There clearly were some problems with the process. I think that the charter amendment to set up the commission was an honest attempt to improve another bad process.
I suspect that when the charter amendment was drafted no one expected that there would be more than 2 "major parties" involved in the process. Although I could make a good case that political parties are a bad base for selection in a city whose elections are technically non-partisan, I think adding an additional party to the mix plus one other that was excluded because of a rather strange definition of "major" is what made the Charter Commission reluctant to add additional people to the Redistricting Commission. Perhaps requiring the addition of people not on the party lists would improve the make up of the Redistricting Commission. The Charter Commission did not have a very socially, racially and economically diverse pool of applicants to choose from. They could have done a better job of recruiting applicants which may have mitigated a rather ugly scene last Thursday. The City Council did little to improve the mix when they appointed their representatives. I have a problem with the description of the 7th Ward as a "rich ward". Nearly half of the population of Ward 7 lives in either Loring Park (pop 7500) or Elliot Park (pop 6500). Downtown West has an 4,500 people. All of these neighborhoods are primarily rental housing with DTW 60% of housing units being rental, Loring Park 75% and Elliot Park 90% (if the 2000 census income daya is available by neighborhood, I couldn't find it). Kenwood, which is smaller than Bryn Mawr only has 1,500 people or about 5% of the ward's population. Where do you want to put it? The 7th ward no longer has East Isles, one of the city's more wealthy neighborhoods. I'm not sure how you take the politics out of something that is very political. People have a tendency to like their council member. We could appoint 5 people from Seattle or Albuquerque to draw the lines, I suspect we would still not all be happy. Given the population shift away from the wards bordering the southern city limits, I think it was almost inevitable that barring significant gerrymandering there would be some paired council members. In this case the ward lines moved around 3 first term council members so there is probably a greater chance that they will all seek reelection. Community involvement is on the decrease. Had even half of our 83 neighborhoods nominated someone for the Redistricting Commission we likely would have seen a more diverse pool of applicants and it might have convinced the Charter Commission to recognize our neighborhoods and and appoint members for reasons other than political party affiliation. A few years back the League of Women Voters made an attempt to increase the pool of applicants for the Charter Commission, to his credit Mayor Rybak has worked to increase the pool of applicants to the city's various boards and commissions. Obviously this list is made up of people who care, it is considered successful with participation of around 1/10 of one percent of the city population. I'm not sure how we go about getting more people involved. I've had more than one person tell me "you can do that stuff, I've got no interest" I'm not sure how you develop the interest. I had the feeling that redistricting was a rather closed process. Plans seemed to appear. They seemed to appear without having been created in a public setting. I think people have more trust in government that operates with open and welcoming doors. In one particular case I felt one of the Redistricting Commissioners had a tendency to be lecturing in how things should be done. I feel the Commissioner's job is to be listening. That they couldn't start drawing lines until the state redistricting was completed on March 19 and announced a tentative plan 2 weeks later didn't leave enough time for listening. Since the redistricting data was available a year ago, this schedule has significant room for improvement. 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
