Barb Lickness is absolutely correct.
Minneapolis is fortunate that is has the degree of participation
in strategic planning that it presently has. I know of no other
City in the country that has even close to the same level. This
is due not to the CDBG required "Citizen Participation" or
efforts of the Planning Department. It is due to the
empowerment of individual Minneapolis residents by the NRP
planning process. That process has created a confidence
among Minneapolis residents that they have just as valuable
ideas about development in their neighborhoods and
communities as the "Professional Planners" from downtown.
Outside "Planners" may be able to assist communities with
technical knowledge, but make no mistake about it , the people
who KNOW what their community needs are the residents of
that community.
Michael Atherton wrote:
{Whatever mechanism is used to give neighborhoods more
of a say in city planning I hope that the mechanism is
representative of the residents and not the neighborhood
associations; a factor noted by the report.}
What ever the report may have implied by this I do not
know, but the same is true of Minneapolis also. Any
mechanism that does not allow for neighborhoods more
of a say in city planning is doomed, and will only cause
more years of POOR city planning. The neighborhoods
have not done poor planning in the past. The Neighborhoods
thru NRP have engaged in better "Planning" than Minneapolis
previously has enjoyed. The problem in the eyes of
"Professional" downtown is that Neighborhoods have
successful plans that are not the same as said "Professionals"
have for the same area.
The record speaks for itself, who has created the most
"Benefit" in dollars of development per dollar spent,
neighborhoods using NRP dollars or downtown using
MCDA and City dollars? I contend that the neighborhoods
never would have made the "Target" deal or subsidized
condo's for the rich on the river at $200,000 to $300,000
a pop. Neighborhoods are smart enough to know you do
not have to pay outside "Middle-class" to move into
Minneapolis to have middle class in Minneapolis. Give any
of our poor people $200,000 and they are middle class.
How many years of funding for City wide NRP could have
been paid for with just the amount spent on "Target".
Neighborhoods are representative organizations that
should be controlled by residents and not outside
commercial and non-profit interests. The old Phillips
Neighborhood Organization was, in my opinion, in large
part controlled by such interests before we made a
concerted effort to take as many residents to committee
meetings as possible in order to take over the planning
and spending of NRP dollars. Non-profits actually had
the gall to complain to the City of Minneapolis that we,
and me in particular, were stacking meetings with residents.
What a crime, encouraging residents to attend meetings,
and of course I immediately and un-repentantly plead
guilty to the charges, (even bragged about it). Fortunately,
we were encouraged by Bob Miller and other NRP staff
such as Barb Lickness. They seemed to think having a lot
more involvement of residents was a good idea. They
even agreed with the weird philosophy that residents
were in the best situation to know what they, the residents,
needed to revitalize their own communities. The three or four
million dollars that were rescued has already created hundreds
of millions of dollars of committed development and will
continue to create even more. Sure NRP could have spent
money more wisely in some cases, but even with downtown
not performing its fiduciary oversight responsibility and
allowing non-profits to raid the neighborhood coffers NRP
produced more benefit per dollar than any development
scheme the City of Minneapolis has yet participated in.
I will bet that someone in power will come up with the idea
that the McKenzie report recommends that the City allow
for more centralized control and planning for NRP in
Minneapolis(for good comprehensive planning). Which ever
politician does this, whether the Mayor or City Council Persons,
is looking to control the money and control the planning for
neighborhoods. That person is looking to continue lining
the pockets of for-profit and non-profit developers.
The professionals are scared of the trend of neighborhoods
thinking they have power. (Imagine the audacity, some
neighborhood people actually believe they had something
to do with deciding the last election).
RT Rybak and most of the present City Council ran for office
on promises of supporting NRP as it was and strengthening
neighborhood control of NRP, and resident input into
City Planning. So I call on the residents of Minneapolis to
hold these people strictly accountable for their actions. Whether
it be to praise them and support them if they fulfill the promise,
or kick them out of office if they don't. Its about time our elected
politicians started remembering not only their promises but who
supported them on the basis of those promises. Sure most of
their money came from other sources than the poor resident, but
developers (no matter how rich) can only vote once. The same
amount as the poor person who goes to work downtown
each day at a service job making less than a living wage. Some
politicians have forgotten that they owe the residents more than
they owe the Business-people who think they bought the politician.
In the last election the real money went somewhere else and those
people lost. The people elected RT and the rest to save NRP
and neighborhood planning, not to comprehensively consolidate it
downtown.
As for citizen input into neighborhood associations, I say go to
the next general membership meeting with enough of your fellow
residents to take it over and elect those who do represent the
residents of that neighborhood. Also think about making sure
such organizations will always be controlled by the residents.
You might have to change by-laws to do that, but it is worth
while.
ANY INNER-CITY NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZATION
THAT ALLOWS EMPLOYEES OF NON-PROFITS AN
EQUAL VOTE AS A RESIDENT HAS A BIG PROBLEM.
WHEN THAT NEIGHBORHOOD VOTES AGAINST THE
INTEREST OF A NON-PROFIT IT WILL QUICKLY LEARN
WHAT OUTSIDE TAKEOVER MEANS. SOME SUCH AS
CENTRAL MAY EVEN LEARN THIS LESSON FROM
FOR PROFIT DEVELOPERS.
Lets keep residents running their own neighborhoods and
planning for their own success and quality of life. I know
of no instance where a community has planned a
Cabrini Green, or such things, but I can point to many
such a catastrophe that professionals have planned.
Remember the community also did not plan closing
Nicolett at Lake or even the Holman situation. Those
were all the results of "Professionally" done planning from
downtown. We have experienced downtown
"comprehensive planning", and local community planning.
I know of no case where community based planning has
not been superior to any "Professional" based planning for
that same community.
Jim Graham,
DreamWeaving in Ventura Village, South Minneapolis and Mother Earth
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