The press release for the Minneapolis Community Engagement Project just begs for a few thoughts...
First, a correction. CM Samuels dropped sponsorship for the project some time ago. Joe Barisonzi was Samuels' campaign manager, but they have reportedly had a falling out since. I'll let someone else speak to why Samuels backed out. That leaves CMs Niziolek and Benson as the sole financial supporters. The $15k project was to be paid for out of CM's discretionary funds. Perhaps the inclusion of Samuels was simply an oversight. The project is about defining a process for the city's "Community Engagement," of course. However, even though drafts of the proposal have been floating around the City Council for months, up until today, it has not been publicly discussed by any of the stakeholders. That would be Community Engagement without engaging the community. We have been here before. Had it not been for a CM releasing a draft of the proposal several weeks ago, few people except the consultants and stakeholders would have known anything about it at all. The convening group mentioned in the press release was designed to have a limited number of seats available (two per Ward). They are to be appointed by individual CMs, who have already filled the slots. Did you hear about this? In fact, the timing of this is too typical of how the city has been doing business of late. Because Joe Barisonzi is a member of this list, I'm surprised he didn't post this press release himself. As it is, the press release came out just a few hours before a scheduled NRP sponsored forum to discuss this very subject--without any official access to the proposal. CommunityLeader, the consultant for this project, has a new Community Engagement Web site, which requires readers to register before accessing anything (a serious privacy/exposure issue), is clearly not meant to be communicative. For instance, the complete set of proposal documents are not even posted. (If you want to see all the draft proposal documents, they may be downloaded at http://neighbors4neighborhoods.org/links.html ) Reading through the materials on the CommunityLeader site, one sees a lot of self-promotion, but little relevant thought. This appears to be a single-handed operation with a "who we are" section listing only Barisonzi and an undefined, anonymous, "network of consultants." It would appear that either Barisonzi or one of his "consultants" approached Niziolek with this plan. It was, after all, CM Niziolek who, a year ago expressed concern that their wasn't a well-defined system for "community engagement" during the heated Common Project funding issue. Niziolek was correct to question, but the answer was never farther away than working improve and make an official channel for the existing interactions with Minneapolis' internationally acclaimed, existing, neighborhoods system. I, along with a number of others, have questioned the potential for bias in CommunityLeader' proposal. In a "case studies" offering published on CommunityLeader's site, Barisonzi states, "[The] Urban neighborhood revitalization effort momentum stalled without realizes [sic] promised benefits." In a separate white-paper, Barisonzi writes, "Build a neighborhood, not a neighborhood association. Build collaboration, not a collaborative. Build an experience, not a product distribution network. Too often... we focus all our energy on perpetuating structures, not building communities." I have to wonder what the connection between Mr. Barisonzi and the Center for Neighborhoods (CFN) is. I'm sure if there is one, someone will know and post. Gretchen Nichols' 2003 Center for Neighborhoods Community Summit Report promoted a replacement "district" style of citizen participation, with the city divided into a dozen or so districts that each reported to a city staffer. Neighborhood districts would have to "bid" for project funding from a common pool controlled by the City and a panel of mostly housing developers. The net effect was to give more control of citizen participation to developers and CDCs, and eliminate the existing NRP neighborhoods and their process for citizen participation. That report, although listing a large following of neighborhood participation (mostly neighborhood reps who attended the initial meeting) , was actually supported by only a "core group" comprised of a handful of selected developers, housing advocates, and organizers. So, at least the two key consultants in this process have shown bias against working with the existing systems. Doug Walter Nokomis East David Brauer posted: -> Forwarded at the request of the project sponsors.... - David Brauer, -> list manager -> -> Contact: Joe Barisonzi, Coordinator -> Minneapolis Community Engagement Project -> 612-518-5536 -> Media Advisory -> Council Members Initiative Project to Look at Community Engagement -> System -> -> New website seeks input from Minneapolis residents and stakeholders -> - 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
