Word came today that the petition many of us signed to remove the Minneapolis Park Board from any dicey possibilities generated by an over-eager city council and mayor went well past the 15,000 intended signatures that are themselves much more numerous than the 10,000 valid registered voter signatures required by the provisions of the city charter.
I have great faith in the lessons of our municipal history in this regard. There have been several attempts by Minneapolis city councils to have at the independent park board and they have been routinely unsuccessful. The charter amendment that now goes to the electorate in November will ward off the otherwise annoying possibility that this issue could be revisited repeatedly as was the case with the HHH Metrodome.
This leads me to the other charter amendment that will be on the November ballot. IMHO, these are two closely linked scenarios. Were the two independent boards offered up for sacrifice on the unspoken expectation that the public would rise up in defense of the parks and then subside to acquiescence in the demise of the only structural check on the financial behavior of our city fathers and mothers?
And, in essence throwing the baby out with the bath water, reconstituting the leadership of the city council (and interestingly, not the mayor) as the fox officially sent to guard the chickens?
Were the proposed alterations approved, there would be virtually no robust way for grassroots participation in the governance process other than the quadrennial elections, the often cumbersome and expensive use of judicial intervention, or legislative remedies written into the Minnesota statutes.
This is not about “efficiency” or “obscure and poorly understood functions”. No, this is about “trust but verify” – the mantra that keeps the public from being led astray by other ambitious forces not reliably interested in our common good.
We face decisions that are best framed with an eye to historical precedent. The rascals that put our municipal charter together were no fools. They not only meant to keep the precious park system intact, but also to have humorless bean counters looking over the city’s shoulders, so to speak, with enough votes to be able to block ill-conceived and/or corrupt uses of the city’s resources and good name.
That’s a historical legislative intent that should be strengthened, not eliminated.
