And how soon we forget the Rapson, Belton convention. But,admittedly, the longest ones tend to be the state conventions (of any party).
And let's get down to some of the facts, folks ... this is really about power - the power of making decisions about the money to be spent in the neighborhoods. Over the years there have been councilmembers who have not really liked (putting it mildly) all the bother and dither of relating to the neighborhoods and citizens (the grassroots) meaning they wanted to make the financial decisions themselves. For most citizens NRP has been a very positive, empowering sort of thing - makes you feel connected to your neighborhood, to those who live, work and play there. That brings safety and security along with sharing the knowledge of what goes on in our government to the citizens - they like that.
With the dollars tightening and tightening there are going to have to be lots of no's, no expansion, no new programs and get more efficient and better at what you do. It is not going to be pretty! And some people will never like the decisions that will have to be made.
But I don't think anyone can deny that the NRP has engaged the citizens in caring even more about this City than one already does just by living here.
Annie Young
CODE PINK - East Phillips
At 02:05 AM 2/6/03 -0600, Tim Bonham wrote:
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.Barb, you are exaggerating here.
The longest DFL endorsing convention in the city council races was yours, in the 6th Ward. It convened at 10:30, and finished business at 3:37, for a length of 5 hours & 7 minutes.
Even the City Convention, with a multi-candidate mayoral endorsement and many other school board, library board, park board, board of estimate & taxation candidates to endorse finished in just over 6 hours.
It may have felt longer to you, but in reality no Minneapolis endorsing conventions have taken 8-10 hours.
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.Elections? They involve about 10 times that number of people, and have been held at least every 2 years for the last century or so here in Minneapolis.
Tim Bonham, Ward 12, Standish-Ericsson
Barb Lickness
Whittier
