I read your thoughs about what the city should do about the McKinsey recommendations. There are many people in the Prospect Park Neighborhood who are not at all sure of the usefulness of the recommendations. What follows is a statement that was adopted by the executive committee of my neighborhood's organization. While I have posted it before, I think that it's useful to look at its findings side-by-side with your own.
Steve Cross Prospect Park ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ PPERRIA Executive Committee Observations on McKinsey Report The Executive Committee of the Prospect Park East River Road Improvement Association (PPERRIA) at its meeting on April 12, 2002 discussed the report of McKinsey & Company to the City of Minneapolis. We believe that: (1) McKinsey & Company has performed a valuable public service in recommending the reorganization of the city’s development functions. (2) It is useful to declare for the city to now set long term and intermediate goals for the development of housing and jobs. All involved city departments should be required to submit regular reports on activities taken to reach those goals. (3) The city must take additional steps to communicate and coordinate interrelated functions of the city among city departments and employees. (4) Consideration should be given to whether a city manager would be beneficial to coordinate city functions. (5) It is bad public policy to mix regulatory and promotion functions. For that reason, we are opposed to the merger in one department of any building regulation and building development activities of the city. We believe there are alternatives that promise a better result. One is to provide for the appointment within the development offices of an advocate to the regulatory offices to expedite priority projects. (6) Zoning is a useful way to prospectively determine the nature of city development. Ordinarily, zoning decisions should be respected so that any zoning decisions that interfere with any development are not overturned on the request of any developer. A possible standard for change is the inability to anticipate material events. (7) The NRP and the MCDA are multiple-jurisdictional agencies under state law and not an instrumentality of the city. We fail to see advantages of making those agencies “just” a department of the city’s government. However, we do think that the city must exercise its influence over the NRP and the MCDA so that they play a prominent role in meeting the city’s housing and jobs development goals. (8) The actual role of the neighborhoods in the new development process seems inconsistent with an enhanced role for neighborhoods in that process. (9) We do not believe that a case has been made for the merger of the city’s Public Works Department into a merged development agency. (10) Changes should be implemented step-by-step so there is sufficient time to evaluate as each step is completed. These observations are solely those of the PPERRIA Executive Committee. PPERRIA’s membership has not yet seen let alone approved this statement. No membership meeting is scheduled before the City Council will apparently act. _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
