in one ward is a bit of paranoia. The Councils involvement in downtown comes in 2 parts. First is the neighborhood part. That's the neighborhood livability issues that all neighborhoods have and are addressed by the council member who represents the area. I think those are best addressed by a single council member. Second is the business core part. That has always been and probably always will be addressed by the entire council. It's also the part that effects the entire city and provides a huge percentage of the city's tax base. From past history I don't think any council member has ever had "more power" based on representing that area. I haven't compared the map with the incumbent locator, but Bill Dooley's and Loki Anderson's posts it sounds like we have at least 2 incumbents paired. I'd rather see more straight lines. Given the way the process has been set up, I think the Commission did a good job. I think there are some things we can do to tweak the process to make it better. I think part of the problem is that when the charter was amended nobody thought that there would be more than 2 "major' political parties to deal with. You can blame neither the Redistricting Commission or the Charter Commission for the lack of racial or gender balance of the Redistricting Commission. The City Charter requires that the Charter Commission appoint members from lists supplied by political parties and self nominations. The parties had little balance in their nominations. The Charter Commission did appoint the only female and Black on the commission, the commission then selected a female chair. Both members appointed by the City Council are white males. Thanks Commission, I know it wasn't an easy job. Terrell Brown Loring 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
