There were LOTS of bad financial decisions
made during the decade of the 90s. The NRP is but one thread of a large
tattered piece of financial fabric. The City's accumulated deficits and
debts speak for themselves. It is the consequential interest payments that
are eating up money that would otherwise be available for City services.
See, here's where it seems to me your case becomes weak. You seem to want to blame disappearing city services -- and presumably the recent dramatic rise in property taxes, which again you don't mention here, having adduced it as evidence in your initial post -- on the interest payments for city debt. I of course understand how debt servicing is a problem, and how things would be better without it. But you're still presenting a misleading, and unpersuasive, argument. What changed recently to cause such dramatic RECENT problems? As you yourself say, there have been deficit and debt problems for a long time, yet the effects you claim are much more recent developments, and it's simply unpersuasive to say the effects have only appeared now, as a deferred result of the earlier changes you decry. It's unpersuasive at least in part because of the issue I brought up in my first response to you, which you still have not addressed: there are other municipalities facing exactly the same problems (rising property taxes and diminishing local services) who do not have any parallel to NRP.
I am more than willing to say there were unwise decisions made in the 90s in Minneapolis, and we need to try to rectify them. Are you willing to say that there have been more recent mistakes made by our state government, and that if Gov. Pawlenty were willing to put the common good ahead of his own private political ambitions, we could also make real strides in Minneapolis toward solving our problems?
Jeff Lomonaco Lynnhurst and Lynnhurst REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list.
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