I disagree with the argument that participating in procedural meetings is the only significant way to help one's neighborhood. There are precious few people who, because they are angels, or policy wonks, or have nothing better to do with their lives, are willing to sit through an endless series of dreary, drab, boring policy meetings. The vast majority of people are not willing to subject themselves to that pain. Those who believe that power resides only in suffering through the never-ending merry-go-round of procedural meetings are consigning 98% of Minneapolitans to irrelevance.
I also disagree with the argument that hundreds of Hmong working together to implement a translation card to improve Hmong-police communications have no power. When you are in a packed room with 200 neighbors telling the politicians at the podium to get the card enforced, you are wielding a lot more power than if you are snoozing your way through yet another mind-paralyzing procedural meeting. And if this solution to a major neighborhood problem doesn't cost an arm and a leg, so much the better. Anybody who wants to engage large numbers of people and all the major constituencies in active involvement in improving their neighborhoods needs to think way way way outside of the box of excruciating policy and procedure meetings. And the first step is simply to listen. I believe that the most important job of a neighborhood organization is to get as many people as possible involved in successfully dealing with issues of neighborhood concern. No neighborhood group can rest easy until hundreds of people are actively involved and all the major constituencies are at the table and participating. Projects like the North Minneapolis Southeast Asian Initiative and Lyndale's Latina Women's Group and Holland's recent Youth Candidate Forum show that neighborhoods with the determination and the willingness to think outside the box can succeed. While the debate around NRP always seems to focus on how much money was spent and for what, for me the more important question is how much has NRP been decisive in enabling neighborhood groups to get people involved and develop the internal capacity to take on neighborhood concerns. Jay Clark Cooper Michael Atherton wrote: > > > A recent posting said that few to none of the participants in the NRP > > program have come from the ranks of minorities. > > Ok, how many NRP staff members are Hmong? How many Hmong > are board members of NRP contactors? What are the attendance > figures for Hmong at reallocation meetings and neighborhood > group meetings? It sounds to me as though the meetings > you are describing are not part of the regular NRP process, > but special meetings. I think that participation must be > measured as part of the NRP's normal process and decision > making; that is where the power is, not "The Initiative." > Participation is not White Folks doing their best for > Minorities. > > Michael Atherton > Prospect Park > > _______________________________________ > > 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
