[Mpls] 'Citizen Participation' still a myth; 'Activist Participation' not a myth

[Bob Johnson]

Shoemaker wants an update on citizen participation in Minneapolis.

On 16 Feb 05 at 22.13, I posted:

>When the Cedar-Riverside West Bank neighborhood has a 82% turnout of
>voters eligible to vote in the November 2000 election, how can it be
>ignored that a 1% turnout, at about the same time, of residents eligible
>to vote [for authorizing expenditure of $1,500,000 NRP funds], occurred?  

>Cedar-Riverside West Bank and the City of Minneapolis in total generally
>turn out about 70% of voters eligible to vote.  The year 2000 example
>above is not freak data.

>The time has come to determine for the other eighty neighborhoods in the 
>City, how their turnouts to authorize NRP millions of dollars compares 
>to their corresponding turnouts in [city] elections.

>C-RWB's miserable turnout of 1% means that for each 1 NRP vote
>counted, 99 were not.  I have a hunch that the results will not be
>significantly different for the average of the other neighborhoods.

>Will the neighborhoods research their files and bring in the harvest
>and let it be seen?  To avoid any misunderstanding, I'll restate:
>Will the individual neighborhoods post, for votes on NRP big buck 
>authorizations, the number of persons present and voting, with dates?

[Johnson writes]  Well, a big fat zero of the neighborhood 
activists/staffs/officials have responded with any numbers to compare
to the miserable experience in Cedar-Riverside West Bank, however, the 
"The Southeast Angle" issue for 18 Mar-21 Apr 2005 has come forward with 
a page 1 article, "Ballots cast for Marcy-Holmes projects - Nearly 
$700,000 at stake".  Quoting now from that article:

"Residents gathered to listen to 20 proposals, compiled by the Marcy-
Holmes NRP Committee, on how to allocate funds in Phase II of the plan.
Despite being the third largest neighborhood in Minneapolis, with more
than 9,000 residents, only about half the seats [in the basement of 
University Lutheran Church of Hope] were filled...

[Marcy-Holmes' NRP Coordinator Elissa Cortell said] "I think it was a 
good turnout...We handed out more than 60 ballots."

[Johnson]  So 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%.

Conclusions:
A.  Marcy-Holmes data is even worse than that for Cedar-Riverside West
Bank, and

B.  The other 79 or so neighborhoods are too embarrassed to fess up to 
the truth.

C.  Everyone knows that 'citizen participation' is a myth but doesn't 
want to admit the clear truth that it is really 'activist participation'
when it comes to frittering away taxpayer money via the NRP boondoggle -
'pork barrel' may be a more accurate term.

D.  The sad thing is that the longer this myth (hoax) is allowed to
persist, the longer will real City problems go unanswered.  The 
neighborhood residents should band together to work with their elected
representatives in order to solve real City problems (which are not
cig smoke, diesel fumes, leaf blowers, etc.)

and a Question:
Will the $70 million from the new City stormwater tax be sufficient to
prevent Minneapolis from going into receivership as is threatening 
Detroit http://www.detnews.com/2005/editorial/0501/02/D10-46963.htm
??

The 'citizen participation' hoax can be swept under the carpet, but the
chickens will someday come home to roost.  The lack of 'Representative 
Democracy' will have its revenge.

Bob Johnson
Cedar-Riverside West Bank
W2/P10