Welcome Cathy, This is a good place to start looking for answers. We will all be a little better off if the Mayor and the City Council members bring this issue out into the light. The public has been kept completely in the DARK, behind a wall of silence from our elected politicians. Under the guise of "Affordable Housing" some City Council Members and possibly staff from the Mayor's office maybe preparing to further the already existing pattern of discrimination against "poor and minority neighborhoods and communities. Lets all light the small candle of information we have, and lift our voices to demand an end to the silence! Like the old religious show on Sunday morning use to say, "If Everyone Lit Just One Little Candle What A Bright World It Would Be".
To light one of those candles Paul Weir is planning to post minutes from some of those SAB meetings at www.pnn.org Everyone should look at them and you decide if a little undercover work has been going on, while keeping Neighborhoods in the dark about it. That info may be up this weekend, but may not be posted until Monday so be patient. Thank you Jim Mork, for being able to see the potential folly of some City Council actions. A good key for the Council to follow is that if the action you are taking is not something you do for everyone, IS against the wishes of the impacted community, AND against the advice of your professional staff there exists a good chance it is something that could generate a lawsuit. Anytime the City Planning Staff resists political pressure enough to oppose granting a variance for a politically powerful Non-Profit you can be sure it may cause a dozy of a political explosion and untold "Collateral Damage". The application for a total exception to City Ordinance on off street parking "Regulations" for PPL is just such a situation with untold collateral damage to the Minneapolis. The City should learn that if it gets bit every time it tries to slap the dog it keeps behind a fence, it might be a good idea to STOP "petting" it. Of course in this case it is the "public's hand" that the Council People are thinking of sticking through the fence. Sorry Jim, they changed the law so that the Council and Mayor have "Three more years to go". You do not really expect or think they would be acting this way if they were running for office next year do you? We need to go back to Council people being elected every two years. They were a whole lot more responsive and less arrogant when they were. Council people will tell you that you get a lot more "Professional" Council this way. My question is who wants "Professional" politicians at the lowest level of elected office? I want someone representative of my community, who actually REPRESENTS my neighborhood. I think of Scott Benson and Barbara Johnson and think about how level headed and representative they are, and I think that is just the right level of "Professional" to me. I bet they would have no problem getting elected every two years. Lets go back to that system, it also limits the value of quasi-bribes (contributions) that are given by large developers for four years of "Service". Start a referendum, I will vote for it. By the way, I believe it is very unprofessional to claim you support "Neighborhood Empowerment" and involvement and then keep quiet about such an important issue as continuing a pattern of discrimination by concentrating supportive housing. The attempt to do this under the guise of "Affordable Housing" has hypocrisy fairly dripping off of it. Saying that the City doesn't want to "concentrate" supportive housing, then removing the 1/4 mile ruling and making it so the units can ONLY situated in communities "Zoned" for multi-family impacted areas also fairly drips with hypocrisy. So every one respond, and light that one little candle. Jim Graham, Ventura Village - and spending less time in that "State" of depression since Jim Mork, Cathy, Barb, Tom, and others have started lighting those candles _______________________________________ 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
