Thank you, Fred. Fredric Markus wrote:
>Note: illegal drug use >impacts all three of these venues and we are nowhere immune from crimes >against persons and property. > WM: Farmers I know in Southwest Minnesota are locking their barns so that thieves don't have such easy access to their horses -- tractors, combines, stuff like that. They're the ones who have to contend with the meth labs for the most part. >When Dean got roughed up by some vicious kids in the middle of the >election campaign, it was because Dean was willing to put himself in >harm's way - maybe not the wisest course of action in retrospect, but >emblematic of a willingness to take responsibility for the peace of his >immediate neighborhood even at some personal risk. > And Dean's hardly the only one. Many, many Phillips, Sevens Square, Central, Whittier, Powderhorn Park, Lyndale and other folks have had to do similar things on the Southside. The difference was they weren't trying to get elected at the same time. One family I know, who lived in the 3000 block of Portland, were beaten by drug dealers. The husband was beaten while his wife watched, then held down to watch his wife beaten. They didn't leave. They're still here and that family is a credit to any neighborhood to have the good fortune to have them. They have moved to a bigger house down a block. I've been happy with the billboard campaign, "you're the one who can keep the peace" which leaves no one free of responsibility to help in some way. >It is annoying to read on this list "for some reason the only >politicians that get elected are the ones who promise to do something >about drugs and prostitution under the general "tough on crime" rubric. > >That's not how Dean operates - and you don't have to take my word for >it, we've been reading about his activities for some time now. Nor is >that the impression I have of Mayor Rybak, or Council Members Niziolek, >Lilligren, Schiff, Zerby, Johnson Lee, or Ostrow. If I don't add the >rest of the city council to this list, it's only that I haven't had as >much contact with them. I can certainly add my state legislators >Berglin, Walker and Clark to the list of people I know personally and >trust implicitly on these weighty matters and while I'm at it, I have a >seriously warm spot in my heart for County Commissioner Dorfman. > WM: Not knowing all those players well, I'll add Sharon Sayles Belton as an effective crime fighter, Peter McLaughlin's work, Brian Herron's. If we're going to give Tony Scallon kudos for the NRP, I'd add him as an excellent crime fighter because the NRP is allowing neighborhoods to clean up after 30 years of redlining by banks and insurance companies and neglect by city, county, state. It's also annoying to see people who have been you're OK neighbors suddenly turned into sleazoids by some because you elected them to be council members, commissioners, mayors, whatevers. Winning the election doesn't ogrify one's neighbors. >After 30-odd years, Minneapolis is also my small town and I can't >stereotype these "politicians" that I know personally and trust >implicitly any more than I could knowingly denigrate the negotiating >skills of that savvy lone constable in a town of 316 souls in rural >Wisconsin. > WM: What's every bit as important as trusting implicitly is having access to. I don't have to have lunch every month with them, but knowing I can send an e-mail, letter, phone call about a perspective on a issue and have it heard sure means a lot. >Housing's still pricey and bad things still happen but I'm here because >I feel a part of this place and I like working on solutions with lots of >other well-meaning people. I admire values that obtain in rural AND >urban settings and there's a lot of that going around. > WM: There's still an odd notion that housing is cheap in rural areas. That's not quite true. Rural housing appears cheap if you have a city job/wage (or well paying, tolerable) job. But if you're making bupkis in a rural area, a ten thousand dollar house is just as far off the charts as an $80,000 one would be for me here--and we don't seem to have any such thing in the city anymore. Small towns are also very insular and there are not as many opportunities to break the insularity. For myself, I grew up in a city about the size of Minneapolis and I find that to be my ecological niche. This one has its faults, but every other one does too. I wouldn't want to live in my hometown which is bone deep conservative, (Sen. Bob Taft [grandson of Wm. H. Taft] territory) and much more given to bunker mentality about people who are somehow "different" (emigrant status, color, religion, etc.). My attempts to contend with suburbs, small towns, rural areas and megacities like New York left me feeling like a fish on a bicycle. >WizardMarks, Central, Ward 8 >_______________________________________ > >Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy >Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls > _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
