It is a bleedin' shame to have to read about how mayoral candidates
and their supporters try to attack Mayor Rybak with a NRP cudgel. For
example, on 03SEP2005 wmmarks opines that "Rybak and the council have
systematically undermined the principles of the NRP...They did it to
take power away from citizens and hoard it to themselves..."
Listening to this clamor could lead one to believe that the NRP
experiment over its 15 years of existence has returned power to the
citizens. Please understand, "to the citizens" does not mean "to
only the handful of citizen activists in each neighborhood".
It is a myth that NRP has returned power to the citizens - little
could be further from the truth.
Listening to this clamor could make one believe that the mayor and
council should be abolished - give all the power back to the
citizens since the NRP experiment has been such a resounding success!
Then everything could be run from 81 different neighborhoods. Imagine
the consequences!
Not infrequently one reads on this List a post calling for some data
to be made public - that some person or organization is concealing
data.
Five times since January, I have posted (see dates below) a challenge
to the neighborhoods and their activists to make public on this List
for each NRP project authorization:
the date of the meeting,
the number of residents voting,
the number of residents in the neighborhood, and
the amount of funds authorized.
Therefrom could be made a straightforward and simple calculation of
what percentage of citizens in a neighborhood turnout to participate
in decisions on NRP expenditures. Comparing data for such NRP
decisions vs. elections in a neighborhood will allow discovery of
who is "hoard(ing power un)to themselves".
Is it the mayor and council, or the neighborhood activists who
'play act' as though they are the whole neighborhood. Doubtless,
the mayor and council are elected to represent residents in the City
with voter turnouts generally in the 70-80% range. This is known as
representative democracy.
But not one neighborhood activist is, or can be elected to represent
other residents in his/her neighborhood for decision making on NRP
expenditures. The neighborhood activists are self-appointed. This
is not representative democracy.
To date, not one neighborhood has responded, although Marcy-Holmes
reported via its neighborhood newspaper in APR2005.
See Author index for "Bob Johnson" for the following dates:
Fri Jan 21 21:41:40 CST 2005
Tue Jan 25 02:54:56 CST 2005
Wed Feb 16 22:13:10 CST 2005
Mon Apr 4 23:46:32 CDT 2005
"...now we have some hard data for the Marcy-Holmes neighbor-
hood which can be summarized:
60 residents in a neighborhood of
9,000 residents authorized expending
$700,000 of NRP funds for a
turnout less than 1% (in APR2005)"
If the NRP experiment were such a resounding success in returning
power to citizens, one would think that the NRP advocates would be
amassing tables of statistics demonstrating that citizens really
are participating in turnouts reasonably approximating elections,
proving that citizens actually have taken power unto themselves.
Instead, silence.
Sorely needed is some showing of integrity.
Bob Johnson
Cedar-Riverside West Bank
W2/P10
the power.
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