I truly laughed when I saw a thing about the "professional" City staff going out to communities to help and direct the well meaning "amateurs" do community planning and development. The opposite is true! City Hall should throw open its now locked mental doors and have communities help and direct the "professional staff" to do community planning and development. A good example is the SUPPOSED "One Stop Shopping" for development. One Stop Shopping as conceived in a couple of other Cities is walking in with community approved plans and a City prepared check list of ALL requirements, plopping them down on a desk and having the City "professional" put together all needed material and issue all needed variances, zoning changes, permits and plan reviews at one "STOP". "ONE STOP" as in ONE time at ONE place. Minneapolis "One Stop Shopping" presently should be labeled "101 Dalmatians" every time you turn around there is another puppy with new spots that has to be accounted for. Just a suggestion for the Mayor, and interested Council Members, have the true "professionals" in such things, (the people who have to jump through the hoops and count the puppies), simplify it for you. Have the contractors and development "Customers", the homeowner or small businessperson (who have to get through your Gordian knot), redesign it for you.
While Mayor Rybak was well intentioned the McKenzie report has been used to take very justifiable calls for simplifying and streamlining City Government in the exact opposite direction than what was called for. Bureaucrats have made City Departments even more complicated and less open to citizens than before. Calls were made for more "openness to communication" from residents. What was created was a "Communications" czar, a professional position whose job it was to handle all communication "From" the City, and to "Spin Doctor" such communication to put it in the best light possible for the administration. No longer were City employees and police to "communicate" with residents. In these and several other areas RT Rybak was well intentioned and was fulfilling pre-election commitments. Unfortunately his professional staff took well intentioned ideas out into deep water so they drowned. The problem is not with Mayor Rybak, it is with those who have been appointed to run the City for him.
The call was not for MCDA to be incorporated into the City bureaucracy, the call was to have MCDA freed from it. What was needed was to have it run by community members; not the Council. Calls to change the politicizing of MCDA decisions were answered by abolishing MCDA and making it an even more unreachable City Department. Though it is more honest, (the Council can no longer hide behind the fraud that MCDA was an "independent" organization) it certainly did not solve any of the problems that were being complained about.
The problem may also be a City Council that has forgotten that we in Minneapolis have a "Strong Council-Weak Mayor" system for a reason; so we will have MORE citizen input into City decisions and policies. The Council, with all its new members and its infatuation with the new polished young Mayor, allowed itself to be lead along so that it forgot who has the real power in Minneapolis. Hopefully, the new Council might change that.. Also, hopefully the present Mayor (if re-elected) will have gained the wisdom to replace many of his present appointees with those who have an interest in making the City more friendly and customer directed, rather than ones who attempt to insulate the Mayor from the communities. Cut the unnecessary bureaucracy. That is the way you "Welcome Business". At the present time there are legitimate developer business-people who say they are not interested in doing business in Minneapolis because it is to complicated and costs too much, it has become an "unfriendly" place to do business.
The Mayor is indeed personally open to people and their concerns. The problem is a staff of "professionals" who insulate him from action to a degree that is unprecedented in Minneapolis politics. Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton' office was rightfully criticized for being insulated from the public. But I am here to tell you her office was a wide open door compared to how Mayor Rybak's office is run. Even her enemies (such as myself) could make an appointment, see her, and get some action. Even R.T.'s friends (and there are many more than me) have trouble getting through his present staff.
Well off of beating the dead horse and back to Barb's post. Barb's post needs to be corrected, or at least enlarged upon, about a couple of things. Eat Street was not created by NRP. NRP re-did the Street and facade. The Asian small business people, through buying up old under priced buildings and hard-work, had already moved in and redone Nicolett before NRP came along and put some frills upon it. Also, while AINDC was involved in changing Franklin Avenue the Indian organization with the greatest input into that "renaissance" was American Indian Community Development Corporation. AICDC was directly involved in both the planning and development from the beginning as an actual "community member", not just as one more business along the Avenue. AICDC continues in those efforts to serve as the infrastructure support for Ventura Village as a community member, not just a business. Much of AICDC's staff actually live in the community, not just do business in it, so that it is indeed "their" community.
Barb says, "Everyone is talking about the renaissance on Franklin. That did not happen without significant citizen involvement or without NRP funds as a major catalyst." A great deal more than "significant citizen involvement" was in fact involved. The entire process was citizen originated, citizen planned, and citizen driven . This area asked to be declared a "National Disaster Area" because of crime and blight. Seeing that no assistance was going to be coming the citizens committed to "Help themselves". When the Cities own marketing documents had written off Franklin Avenue saying the prospects for ANY development on Franklin is "Bleak", they residents seized NRP dollars and began to drive the process to change their own community. Seventy thousand to start the redevelopment planning, and ten thousand to partner in creating the "Franklin Safety Center", less than a million to renovate over a hundred homes and build a bunch more. Pretty paltry amounts to create over a hundred million dollars in development! Almost all the politicians and administrators have taken credit for the "renaissance", but the engineers and the driving force was the citizens. I would invite Vicki, or anyone else, to show us even one instance of the "professional" politicians making such a wise and profitable use of "our" public dollars. Could it be "Target", Saks; etc, etc, etc.? Nope, just do not think so.
The Mayor even held his "Re-election" announcement from one of those NRP projects, the Franklin Art Works. A building where the neighborhood seized NRP dollars to renovate the old Franklin Avenue Porn Theater into the "NEW FRANKLIN THEATER" that its hundred year old stained glass proclaims. I wonder if during his announcement the Mayor pointed out that the "Theater" was done with NRP dollars by the community residents of a "blighted, "National Disaster", who had decided to help themselves with NRP dollars; and not by his office? In his speech did Mayor Rybak thank the Ventura Village Neighborhood residents for standing in that flood of blight when it surrounded them all around with drugs and death. I hope so!
Jim Graham, Ventura Village
"If you board the wrong train it's no use running down the corridor in the other direction"
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