-----Original Message-----
From: Garwood, Robin
Bert Black
wrote:
"Given that inevitability, why not have
legislation?"
That's a good question, but it isn't the only one I'd like
to have answered.
Here are the others, for me:
1) Why not have
legislation (or the city version of that word) come from the city level?
If the need for a new election in 2003 is as inevitable as Bert says, I think we
should be able to count on our current council to see that.
[TB] The
Council, on its own, cannot change the City Charter. There were some last
fall who advocated the Council passing "emergency" language that would have made
the 2001 election for a 2 year term. I'm not going to pretend to be a
legal expert who knows if they could have done that, but I'm not sure how I see
it was an emergency that couldn't be worked out over a reasonable period of
time.
[Robin Garwood] Whether the State has the legal authority to set
our election agenda, is it right, or even good policy, for them to do so?
Though the bill's author is a Minneapolis resident, my understanding is that the
Senate sponsor is not, and the vast majority of the two houses are not.
And the unfriendliness of the current house to the interests of Minneapolis is
famous on this list.
Minnesota cities are a creation of the state.
The state sets the parameters under which cities operate.
While we don't really need the hundreds of units of local government
we have in the metro area and the multitude of governmental units we have
certainly inhibits good ubran planning, the state is who sets the rules and we
need to work within that structure.
[TB] When I read
the bill, it didn't say "Minneapolis" anywhere in it. It applies to
all cities who elect City Councils from wards to 4 year terms.
There are other cities that fall into this catagory.
[Robin Garwood] 2)
I'd really like an answer from Representative Kahn (who up until Sunday was my
State Rep, for whom I have cast votes in the past) to the question I've read on
here numerous times now: why did you not bring this legislation before the last
election?
[TB] My reaction is this falls into the Law of Unintended
Consequences, no one really thought this through at the time council terms were
extended from 2 to 4 years. Talking with people who are rather close to
Minneapolis city government, no one seems to have even considered this issue
until sometime last year, as we were approaching the convergence of
redistricting and the elections.
Take a look at our existing wards. Wards 10, 11, 12 and 13 are 6,998 people short of what the new wards need in population. This is 23.78% of a total ward. With these wards having boundaries of the east, south and west city limits they have no place to go other than the 8th and 9th wards which only need 995 new people (with Wards 10 and 13 possibly taking from the 6th and 7th Ward (Ward 6 needs 3,287 people, Ward 7 only 192). We will be seeing some major changes in the way some of our wards look, especially south of Franklin Avenue.
Terrell Brown
Loring Park
terrell@terrellbrown. org
