Brandon, the City Council people who represent North of Lake Street are Dean Zimmerman, Robert Lillegren and Gary Shiff. I believe each of the three care a great deal about their community. All three are "New" to the job, but have already started to make a difference. Two of these people represent south of Lake Street. Nne of them is your own City Council representative; Gary Shift.
Though Jordan is on the North-side of Minneapolis you are correct about the relative deprivation of the area and neighborhoods just north of Lake Street in comparison to Powderhorn and Corcoran. Not in housing stock - the housing stock in Phillips and in particular Ventura Village is at least comparable to Powderhorn and probably superior to the more working class single-family bungalows in Corcoran. The deprivation is in City of Minneapolis services and Public Safety. The City of Minneapolis has attempted to concentrate crime and drug dealing, housing for level three sex offenders, and supportive housing in this area. At least one Police official publicly, and candidly admitted this concentration effort during a Ventura Village meeting this year. He said he had participated in an organized effort to drive drug dealers out of Whittier into Phillips and the effort to contain them in Phillips. Approximately six years ago the area around Franklin Avenue and the Phillips Neighborhood requested designation as a Federal Disaster Area due to the endemic drug dealing, the murder of children, and the collateral blight associated with the crime and violence. When Robert Olson initiated "Code Four", it began with a concentrated police effort along Franklin Avenue. Residents of Powderhorn and Corcoran came to public meetings and demanded that this effort stop because it was pushing "Phillip's drug dealers into good neighborhoods". We wondered at the time if such drug dealers had "Phillips" tattooed on their forehead. There was enough political pressure for these "good" neighborhoods to successfully stop proactive policing in Phillips. So there clearly is "relative deprivation" compared to those more affluent and white neighborhoods. This is not just a "perception" however; even drug dealers comment that they are only bothered if they try to go south of Lake Street or over the bridge into Whittier. Brandon, after apparently taking a poly-sci class, define relative deprivation as: > "For those of you that haven't taken a poly sci class, or haven't in a while, > relative deprivation is the measurement of the real value of what a > population has versus what a population believes it should have. When the > value of what a community believes it should have outpaces that which the > community actually has, tension rises eventually resulting in some sort of > action that is usually violent. With such a visible contrast between the > neighorhoods on the North side of Lake Street versus the neigbhorhoods on > the South side of Lake Street, I'd imagine an explosion any day now." It is the education of most residents that has caused the problem. Civics class, government classes, and even citizenship classes have lead people to believe that they have Constitutional Rights to " Equal Protection Under The Law". Believing this popular myth does cause a great deal of cognitive dissonance for some and create "Relative deprivation" as Brandon says. I know it infuriates me to think my people and friends are of such little value that they are merely pawns for downtown's efforts to create large-scale development. Most of us have been so enraged that we were willing to take on the "City Hall" in addition to the drug dealers to change our neighborhoods. We do have to wonder though, if as we put even more pressure on and displace drug dealers, those good "friends" in our neighboring neighborhoods to the south are again going to be once again exerting POLITICAL power to make the politicians stop and keep the drug dealers bottled up in our community. RT Rybak announced his candidacy from Ventura Village Market at the corner of Franklin Avenue and Chicago Avenue; he also held his first news conference, the morning after his and "our" victory, from that same place. At those news conferences and at the City DFL convention RT promised that with him elected the Phillips people would no longer be the forgotten orphans of Minneapolis. Since RT's mother ran a drug store from that same building after his father died when he was growing up we tend to believe him. We still believe RT, so we have great expectations about the changes that are going on and the ones to come. We in fact are so Mad about our past treatment, that it has motivated us to change the city with new regulatory and zoning changes. Changes that will benefit the entire City. I also must admit that since we believe we deserve to benefit from our hard work and sacrifice, if we do not you will see some truly "OUTRAGED" people. An example of this can be seen with our fight for affordable housing. We in Ventura Village have led that fight, (and most times fought alone) for several years. We have spent our NRP dollars to create the Indian AIDS supportive housing on 24th Street and 13th Avenue; we have helped with funding and political efforts to get the Alliance-Portland Village supportive housing for families on Portland Avenue. And many, many other such projects. WE helped until we could help no more. Then we demanded that the rest of the City of Minneapolis shoulder at least part of the load and that the City of Minneapolis abide by its on ordinances. City officials were outraged by our actions to stop an incredibly politically powerful PPL and said City Ordinance did not apply to us. It only applies to "Good neighborhoods". So we are suing the City of Minneapolis to force them to equally apply City ordinance to all neighborhoods to protect poor people and poor neighborhoods. If the crime problem is not adequately and fairly dealt with I am sure the Jordan Neighborhood would like to join with Phillips and Ventura Village to again take it to Federal Court. Isn't it ridiculous to have to take our own City to Federal Court to have them treat all people in all neighborhoods fairly and under the same Law and Ordinances? After all, due to the high taxes on rental real estate, we pay more taxes than most "Good Neighborhoods". And Brandon makes no mistake, it is the renter who pays those higher taxes and who does not get that "Equal treatment under the law". Jim Graham, Ventura Village - We must all "ENDEAVOR TO PERSEVERE" _______________________________________ 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
