This has been a long, complicated thread. But it seems to me it has covered two different topics.
1) It all started when Jim Mork complained that the sugar daddy from St Paul cut funds for CCP Safe in Cooper Neighborhood. If this is the sort of thing LGA funds are used for, I'd say cut it all! Why should the state pay for local safety costs? That's the way to lose all accountability. If Mpls thinks it's worth the money to have CCP Safe in Mpls, then it'll spend its own money. It's too easy to spend someone else's money. An argument can be made that the state has an interest in safety in downtown Mpls, but not in a residential neighborhood.
I'd be in favor of cutting LGA for Minneapolis safety efforts as long as the state cuts it for every other locality in the state. If we could attribute this idea to Mark Anderson, then I'd get the opportunity to laugh when the lynch mob from the small outstate towns and townships showed up at his door. SHARING the costs of things that improve localities for the betterment of the state is PRECISELY what LGA was designed for.
Minneapolis could afford to pay for all these things itself if the state would quit siphoning off dollars to pay for things in other parts of the state, and they'd remove the shackles from the hands and feet of the city in its ability to raise revenue. We can't tax income or sales, and our property tax is highly limited. Minneapolis has lots of very valuable commercial real estate, but the state greatly reduced the amount we could tax it during the last session.
I'd recommend understanding how the system works and why before suggesting such ridiculous changes.
Chris Johnson Fulton
TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.)
________________________________
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
