Regarding the anti-war resolution, it seems silly to me to have one arm of government pass such a thing and another representative veto it. Here�s an alternative. Everyone in both the mayor�s office and the council sign an open letter and have it printed in the Washington Post. That�ll reach the right set of eyes and show that Minneapolis is not eager for war and its blood-letting and waste of money.
Regarding cutting the budget, my personal feeling is that no cuts should be made in public safety. This is police, fire, and street clearing. I think personnel costs outside the public safety area would be an appropriate thing to look at. We have to face the fact that we simply cannot support as many civil service bodies. I remember when the city thought it was facing a big cut due to national cuts coming to the city through the state in 1996. As it happened, the budget neared balance without those cuts, so the reductions never came. But the mayor laid off a number of people before that was clear. Healthcare was transferred to Hennepin County, and some data services were outsourced. That sort of thing will have to be considered again. In part, this will be transferring present wages to fund future pension obligations. The thing that is really needed is a line-item budget so that taxpayers can weigh in on the areas they�d most like cut. I agree that state reductions of a certain percentage will not result in the exact same percentage cut in the city budget. Another technique would be to simply make certain services contingent on a user fee. This is old hat, but it would keep the city in the field to some extent while allowing users of those services to also buy them privately. ===== Jim Mork -- Cooper Neighborhood ________________________________ Help stop spam -- Join SpamCon Foundation, http://www.spamcon.org __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________ 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
