Photo by Johnny NorthsideA North Side resident named Steffanie Musich sent an email to Mayor Ryback, attaching a copy of a statement about lack of police responsiveness on the North Side. The subject line of the email was "Do you read Johnny? You should."
When I first saw the subject line...
...I thought, "Is somebody saying I need to read something more closely and shoving it in front of my face, via the internet?"
But it turned out "Do you read Johnny?" meant "Do you read Johnny Northside Dot Com?"
First, let me say it's not my intention to embarrass some public official. I don't know any of them well enough to want to do a thing like that and, furthermore, I've always been a big fan of Cam Gordon, of the Green Party.
I write to rescue and revitalize my new neighborhood. I write about the truth of my experience. I slap up my photos to document that truth. Yeah, I hope what I write causes public officials to take notice and get us the stuff the "decent people" need on the North Side, like drug and prostitution sting operations along Lyndale Ave. N. and the side streets.
Soon. Really soon.
But I have never been a critic of the Mayor.
All the same, Steffanie's statement is heartfelt, it is substantive, and so it is going right up on this blog. Here it is, in blue.
Dear Mr. Mayor,
Perhaps you remember me from my tear-soaked meeting with you last summer after my husband was assaulted and the police response was less than stellar. I'm guessing you don't, since you left my statement sitting on the table when you left the meeting.
Don't worry, I attached it so you can refresh your memory.
I suggest to you that you read Mr. Hoff's blog (that I was introduced to by minnpost.com because he has captured so beautifully what I wish I'd been chronicling for the past 6 years of my Northside experience.
He points out all the reasons why your worthwhile residents in North shouldn't stay and sometimes why we should. Perhaps you can take his suggestions to heart, since you appear to have ignored mine in your sprint to the governorship.
[At this point, Stephanie quotes something from my early blogging in boldface]
Until there is the political will to clean up graffiti within 24 hours on the North Side, goodbye first impressions and goodbye new residents. Until there is the political will to arrest drug dealers one time, two times, ten times, a dozen times until they get the freaking hint and stop doing business on that corner, or any corner of the North Side, goodbye first impressions and goodbye new residents. You can't hide reality by writing cheery columns. One could write the cheery columns and--believing the hype--one might go to the North Side seeking a bargain on a house. But reality will intrude upon hype every time. What's needed is cold hard dealing with reality and not hope and hype. Bust the open air drug markets. Paint over the graffiti. Patrol the neighborhoods so people aren't murdered in their homes by roving packs of North Side teens. The people you need to bring to the North Side are the people who want to take on this challenge, otherwise speculators and slum lords will be the ones buying the empty buildings, because they will make their money on the North Side but not have to live there. And when massively-increased safety and security exists for, say, a year or two...in reality and in people's collective sense of security, based on what they see around them with their freaking open eyes instead of singing "la-la-la love in my heart" then new residents MIGHT begin to buy the vacant homes. MIGHT. Let me emphasize "MIGHT."
[Stephanie provides a URL to this blog and concludes as follows]
Happy reading Mr. Mayor. I hope it shames you into finding some political will.
[Stephanie's attached statement reads as follows]
July 12, 2007
Mayor Rybak,
I would like to provide you with some information about my background. I grew up in Wayzata's Highcroft Neighborhood, the daughter of a public school teacher and a business lawyer. I attended Wayzata public schools until I graduated from Wayzata Senior High School in 1996.
I attended private and public institutions on the East Coast and returned to Minnesota and Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota for my Junior and Senior year of college where I met my husband.
I graduated with a BA in English and my husband graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University and we have been residents of the City of Minneapolis ever since.
We could have remained living in the Southern part of the city, but we bought into the idea of the Northside being revitalized and saw it as the future of the city. Since we moved to our house there five years ago I have seen the neighborhood decline rather than improve with each passing year.
Last year, I had to stop biking to work because my locked bicycle was stolen from my garage and then I had to stop riding the bus to my job as an accountant downtown out of fear for my personal safety due to the high number of assaults and robberies perpetrated upon people near bus stops and the poor behavior of juveniles riding the bus.
The decay affected even our son, who is five. He can distinguish between gunshots and fireworks. Can your children do the same?
I understand you want facts to base your reaction to the events that have caused my family to flee the city on, and so I would like to instead discuss with you at this time the perceptions that shape the attitudes and dictate the actions of the residents of North Minneapolis.
I can not even begin to estimate the number of times I have called 911 and not seen a squad car arrive in a reasonable amount of time. I am told, as a block club participant, that I should call 911 for a myriad of reasons: from loud cars parked on the street to fighting and suspected drug dealing.
I am told that I should not confront people, nor try to approach people for that may prove dangerous, as it did for my husband on July the Fourth. However, my only option if I make that choice not to voice my concern with people's behavior is to call 911 and hope that an officer will respond and appropriately express the concern that I as a citizen have with that behavior.
When the police don't respond within minutes of a call, that opportunity to show the community's displeasure with inappropriate, offensive or damaging behavior passes, and the individuals involved have not received the message that what they are doing is illegal, upsetting or otherwise.
Thus, this inaction on both the part of the citizen, out of fear, and the police out of--I don't know what, too many other calls, too many years of the same old stuff, lack of motivation, whatever the cause--this inaction serves to condone behavior that causes the neighborhoods within the North Side to spiral ever downwards into a pit of hopelessness.
I ask that you help reshape the perceptions of the good residents you have left as well as the elements of trouble that frequent their streets. By "good residents," I refer to the ones that still have the strength and fortitude to persevere and try to institute change.
Please give them the resources they need to both protect themselves and their neighborhoods. When you ask them to get involved and be active in the community, respect the sacrifice they are making for their city by having enough resources on the streets to have every 911 call answered within a few minutes, not twenty, not thirty, not at all, but rather a few precious minutes that can be the difference between a citation for possession and use of illegal fireworks and a block club leader lying bloodied on the sidewalk.
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