Ken Avidor is correct in both his explanation of the problem and the results of the trampling elephants. He has missed one alternative outcome. The grass grows thorns, which neither allows the elephants to eat it or walk on it. Of course the elephants say well "What will you do with out my 'fertilizer'? Of course after the trampling the neighborhoods and residents have taken they are likely to answer that they have about all the Bull-, I mean "Elephant Fertilizer" that they can take.
I sat through the 35W "PAC" meeting yesterday in amazement. I had been elected to represent an impacted neighborhood, and felt that I may have been one of the few people at the table who was. Some impacted neighborhoods, such as Stevens, were not even at the table, other non-impacted neighborhoods were. Also select non-profits such as Green Institute and Urban Ventures were at the table as voting members while others were excluded. Businesses such as Abbot, and Wells Fargo were VOTING members in what clearly was a conflict of interest because they were voting to increase their property values by spending 150 million taxpayer dollars. I think you indeed had elephants trampling the grass root neighborhoods with the composition of this "PAC". I am not speaking of the viability of the access project, I personally think the freeway system has to be "fixed" to mitigate the destruction of neighborhoods and harm to residents that was wrought upon the City of Minneapolis by the Freeways when they were first badly designed and built. I am speaking of the illusion of neighborhood support that has been woven around this project. Hennepin County fostering this sham group as some kind of "legitimate" citizen decision making group is at best a joke and at worst a fraud. Hennepin County and Corporations who will profit from the access projects have in large part added a few neighborhood representatives, to an already stacked deck, so as to claim some sort of legitimacy. If the "Elephants" want this group to actually be legitimate then they need to remove the "marked cards" from the deck and have a re-vote including only those neighborhood "Citizen Participation" groups who have been "Legitimized" by the City Council. Then any vote they take would be "LEGITIMATE"; otherwise it is just a sham. The excuse that hundreds of hours and time have been spent on the project is just so much further trampling. The "Legitimate" neighborhoods thank you for that work. It will make their decision more informed. Now please leave the table for a moment and let the legitimate judges decide what is the winning hand. The "Elephants" have wanted to be able to say what the value of each card is. Elephants come and go, remember the original Elephants running this stampede were Ray Harris and the Sears project, Honeywell, and Allina or Abbott. Allina has split off, Honeywell is dead, and Ray Harris is gone (and through mishandling probably any Sears development as well). The only constants are the few blades of trampled grass-root neighborhoods whose only function seems to be lending "Legitimacy". The Circus masters replace the "Elephants" with others such as Wells Fargo, but the charade-- I mean circus-- goes on. Some of us who actually want the present poorly designed and flawed Freeway system fixed, and want true MITIGATION for the previous damage, are caught in an absurd conflict between wanting the needed benefits of the fraud (including the "Bull Elephant Fertilizer"), and wanting to grow thorns of moral outrage at the trampling of fellow blades of grass. The "ELEPHANT" of course will be outraged that the "Grass) objects to being trampled upon, but that's too bad. Some of us have grown burrs so we do not plan to join our less hardy bluegrass lawn friends by moving to the suburbs. We plan on staying rooted in the same place and just make it to painful for the elephants to continue their present attitudes and actions. (Or at least to teach them to tread lightly, and be more gentle while they are "picking" us.) Jim Graham, Ventura Village - Where we have been trampled so often by "Non-Profits" and "Government" Elephants we had to grow thorns _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:mpls@;mnforum.org Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
