Good post Chris.
No, neighborhoods are not the perfect "Citizen Participation" vehicle. It is just that they are simply the best things we have. Sort of like Democracy, don't you think? Short of police officers rounding up the citizens and forcing them to participate, the neighborhood is the most viable system. It does not force people to participate; it simply allows all who want to participate.
New residents are not just encouraged to participate they are almost begged to do so. Those who want to run things and have more influence are celebrated and given that influence immediately in my experience. If you want to be a leader in a neighborhood group all you have to do is hint such and you get drafted immediately to do so until you prove you can't or demonstrate that you are too valuable to lose in which case you are drafted and finagled to do so as much as possible. Neighborhoods are like riding a train, where ANYONE who wants to drive gets to be the engineer. You act like you want to drive in most neighborhoods and you suddenly find the neighborhood giving you your own hat and lantern and calling you Casey Jones.
The problem some politicians have with neighborhoods is not that they are not open for participation and inclusive. The problem some politicians have is that neighborhoods are so open that people politicians do not want to, give them outcomes that they do not want. When politicos found out that we in my neighborhood allowed everyone to vote they immediately called for us to only allow board members to vote. The input that City politicians NEED is always provided by neighborhoods. The input they WANT is given a lot less than wish. And that is where the rubber meets the road with the smell of burning
smoke.
NRP has actually accomplished a wonderful thing for neighborhood residents. It has so empowered them that they think they can make wise decisions about
all sorts of things. Exactly the confidence thing that is guaranteed to threaten politicians seeking total power and "Ward Privilege". For those who do not know, Ward Privilege is the unwritten law where City Council Members accord each other total power to decide all things and 'rule' in their own ward domains. It is a lot like "Droit Seigneur" and "Droit Scivls" given to old ruling nobles. (The private right to screw over anyone in the domain that they rule.)
Mr. Shoemaker is also correct about smaller entities like neighborhoods having far more people participating than larger forms of government. Some hot issues on land use decisions in Ventura Village have drawn 150 participants to a local meeting. I have never been to any City Council "Public Hearing" that drew that many from all of Minneapolis, let alone from any one neighborhood. I remember Judith Martin commenting how impressed she was that ten or fifteen Ventura Village residents showed up to support land use considerations at Planning Commission "public hearings". Those same issues probably drew a hundred residents to give input at Ventura Village. At some public hearings on major issues facing Minneapolis I can remember ten or fifteen Ventura Village residents and almost the same from Prospect Park, and maybe two or tree from all the rest of Minneapolis. Such circumstances allow unscrupulous developers to make claims of representing citizen's desires and have their wealth influence both the Planning Department and the City Council.
One way to assure that developers do not do their "end runs" (as described by Mr. Shoemaker) is for Neighborhoods to make mutual benefit alliances with ethical developers, and only ethical developers. Neighborhood organizations should also mutually agree to give NO support and strictly oppose any developer who does not do business ethically in any other neighborhood. I believe that Mr. Shoemaker's neighborhood has been involved in asking CDC's to sign a M.O.U. with the Neighborhood to do business ethically and not attempt to do rogue developments in their neighborhood. Ventura Village has also created a M.O.U. Agreement and "Contract" that it expects developers to sign. American Indian Community Development Corporation has become the first CDC to willingly and eagerly enter into such an agreement with a neighborhood. All Minneapolis Neighborhoods should follow the Ventura Village-AICDC model to mutually support each other. Then they should sign mutual support agreements to control development in Minneapolis rather than having developers control Minneapolis because of those developers' financial influence upon City leaders. Ventura Village has made that MOU agreement available to several other neighborhoods as a model of how to form positive relations with ethical developers and how to defend against unethical ones.
So perhaps Neighborhoods are sharing resources. But probably not the kind of cooperation that some politicians and developers would appreciate. Both Democracy and Neighborhoods are not perfect, not enough people give their time to make them work perfectly, it's just that each is simply better than anything else that has been offered. Certainly better than sending decisions up to "wiser" larger more distant forms of input and government. Sorry folks but NRP has shown residents that though neighborhoods can waste some money and make some mistakes they simply cannot compete with Minneapolis' political leaders in wasting dollars and making bad investment decisions. Neighborhood residents have been taught by the NRP experience, and from watching City financial fiascos, that their wisdom can be trusted far more than the "Wise Leaders" downtown. They look at the books and see the return on their dollars, look at their communities and see the difference their few dollars have made, and they KNOW they are in the best position to say what their communities need.
Good political leaders also know that same fact, so they encourage those communities in their efforts, and then use their positions to implement the wise decisions that neighborhood residents make.
Jim Graham,
Ventura Village, Phillips Community Planning District, Sixth Ward of Minneapolis
"We can only be what we give ourselves the power to be" - A Cherokee Feast of Days
"The people are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."
- Thomas Jefferson
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