[Mpls] Why the NRP is a Very Bad Thing

[Alan Shilepsky]

In disagreeing with Michael Atherton's point that NRP bypasses our elected representatives and lets selfish-interested citizens play jump ball with our tax dollars, David Brauer states:
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"If I had to choose between special interests lobbying the legislature and neighbors organizing to influence how NRP money is spent, I'll take the neighbors every time. I don't an idealized "no special interests" decision-making body exists in our polity."

And then:

"Frankly, I find the demonizing of disagreement to be particularly distasteful. It seems like so much of our civic discussion lately does not recognize legitimate differences of opinion - someone must be corrupt, or selfish. We, on the other hand, are selfless and pure and so much more decent."

"It's never that WE were simply outvoted by our equally civic-minded fellow citizens."
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"Outvoted by our equally civic-minded fellow citizens." "equally civic-minded" Therein lies a tale. One problem with NRP is that it disenfranchises several classes of people. Yes, renters and minorities, but here is a more expanded list.

1. People with family obligations. Parent(s) with young children or adults caring for the elderly or sick. Or just wanting to spend quality time with their family, church members, civic organization members, or bowling team. 2. People with health or security concerns. The infirm, the frail old, and people who are apprehensive to go out at night.
3. People with less mobility. People without cars, or with disabilities.
4. People who have work obligations or schoolwork. The less well off may be working two jobs.
5. People who feel they will not be welcomed or listened to.
6. People who never hear of NRP, or who doubt it has any payoff to them.

On the other hand, the process-heavy NRP empowers and attracts:

1. People who have the time to spend and the ability to get there.
2. People who see NRP involvement as a way to satisfy social needs or political ambitions.
3. People who can get a payoff for the price of participation--getting money for a favored project.
4. People who I call the "cognitive elites," who understand and can manipulate (or at least keep awake during) process. Who can talk, and argue, and follow convoluted procedures and financial transactions. I remember that a ticket to ride for a neighborhood was having several people who would go across town to evening seminars given by MCDA experts on how to do studies, priority plans, and participation.

I prefer that we trust in representative government, and base representation on less frequent but more momentous elections, like City Council Elections. We have a process for City Elections--voter lists, an election bureaucracy, and citizens that understand the process and are somewhat guilted into coming out to vote. NRP elections have little publicity, low turnouts, less formal registration requirements. They are much easier to manipulate and much less indicative of what the true will of the area's "electorate" is. In fact, most citizens are more interested and able to vote on a few "high" visibility Council candidates after a spirited election than vote on a list of names they may not have seen before NRP election evening.
Also, localizing decisions to a single venue like City Hall makes the decision system theoretically more transparent than spreading it out betweens dozens of volunteer boards and paid staffs spread across the city. So if City Hall isn't working right, reform it. Don't try to fix one bureaucracy by creating another, more diffuse one. (One argument for NRP was to give the citizens bargaining power vis a vis City Departments, to get them to do things. That is, pay the Departments with NRP dollars to do what maybe they should have been doing already. I'd ask, why not fix the Departments and the Council--so you don't have to "bribe" them with yet more money.)

I was on the Downtown Minneapolis Residents Association before NRP came along. I warned that it would divert us from what I thought should be our primary missions of building community and of identifying and representing concerns of the neighborhood. I thought NRP would pull us into bureaucratic activities and get us arguing about money. It would require we focus on spending money on projects, though sometimes money isn't what is important. Silly me, I even proposed that if the City was going to give us a bundle of money and we didn't see any worthy projects then as our "project" we should return the money to our downtown neighbors in the form of property tax rebates! Forget that.

I remember when I was a kid on a dead end street in a Connecticut town. We didn't have a place to play ball in the summer. There was a rolling meadow nearby, owned by a cemetery association that was holding it for future expansion.
The parents on the street, actually the fathers, got together and send a delegation to the cemetery, and got permission to improve the field. The fathers mowed and graded the field. My father had a dump truck. Others were landscape contractors. One was a carpenter and built the backstop. The cartoonist got blisters working a hoe. They raised money for the bases and home plate. We spent many summers playing ball on that field.

The group held neighborhood parties, and it petitioned the town government once to reduce the flow of heavy trucks going down our street to the factory at the end.
The neighborhood never got a penny of government money, and never did a study or used Roberts Rules, but these parents in a highly diverse neighborhood worked together for some common goals. That's the image of a community association I carry around in my head.
NRP is just more government to me, and inefficient government at that. (Think 52.5%, more or less.) Frankly, I think taking and spending other people's money is corrupting. I say localize the money allocation in City Hall and then watch them like a hawk.

Alan Shilepsky
Downtown


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