Wow, you said a lot here Alan. I can respond to a few things. Last nights meeting was primarily parents with children. There was child care. And there were many low income people of color in attendance.
Many of the neighborhoods I work in have parents with children involved. Hence rose all the computer labs in schools, playground rehabilitation projects, park projects and school building construction projects. Many of my neighborhoods have seniors involved who have no problem at all coming out at night. Some of my neighborhoods have engaged seniors to help out in their offices during the day. Hence rose the Living at Home Block Nurse programs in Longfellow and Nokomis East. I can't speak to the old DMRA days. I know there is some old wounds there. I can speak to the DMNA days. They have a great NRP plan that has a large portion of funds dedicated to affordable housing. They have a very strong board of directors. They have done some nice projects in the downtown area including the beat cops, mounted and bike patrol cops. Their last annual meeting was attended by over 100+ people and was held in the new Pantages Theater. I will admit that the theater tour was a carrot to get people to attend. It worked! It was a great meeting and very well attended. While I agree the meetings can be cumbersome, so can the political conventions that go on for 8 - 10 hours to endorse candidates. Talk about family unfriendly. There are issues with getting renters involved. But, not because no one has tried. Many neighborhoods have tried and failed at this. I wish I knew why. My own neighborhood tried on more than one occasion to get renters involved in this event or that one. I remember one event aimed specifically at renters. The planners had dinner available and even provided a bus to go around and pick up people from their front doors. What happened was that the people sent their kids on the bus and stayed home. There were about 50 kids there and about 6 parents. Greg Luce, another NRP critic organized a citywide renters assembly which I attended. From the crowd I counted, only about 20-25 people showed up from the entire city. The rest of the attendees were from agencies claiming to represent or provide services to renters. So, he wasn't successful at engaging them to get involved either. I am not denying that the reasons or barriers you listed for people not getting involved exist. But, there are many people overcoming those barriers to be involved in NRP. I want you to show me one other Minneapolis program or process that has been successful at engaging over 5,000+ citizens into the process in a sustainable way for over 10 years. Name one. Barb Lickness Whittier ===== "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com 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
