Correcting myself from last night: I'm told Jeffrey Hayden lives in Bryant, not Powderhorn. (His lit lists him as Past Chair of the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association...but I didn't notice he is Vice Chair of Bryant now.)
Tim Bonham writes, of city-specific precinct caucuses: >No, I'm Treasurer; I'll remind you of how expensive it will be and how much >of our limited funds will be used on this instead of on electing our >candidates. As I understand it, candidates *pay* the DFL party for the coordinated primary/general effort. PEOPLE elect candidates. This is a way to engage them more fully in our process...and the new blood may make the endorsement more meaningful. It is money and time. But I guess the trade-off is that allowing more citizens to participate in party democracy *in the election year,* hopefully produces better ward-level and city-wide endorsees...which hopefully makes it easier to get such candidates elected...and make our city better. Also remember, the previous no-city-year-caucus system disenfranchised anyone who: * Moved to Minneapolis after the presidential-year caucus * Anyone who turned 18 after the presidential-year caucus Maybe not a big number, but not democratic - small or big D. There will be a cost, sure. The party will have to publicize the caucuses - not a bad thing - and will have to find people to run the precinct meetings (hopefully, they picked chairs last night.) I think the precinct caucuses could be held at a central place in a ward. The ward convention can follow as it has in the past (only with fresh blood!) Therefore, you won't need to rent more space, only find more folks to run the precinct meetings (hey, it's only once a year!). It's true candidates will have to organize to get their supporters to the precinct/ward conventions. I hope this will be more about sweat equity than money. But rather than looking at it as spending money/time, I'd look at it as getting a jump on engaging the community to be ready, early, for the larger fight to come. David Brauer Kingfield 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. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
