At 10:57 PM 9/8/2005, Mark Snyder wrote:
On 9/3/05 2:43 PM, "wmmarks" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Mark Snyder wrote:
>
>> Until we see that, I'll stand by my point that McLaughlin hasn't had
to make
>> the same choices with NRP vs. other city needs that Mayor Rybak and
the city
>> council has, even if he was one of the architects of it in the beginning.
>>
> Then you have missed the point entirely. It isn't the funding alone
> that is at issue, though Rybak's supporters always want to spin that
> way. Rybak and the council have systematically undermined the principles
> of the NRP. They created CPED out of MCDA as the vehicle to undermine
> the principles of the NRP. They cut the partnership we were building
> between the police and the citizenry of the core city. They did it to
> take power away from citizens and hoard it to themselves and keep their
> taxes high, though they think they're keeping them low.
Actually, I don't think I have since pretty much all of McLaughlin's
promises have been about money and pretty much all of the complaints coming
from the various NRP supporters have been about money.
NRP is a huge boondoggle and how does NRP keep our taxes low? The one
really positive thing about Mark Stenglein's campaign 4 years ago is that
he was the only mayoral candidate who had the courage to speak out againt
the pork barrel otherwise known as NRP. City Council members are elected
to make spending decisions. These so-called "citizen participation"
organizations are not - nor do they do well at engaging the citizenry.
Also, I'm pretty sure there were other reasons why CPED was created than to
"undermine the principles of the NRP" - notably, I seem to recall there was
a lot of problems and delays being caused by communication and other
dysfunctions between MCDA and the other departments that it merged with to
form CPED.
I believe that was the case.
Given the large number of projects we have going on now that haven't
required TIF handouts, I'd say that was a pretty good move on his part,
particularly since it meant keeping one of those campaign promises that his
critics claim he forgot.
Good point here too.....
> The spin you've put on this situation is remarkable. The cops who were
> cut or positions left unfilled during the SSB administration were
> absorbable, to a degree, because it was done very gradually so that the
> PD had a chance to adjust. RT cut cops in one fell swoop because RT and
> his supporters have no experience with the situation for the core city,
> but do not want to support contending with the issues imposed on the
> core city through red lining. You can spin this 'til the cows come home,
> but the base reality is that the comfortable cannot see well enough to
> support our city recovering from 40 and more years of both malicious and
> blind neglect or solutions which only support a larger and larger social
> services sector of misguided "fixers."
It's not spin, Wizard. It's fact.
Rybak's first term will end with more 40 officers on the streets than it
started with.
Another fact: Rybak's adminstration has held harmless or increased the
police department's budget steadily during a period where he's had to manage
fiscal crisis after fiscal crisis due to LGA cuts and other "gifts" from our
Legislature, along with getting started on cleaning up the massive financial
mess that the SSB administration left for him.
Looking below, you'll see that in the first year of his administration, the
police budget increased by $4 million over the last year of the SSB
administration (2001). Then you'll notice that while nearly all the other
city departments were getting slashed over the following couple of years,
the police budget stayed virtually the same. Then when things started to get
better, the police budget got another $3 million increase.
2001: $95,286,294
2002: $99,551,497
2003: $99,448,921
2004: $99,487,569
2005: $102,481,580
You can accuse me of spinning all you want because you don't like what I'm
saying, but so far, I'm the only one actually providing facts to back up my
arguments.
Mark does seem to back up what he says. I happen to think Rybak is too
supportive of the NRP dollar wasting boondoggle. But it seems that a
Minneapolis Politician can't get caught dead saying that NRP is a boondoggle.
Whatever happened to encouraging neighborhood organizations to show
viability by showing a certain number of paid memberships in the
organizations? Sure there are people in neighborhoods that can't afford
memberships - but if everyone in a neighborhood can't afford it, the issue
isn't affordability - it's that there is a lack of support for the
neighborhood organization. If the neighborhood organization is truly an
investment in the neighborhood, they will find neighbors willing to
financially contribute.
Now I know I'm jaded a bit - because the neighborhood organization I am
most familiar is the notorious Central Neighborhood Improvement
Organization - CNIA.....
Eva Young
Near North
Minneapolis
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lloydletta's Nooz
http://lloydletta.blogspot.com
Dump Michele Bachmann
http://dumpbachmann.blogspot.com
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759,
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790)
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/1381.html
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