Flickr.com Photo, Minneapolis City Hall Here is the latest breaking news in the ongoing, colorful and controversial "political re-alignment" in the Jordan Neighborhood...
I'm now in possession of two letters written by Stacy L. Sorenson, Neighborhood Specialist for the Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program. (NRP) For those unfamiliar with this entity, basically NRP gives money to neighborhoods to help those neighborhoods improve. Arguably, JACC couldn't even FUNCTION without NRP funding.
NRP Helped Count The Votes
First of all, Sorenson was actually involved as a "teller/ballot counter" as requested by the JACC Nominating Committee. Sorenson said, "Because NRP invests a significant amount of public funds in Jordan, it is in our interest for the neighborhood association to have a board of directors that is both elected fairly and functions effectively."
Sorenson said, "In my view, the elections were run exceptionally well and in accordance with the JACC bylaws. At one point early in the meeting, a member of the organization suggested that nominations from the floor be accepted. The suggesting was respectfully received, but it was pointed out by an attendee and confirmed by a member of the Nominating Committee that the JACC bylaws call for candidates's eligibility for the board to be verified and for members to be mailed a list of all candidates prior to the elections. Accepting nominations from the floor would have violated JACC's bylaws."
Results Of The Vote Were "Not Close"
According to Sorenson, she counted ballots along with Bob Cooper and Jay Clark, under the observation of two individuals, one being the chair of the nominating committee. (I believe that would be Kip Browne)
Notably, Sorenson says "Results of the vote were not close."
New Board, New Officers
In a second letter, dated January 16, 2009, and addressed to Councilmembers Samuels and Johnson, as well as JACC Chair Kip Browne, information is revealed about talks with the "Assistant City attorney responsible for citizen participation." According to Sorenson, she reviewed the events of January 12 and 14th with this (unnamed) Assistant City Attorney, and "He advised me that the new board (as elected on January 12) had the responsibility to elect its officers. (Parenthetical info in orginal text) After consulting with the City Attorney, Sorenson consulted with NRP Director Bob Miller.
The conclusion of all this consulting?
"Based on these events and on the advice that we have received from the Assistant City Attorney on this issue, the NRP will recognize the JACC board with its full complement of members as elected on January 12 and with the officers elected on January 14th."
12 comments:
Yay! Now, let's move on...
No can do. I'm going to ride this horse until it drops dead, then boil the hooves for glue.
But I still say: buy a house in Jordan. There are great deals in that neighborhood. This little soap opera is going to be resolved, and this new leadership will be good for Jordan...especially if the "Old Majority" will sit at the same table, all democratic-like.
Fine. I don't disagree with your vigilance. I love vigilance. However, I think that, in some weird and wacky way, you're just trying to make Jordan look bad so that Hawthorne seems more appealing. Don't do that. If you're going to be "Johnny Northside", then be for all of North, not just Hawthorne. There tends to be jealousy among the North neighborhoods. Even YOU said that neighbors in Hawthorne will judge their neighbors in Jordan just across the street on Emerson, for example, if there is a crime or some other fuss. It's so primal. LET IT GO!
Really, not at all. In fact, I'd be happy to go work for JACC if I could get paid a decent salary. I'd go pour my considerable energy into Jordan...and then folks would be all, like, oh geez come back to Hawthorne!
I'm publicizing this stuff because it is newsworthy and people intensely involved in this struggle are forwarding it to me. As somebody who has spent a lot of time studying political science, this is fascinating. You just don't see this kind of thing very often, up close.
This neighborhood is in a process of intense political re-alignment. What happens in the next few months will determine the fate of this neighborhood for decades.
The contest between the "livability" faction versus the "social justice" faction, when stripped bear of such polite labels, is a raw power struggle between "pro-revitalization" forces versus forces who want to keep "the hood" pretty much unchanged, except for more social justice. ("Save Our Happy Hood")
This struggle is so often muted or behind the scenes. To see these forces break out into such open struggle...it's like a solar eclipse! Heck if I'll allow history to pass by unwritten, particularly when the Star Tribune won't even send a beat reporter.
Bare. I meant "bare" not "bear."
Gotcha. You are right, of course. Carry on.
Don't feel like you HAVE TO agree. I did notice the phenomenon you pointed out, but that's not my INTENTION.
Furthermore, I'm making lots of new contacts in Jordan and I'm hoping to publicize more stories from Jordan...including some new home buyer incentives, I hope, once this JACC controversy resolves itself...and it will.
Sooner or later, the holdouts will find you can't turn your back on the inevitable, lock yourself inside a church and live off Kool-Aid forever.
My advice: STOP DRINKING THE KOOL-AID and get on board the political reality train, choo choo.
you mentioned the 3 tellers were observed by 2 on-lookers, one of them being Kip Browne. The other on-looking observer was James Everett, long dreads, Sub Zero Collective. There were 8 candidates on the ballot. 2 candidates didn't even show up, that would be Ben Myers and Tiara Miltion.
I agree with you to a point about covering it but if the election wasn't close, there was a realignment already. It might not be permanent. As with the one going on nationally, it will depend a lot on what happens next and whether they are successful in bringing about the change.
I still don't like the idea that somehow livability people don't care about social justice or that these are somehow naturally opposed. Maybe sometimes they are, but I don't think they are here. Everybody that lives in Jordan, renter homeowner or visitor would benefit from Jordan having a stronger community and safer streets. It says a lot that whenever there is a fracas in Jordan (the "melee" that happened 6 or 7 years ago or this one) Outsiders show up to complain about "social justice" but not so much people that actually live there. If I am worried about a bullet coming through my wall, I am wondering about social justice for me, I can't worry about the kids on the street getting into the drug dealer's clutches, even if it's all part of the same problem.
"You just don't see this kind of thing very often, up close."
Anyone who has lived on the northside for very long has seen basically the same script, with many of the same characters, replayed ad nauseum, year in and year out. Anytime there is any possibility that something pragmatic might actually be achieved, the Northside demagogues who rely for their livelihoods on keeping things exactly as they are step in to cause the utterly predictable, tedious kind of chaos that you are detailing here. It is simultaneously outrageous and utterly depressing in exactly the same way that the shenanigans of the Bush administration have been-- and worth documenting, for many of the same reasons. As another commenter mentioned, the only new, and potentially hopeful, twist in this rendition is that Al Flowers was thrown out of the meeting (unlike, for instance, several years ago, when he shouted down Mayor Rybak's press conference and told the Mayor not to ever come back to North Minneapolis. Obviously, a very constructive move.)
To Margaret: Well, I've never said social justice advocates don't "care" about livability, nor have I said vice versa. It's really just a matter of emphasis.
But then again...
I think when it comes to certain livability issues like driving drug dealers off the streets, that's when the "thug-huggers" come out of the woodwork to defend the thugs, make 'em marshmallow chocolate smores and say, "You just don't understand how hard his life is, how the deck has been stacked against him since birth!"
So there is SOME tension, yes, between social justice versus livability advocates. But, mostly, I think it's just emphasis.
And Kip Browne put it very well when he pointed out that he's an attorney, and fights for social justice all the time...but he thinks JACC needs to emphasize livability issues, because that's the most pressing thing right now.
But when you talk "livability" you're talking "revitalization." And there are folks actively fighting revitalization, saying it's a plot by Rybak, et al, to change the demographics of black neighborhoods.
To the other poster: Sure, there have been power struggles and controversies before--please, elaborate on some of these for those of us who haven't been around as long--but two factions declaring themselves the "true" Jordan neighborhood council? A fistfight? Records taking flight in the dead of night?
If this is just a sequel, it's a pretty good sequel that can stand on its own for entertainment value!
Johnny: Yes, believe it or not, interesting things have happened on the Northside before you became interested in it. NRRC's shenanigans make JACC's "Old Majority" look like Mr. Smith Went to Washington. NRRC refused to show their finances not only to the board members, but also to NRP. WHO went through exactly the same thing, except that it happened before the organization was even incorporated, so there wasn't any office equipment to steal. In both of those cases, the "Ben Myers/Al Flowers" style faction won. Perhaps JACC will be different--there's always the possibility, but it would be a first.
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