Jim Graham > I believe Michael Atherton's problem with NRP stems from > his inability to convince the folks in his neighborhood that > he is smarter than they, and thus should let him decide how > the program should be run.
So there's another psychological profiler on the List. But, once again I think that this analysis better fits Mr. Graham's rhetoric than it does my personality. Having studied clinical psychology and after many years of self-reflection and meditation, I believe that I am fairly well in tune with my own motivations and they are not the ones ascribed to me by Mr. Graham. Besides, regardless of what my motivations are, the facts and problems I've identified about PPERRIA and the NRP are a reality. Neither Mr. Graham nor Mr. Kahn has responded to the problems or suggestions I've made in reference to the NRP. > I can think of one or two others who had the same opinion of > NRP after not being given their just due as the smarter people > who need to be listened to. Unfortunately NRP does seem to > empower some of these unwashed of mind to think they are just > as smart as the elite and quite able to decide things for > themselves. If the people would only listen more then Michael > and others might be more in favor of it. Ah, the disgruntled employee (resident) spin. You might have noticed that whistleblowers are almost always accused of being disgruntled employees. Well of course they are, because in having tried to do the right thing, they have normally suffered multiple abuses. Calling them disaffected is just an attempt to move the spotlight from the facts. Please notice that Mr. Graham NEVER does address my suggestions. > 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? If you feel that there is inconsistency in my arguments please let me know online or offline, I'd appreciate being made aware of it. Let see if I can untwist the thoughts attributed to me above. "...the City Council is wrong headed and unqualified to make decisions about smoking bans." Yes, I believe that governments should not be able regulate the behavior of individuals when that behavior has no forced impact on other citizens. The Bill of Rights is a fairly well established doctrine, I just don't think that it goes far enough. "...people can't be trusted to make decisions so we should leave decisions to the elected public officials." Actually, I never said this, so there really is no inconsistency. What I did say is that the expenditures of tax dollars should be made by people who are selected by the electorate, not by show-ups, because giving delegating power to those who show up does not provide proportional representation. If the city was to follow my suggestion of electing block representatives voters would still be free to select total idiots. > 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. Well Mr. Graham and I will just have to disagree about this. I think that accountability is extremely important in public decision making and that council members are accountable and the NRP show-ups are not. > 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? In my neighborhood the NRP invested close to 50% of $3,000,000 in a school and community center that the School Board wanted to sell and $600,000 of it did go to Brighton. I would also note that Salyes Belton is gone, Cherryhomes is gone, and Campbell is gone. Pretty good accountability I'd say. Many of the same show-ups are still around for Phase II in my neighborhood. > 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? The problem is that we have no way of knowing how much of this money was squandered and how much of it ended up back in the hands of people making decisions, because there are no real checks and balances for NRP processes. > 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. This gets kinda old after a while. PPERRIA excludes students from membership even though state law requires their participation in Phase II planning. Suppose we assume that other neighborhood residents wanted to take over control of PPERRIA, there are 40 board members, twenty elected every two years. So you could not actually gain control for at least two years, if you could actually find twenty plus people who wanted to go though the kinda abuse I have for the last six years. Most people have better things to do with their lives. I just have an obsession about justice and individual rights, and I have to admit that I now spend more time with my children than I do worrying about fairness of the NRP. Which is one reason the NRP will never result in proportional citizen participation! Here's an example of how difficult it is. Some of us felt that support for the ornamental street light assessment was fraudulently obtained. We called a special meeting of PPERRIA for which more than 300 people showed up. After more than two hours of petty parliamentary maneuvering, during which many people gave up and left, we won a vote to ask the city to reassess the actual amount of support for new streetlights (this was not a move to kill the project). PPERRIA could have easily won this reassessment if there had truly been the support they claimed for the project. A week later at the PPERRIA Annual Meeting (the most well attended of the year with numerous misinformed PPERRIA members) they voted to rescind our request of the city. We could have gone on calling Special Meetings and having our motions rescinded for months. Paul Zerby now admits that PPERRIA should have allowed reassessment, but it's an an easy opinion to hold after you've already won and there's no way to go back. These are just structural problems with the NRP, correcting them would do nothing about the problem of proportional representation. Michael Atherton Prospect Park 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. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
