Re: [Mpls] Equality for the Northside is a Joke!

[Dorothy Titus]

I wish to weigh in on the issue of what North Minneapolis does and does 
not get from the rest of the city.  What we do NOT get is empowerment.  
Has anyone paid attention to the recent redistricting?  Ward 5 was 
stripped of its share of downtown and the warehouse district, the two 
parts of the ward with substantial revenues, and given the Jordan 
neighborhood.  Ward 5 went from a district with a voice because it had 
some financial resources the city needs to a pocket of poverty.  This 
redistricting was not about a fair and equitable distribution of 
voters.  Further, McKinley and Hawthorne, two other deeply impacted 
neighborhoods, are the only two neighborhoods that now belong to Ward 3 
who are  west of the Mississippi.  How much do they have in common with 
the downtown and northeast communities of Ward 3.  Just how much 
attention do you suppose will be paid to their needs?  You can talk all 
you want about the city's intentions, but there is a steady movement to 
separate and keep the northside as a convenient dumping ground for the 
city's problems.  And the rest of the city ignores it because it is to 
the advantage of other parts of the city to keep the problems in North 
Minneapolis.

Zip code 55411 contains 8% of the city's population and 40% of the 
Level III sex offenders.  When a Level III sex offender plans to move 
to an affluent neighborhood, 800 people turn out and protest.  Where do 
all those offenders who are not welcome elsewhere go?  They end up on 
the northside.  I've often wondered how the rest of the city can sleep 
at night.  If you spread out those with a likelihood to reoffend 
throughout the city and county, there would be little problem keeping 
track of them.  If a neighborhood had one or two, everyone would be 
keeping an eye on them and making sure their children knew who they 
were.  When you are inundated with them, that becomes impossible.  Here 
we have 3 and 4 living on the same block...across from an elementary 
school.  NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) is the ultimate form of 
discrimination.

There are some in city and county government who are indeed working 
hard to help the northside, but they have a very powerful, well oiled 
machine working against them.  This is why NRP has been such a blessing 
to the impacted neighborhoods.  It has given them an ability to do 
something for themselves, to make choices and to build what their 
communities need.  In Phase II, because of the funding cuts, continuing 
that momentum has been cut short.  Those who had a long-range, 20-year 
plan have seen their dreams of a revitalized northside cut short.  With 
the redistricting and the further stripping of power from the 
northside, one has to wonder if we weren't getting a bit too uppity 
with our new found power and someone had to step in and put us back 
where [they think] we belong.

Dottie Titus
Jordan
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