Terrell Brown gets at one concern that I had, one that Bob Fine had raised last week as well:
By demanding cuts of the Park and Library Boards as part of the 8% levy cap, the city is hiding the actual amount of their levy as opposed to being straightforward with us citizens and voters. I also agree with Terrell's point that with the Library Board, the city is trying to do an end-run on the referendum we passed and it plain sucks. Both of these are reminiscent of the kinds of seedy politics that many of us thought we voted out last fall. I personally feel somewhat betrayed that this proposal is supported by a mayor who ran on how he would bring a "breath of fresh air" to City Hall. A campaign that I volunteered for, though my role was small. Guess we may still have some housecleaning to do if this is how city is going to play. Sure hope our mayor or one of those council members supporting this travesty can find some time to share their side of the story. As far as Terrell's wondering where all the money goes though, I can hazard a guess for some of it. Inflation may be down to a percent or two, but things like health care premiums continue to rise at double-digit levels each year. Since much of the city's overall budget is spent on staff salaries and benefits, a good portion of the city's budget increase will probably go towards those increases. That's one good reason why folks ought to support single-payer health care. HMOs are not only hitting our wallets for our own coverage, but they hit us again as taxpayers for covering government employees. Too bad Mike Hatch didn't keep at it with his campaign against Allina. I don't know much about the Loring Park project, but I though John Erwin did a pretty good job a couple weeks ago at explaining why moving the Park Board headquarters was a fiscally sound idea. Here's a link to his post for those who might've missed it: http://www.mnforum.org/pipermail/mpls/2002-July/014425.html Mark Snyder Windom Park (59A) [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________ 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
