Mark Snyder wrote:
It's pretty easy for Commissioner McLaughlin to talk about how he's been an
NRP supporter, for example, when he's never been in the position of having
to weigh that against the city's various other needs like public safety, for
example, by actually preparing a city budget and getting City Council to go
along with it.
It's easy for McLaughlin to talk about being an NRP supporter because he
was a state representative when the "20 year plan" effort (morphed into
NRP) went to the legislature to get the state's cooperation and he
helped put it through the gates, to use a sports metaphor. NRP is a
joint powers agreement (I think that's the term). It's funding comes
from state, county, and city and the agreement was $20 million/yr for 20
years. Nor was it an easy thing to get through the legislature. So Peter
can justifiably take credit for helping to produce the NRP and for
knowing down to his socks what the NRP is all about.
There is, in my estimation, no way to get around the poor judgment
displayed in cutting 150 police officers and X firefighters at once
from the city's budget. The departments could not absorb such a loss,
reassign tasks, do the work with such a massive cut.
The city's first three responsibilities, which dwarf all others
theoretically, are police, fire and public works. City councils, mayors,
alder-men and women are required to give those priority. But joint power
agreements, like NRP have a mandate to be carried out as well. The loss
of so many cops and fire fighters AND the loss of NRP money are costing
us dearly every day. For some people, it's cost them their lives. The
cost to people living in the Third and Fourth Precincts has been
astronomical in destruction of human lives. I cannot speak for the
northside because I really do not understand how it works, but for the
southside, I could not feel more devalued by the state and the city than
I do from the way we have been treated since Pawlenty and RT were
elected. While much of the weight falls on the Pawlenty administration,
RT does have to take his licks for a certain failure of judgment in the
way he's gone about contending with the bills and his supporters
insistence that he pay off all the credit cards immediately, if not sooner.
Along with so many of my neighbors, I worked my butt off to turn around
my neighborhood and help the folks across the street (Phillips) turn
Phillips around. Are you aware that you now have to pay serious money to
buy a house in Phillips and that folks are lining up to buy them? This
may be real proof that there is a god. Do you have any concept of the
number of volunteers hours we all invested in this city's neighborhoods?
I'm really proud of all of us for that work. We didn't just pull
ourselves up by our bootstraps, not everyone even had bootstraps. Do you
have any idea how much work was put into persuading the NRP into being
through several different and competing bureaucracies? It was the heavy
lifting, for this era, of a paradigm shift. Almighty cool, far into
kewl. I wasn't in on that part, except for having elected folks who
could help that along, but it was a remarkable achievement. For what it
created, $20 mil for 20 years (aren't we at year 11 now?) was a real
bargain. Money is now flowing into city and state coffers from Phillips
and Central. NRP's investment has nettled a positive bottom line in
private dollars invested. The investment is paying off, so lets cut
funds so we can stop up that revenue stream. NRP is about city
infrastructure, animal, vegetable and mineral.
RT does not get that. Peter, on the other hand, was here from the git-go
with NRP and with what a city is about. He built his credentials and
lots of us watched him do it. He's good at being a politician.
Personally, I'm happy to vote for someone who is willing to accomplish
some things for the good of the whole body politic.
What this contest for mayor is about, in my mind, is picking up the
pieces. Both the state and RT's supporters came in to say 'we're taking
this city back from spending on urban revitalization--including human
revitalization. We've had enough!'
Well, excuse the demons outta me! We have to do something about the 40
years of vicious neglect imposed on the core of the city by red lining.
Why should the core of the city become uninhabitable through neglect and
abuse? Show me how that improves the lives of all of us in the metro
area. Show me how that saves us money. $20 mil for 20 years is not quite
going to cover the bases if there is chronically inadequate police,
fire, and public works.
Show me, on paper, the savings accrued by throwing the police, fire, and
public works into free fall. How does turning large sections of the city
into nursery and haven for every kind of predatory behavior save money.
Under the laws we have and in a capitalist economic system we get two
choices: we pay for an infrastructure that keeps the city livable or we
pay for prison, disease, death, insurance, murder, and mayhem. We won't
need Al Qaida, we'll be able to terrorize ourselves without any help.
WizardMarks, Central
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