I wonder if Michael feels any cognitive dissonance with some of his statements which are sometimes adjoining each other. In one Michael feels that the City Council is wrong headed and unqualified to make decisions about smoking bans, and in the very next one states that the people can't be trusted to make decisions so we should leave decisions to the elected public officials. Which is it to be? Should we let these people exclusively make decisions for us or not?
I happen to agree with Michael about the ban. It is an attempt at social engineering to please a small but powerful group of people who want only there way to prevail without any real concern for public health or property rights. But I also think that what ever number of residents gather to make decisions about NRP and their neighborhood they are certainly better able (and better qualified) to make such decisions than the thirteen Council Members and the Mayor. Heck most Council Members started out involved with NRP and their neighborhoods. Funny, but most were not even the bright ones, or the driving forces, in that process.
Now my opinion on NRP could only be a theory, except for the very real experience of the last few years. NRP has paid huge dividends to Minneapolis. Exactly which "wise" City Council real estate deal has paid as well? Target downtown? Saks? The Brighton investments? Even Sears?
NRP dollars were the seed for many, many, development projects all over Minneapolis. The Mercado at Bloomington and Lake, the millions of investment on Franklin are only two examples. How about the Whittier School, early learning centers in many neighborhoods, the renovated parks, the Nicolett renovation, and the hundreds of houses that were refurbished and the hundreds of homes now owned that were made possible through grants and loans from neighborhoods NRP funds?
History has shown the NRP process was not perfect, but that same history has shown that NRP is still the best investment of dollars that Minneapolis may have ever made. Even if the neighborhood people were so dumb that they did not listen to those like Michael who were smarter than themselves. Heck, it was such a good idea that Mayor RT Rybak promised us all that he would make sure it was fully funded in order to get us to vote for him in the last election. Some other Council Members made the same promises to get elected. Either NRP is a great idea ,or those politicians can't be trusted to make a good decision on it. So is Michael saying that we should trust their word that NRP is great and should be fully funded?
I just can not figure out why a smart fellow like Michael could not have organized a few other smart people, like himself, and took over his neighborhood's meetings. Meetings that he claims were so badly attended. It seems those FEW dumb neighborhood residents had no trouble running the NRP process. Pretty sneaky of them, don't you think? But it certainly shows the real problem with NRP. Dumb neighborhood residents are so "Empowered" that they ban together and don't listen to their superiors about how to spend neighborhood money. They even get empowered enough to think they know better than smart people what their neighborhood really needs.
It sounds like the complaint of a group of social service agencies when we organized to take over NRP in old Phillips, they complained that we had cheated because, "They stacked the neighborhood meetings with residents". It sounds like Michael Atherton's real complaint is that the "dumb" citizens are participating too much!
Trying to keep up with this anti smoking ban, pro NRP ban, dumb Council, smart Council, arguments is starting to make my old head spin. So, I am going to go turn on the history channel and go to sleep. I already know how the show ends anyway.
Jim Graham, sittin on the porch steps in Ventura Village
"There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies and revolution into minds."<
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