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

[WJKAHN at aol.com]

Thanks to Jim Graham for addressing Michael Atherton's latest PPERRIA NRP 
screed, but I feel that I should, at the risk of being corrected again, point out 
that the primary issue on which Atherton entered the realm of PPERRIA was a 
property tax assessment for most of the cost of a Phase I sidewalk lighting 
strategy which slightly less than half of the neighborhood opposed along with a 
number of absentee landlords. Our CP at the time, Joan Campbell, set the 
support needed to pass this assessment at a simple majority, so it passed in a door 
to door canvass of the neighborhood where no response meant no support. The 
NRP rules were changed in the middle of the process to allow for a greater share 
of the project cost to be covered by NRP funds--up to 50% I think--for 
lighting projects, but for a number of reasons project proponents did not want to 
restart things to take advantage of the lower assessments, most notably because 
it would probably have killed the project. We have our lights and the 
neighborhood has become less ambivalent about them with time; I personally don't like 
them anymore, having initially supported them, because I drive in St. Paul in 
darkness looking for numbers on street signs that are sometimes mounted on 
them (glare results in blinding one's eyes at the driver's level). In any case, 
Atherton and one other member of a large group of Prospect Park neighbors 
remain fixtures at PPERRIA and PPERRIA NRP meetings arguing mostly the same points 
on which they opposed the original Safety and Security Committee lighting 
strategy. I wrote a song about the long episode entitled "The Ballad of Sidewalk 
Lighting" that I will gladly share off-list for those interested, if I can 
remember all the lyrics that is. PPERRIA minutes are a new issue for these two 
men. 

These minutes are taken by our long serving, dedicated, and paternalistic 
secretary in a sort of folksy style that I feel may favor good appearances over 
accuracy; I must admit that when I am called upon to take the minutes of any 
group with whom I'm associated, they read like soap opera or farce. For 
accuracy's sake then, I prefer a bare bones style that identifies people, points, and 
actions taken. It is all about memory and perception after all and to let a 
certain personal or group theme creep into a writing style for minutes can lead 
to the kind of assessment that Atherton has made about PPERRIA many times in 
many venues. It might be of interest or at least amusement to list members that 
PPERRIA may have approved the last meeting minutes having neither seen nor 
read them. I did not vote to do so since I could nnot remember reading them, but 
the newsletter containing them did not come to me in the mail until a day or 
so after the meeting. As Graham points out, no one is quite as perfect as 
Atherton who did in fact start a new Prospect Park neighborhood association; I 
don't know what happened to it in the end.

Now, as to my Minneapolis Childrens Museum error, I have apologized for my 
ignorance; I moved here in 1993 and as far as I was concerned, the Bandana 
Square site was the original for me until I was corrected. I think that Atherton 
should start a new Childrens Museum in Prospect Park at the site of the recently 
closed Tower Grocery, Bedford near University Ave., SE. He could have 
displays of plasticized human bodies so kids may examine the human condition inside 
and out and he could have interactive displays demonstrating the fundamentally 
violent nature of Homo sapiens sapiens to children too. The developmental 
influence over SE Minneapolis kids and beyond that he could have is truly 
something to think about. 

Bill Kahn
Prospect Park