For Ms. Lickness and Mr. Graham, and all others who think suing city hall is a GOOD idea, here's some things to think about. Did the lawsuits cause more open debates in the electorate of mistaken city policies? Did it exact a political price from the people who were treating citizens in a cavalier manner? Those are the things that lead to changes in policy and more openness in the regime. The lawsuit itself does not carry a personal cost for the offending city politicians. We, the people, defend against your actions. So unless you were aiming to punish us, you missed your mark. I realize that you feel you were victims of injustice. Reasonable people can AGREE that you were. But what is way less clear is that the villains in the story became victims of their own actions. We just don't have a court system set up to insure that. Pity that you couldn't sue the individual and force him or her to hire a lawyer. But whatever outrages they commit are legally considered "results of doing their job" which always means taxpayers have to fork out the money, even if we don't AGREE with what they did.
No, I think you need something considerably more PUBLIC than litigation. You need to call them out on a public carpet, not into a relatively private courtroom. It may take time and effort to construct that public rug, but until we bring it into being, I'm afraid politicians will continue to feel TOO safe. And as long as they have that shelter, I think we can continue to expect them to conspire against some of their constituents. ===== Jim Mork Cooper Neighborhood ------------ Progressive Minnesotans, get together at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MN_progressive_tradition/ __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos http://launch.yahoo.com/u2 _______________________________________ 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
