Ron Edwards' Blog entry posted early this morning, November 12, 2003, from www.TheMinneapolisStory.com, answers the "who's in charge" question and who really is behind the abuses and gaps discussed in his book and his Seven Solutions paper.
#218. Will Minneapolis become a Mirror Image of New York? Who runs New York? According to this article, its not city bosses but City Unions and Non-Profits that run New York. This also relates to the Minneapolis discussion of those seeking nonpartisan elections for Minneapolis. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been pushing for nonpartisan elections in New York, according to this fascinating City Journal article titled "Who Runs New York?" The article [ http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_4_who_runs_ny.html; we are indebted to another blogger for identifying this article: Regions of Mind, Friday, Nov 7, 2003)]. The article reports that the Mayor thinks political bosses run New York and so he wants nonpartisan elections to curb their power. Then the article reports that otherwise is the case, and says the answer to who runs New York is: �No, Mayor Mike, it�s not political bosses. It�s city unions and nonprofits.� In my book, I show that more and more, Minneapolis is heading in that direction, especially in terms of education (huge gaps not closed, my Chapter 7), housing (think Hollman, my Chapter 8), jobs (non-compliance by city with its own hiring regulations, my Chapter 9), and public safety (unrest as the price Minneapolis is willing to pay to keep the status quo, my Chapter 16). You decide. Key exerpts from the article follow: "But the mayor is trying to solve the problems of 50 years ago. Stuck in a time warp, he seems to think that we are still living in the days when Tammany bigwigs like Carmine DeSapio or Boss Tweed chose candidates based on party loyalty, without regard to merit or local support. "In fact, New York City�s political system has been utterly transformed since those days. Now, instead of party bosses running city hall, it is powerful public-employee unions and community nonprofit groups living off government money that control the city�s political process and political agenda. Yes, these groups are aligned with the Democratic Party, but they are not subservient to the party; the party is their instrument, a tool of their convenience. Nonpartisan voting will do nothing to wrest control from these groups but may instead help them solidify their political dominance at the expense of the city�s taxpayers and businesses. By weakening political parties still further, Mayor Bloomberg and the supporters of nonpartisan elections may inadvertently destroy the only potential vehicle for true reform in a New York City whose politics are increasingly under the thumb of public servants.... "Not long after public-sector unions became a force, another new political power arose in neighborhoods: government-funded, community-based social-services organizations. Spurred by Mayor John Lindsay�s efforts to decentralize government, and lavishly funded with government dollars by President Lyndon Johnson�s War on Poverty, activists formed organizations that built subsidized housing, ran day-care centers, operated health clinics. From practically nothing in the early 1960s, by 1967 there were more than 400 federal grant programs providing $15 billion to these local groups around the country, with a heavy concentration in New York because of the influence of Mayor Lindsay, whom Washington policymakers touted as one of urban America�s new leaders. Spurred by this government largesse, social-services organizations grew in New York City from a few hundred, employing fewer than 50,000 people in the mid-1960s, to more than 4,000 today, employing 185,000 people. Over time, these groups have become a new kind of neighborhood political clubhouse, running and successfully electing their own members to political office. Activists like Ramon Velez, who ran a network of social-services agencies out of his base in Hunts Point in the Bronx, or Pedro Espada Jr., who built a single health clinic in the Soundview section of the South Bronx into a sweeping public-services empire, used the influence they gained in neighborhoods as a launching pad for political careers. ... "The Democratic Party, as these recent elections make clear, is hardly the all-powerful force that the mayor and other nonpartisan-election fans believe it is. In fact, if there is a significant overarching force behind the city�s public-sector politics today, it is the Working Families Party�which, with fewer than 7,000 registered voters, is not at all a political party in the conventional sense. Rather, it is a union instrument of electoral politics, mobilizing the membership of its affiliated public-sector unions and union-boosting activist groups like ACORN to support its preferred candidates, as in the Palma-Espada race. Using New York State�s unusual election law, which allows minor parties to endorse candidates from other parties, the WFP has been able to work both with the Democratic leadership and at times against it to elect candidates hewing to its agenda of bigger government and higher taxes. "[What will happen to] the proven Giuliani urban agenda�fiscal restraint, effective policing, and school choice ... an alternative to the public-sector domination of the city... [if the] mayor who seems to have little clue about the true nature of the city�s contemporary political culture or even the forces that elected him, would bury any prospects, however slim today, for such crucial reform [?]" November 12, 2003, 2:20 am Peter Jessen, Portland Visiting Minneapolis Nov 14-24, 2003 REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 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