I recently received e-mail from a person who was a rental property owner in Phillips and who was concerned about the choice that must be made between NRP and keeping the few police officers we have patrolling the streets in Phillips. His greatest concern, as it is for many in this area, was public safety and crime. The following is essentially my response to him.
Mr. Goldstein, I am a 35 year resident of "Phillips". I am also a rental property owner. I doubt that any person in all of Minneapolis has more aggressively demanded additional police and "equal protection under the law" for Phillips and other neighborhoods in Minneapolis. It was me who embarrassed the City and Sharon Sales-Belton by asking that Phillips be declared a "National Disaster Area" because of crime and associated blight. It has been me who has repeatedly called for a "Class Action" Federal lawsuit to force Minneapolis to provide "Equal Protection Under the Law" for poor neighborhoods. Thank you Mr. Goldstein, for your "thoughts from a landlord about NRP". Especially your concern about the choice between NRP and Police. Given the information you are using I can see from where your logic is derived. Unfortunately politicians attempting to kill NRP for their own purposes may have sold you a bill of goods. The sellers have used basic Psy-OP Techniques to spread false information in order to get you to make that logical construct and reasonable choice. Unfortunately, it is just not true. They have taken two half-truths and put them together to make one total LIE. What is the motivation for any politician to be spreading such miss-information? Usually, nothing more than paranoia that "empowered" neighborhood's residents might lessen the power and control of money for Council Members and the Mayor. (Mr. Goldstein is not the only person who has repeated this Urban Myth to me. It clearly is being initiated as a miss-information ploy to attack NRP by playing upon justified fears.) Lets start with the basis of your concern, the forced choice between NRP and more police officers. This is falsehood and deception of the worst kind. NRP and the Police are funded out of two totally separate revenue streams. It is not the same money at all. Any politician who brings this up is a liar, or just incredibly miss-informed, so please be skeptical of all other things they might say. Cops tell me that they appreciate NRP, because it allows neighborhoods to fund additional police activities that are directed at that community's particular crime problem that could not be accomplished within the police budget. So NRP results in MORE police not less. I challenge ANY Council Member, or the Mayor, to refute what I have just stated. Some Council Members might like Police and NRP to be funded out of the same pot. I am sure the council people who might want to destroy NRP would like this, so they can then kill NRP with public support, but presently it is not true. Three Council Members recently wrote a long explanation of the budget crisis on the Mpls. Issues. So please, can Barrett Lane or Lisa Goodman show us where, if any place, these two things now compete for the same dollars? Also, the police force has already been secretly cut by approximately 100 officers prior to this budget crisis. What, other than neglect, was the reason for those cuts? Jim Graham, Ventura Village Neighborhood and the Phillips Community Planning District TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Send all posts in plain-text format. 2. Cut as much of the post you're responding to as possible. ________________________________ 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
