Governance proposals for Minneapolis City Council!

in #story3 years ago

Yeah, that’s me. January of 2017 being identified as “angry resident”, which was […still is] true. I live near one of the worst industrial polluters in the state of Minnesota. I got involved with a sweet old Libertarian woman who’s been an activist her whole life. I grew up on the east coast so lacked the tact of many Minneapolis residents, and she pushed me a few city council public meetings. I was given a microphone to air my grievances and took direct aim at the city council members before me. I blamed them for such egregious health risks to the community and someone from MPR took a picture for the story.

Ironically, this was a crossroads moment in my life. I ruffled some feathers and brought some needed public shame to the city council, but shortly thereafter, the committee formed a sub-committee called The Green Zone. My city council member, Kevin Reich, nominated me as a resident for our ward. It was a weird moment for me, because it was easy to stand in front of a hundred residents and call out their failures in leadership; it was another to call my bluff and ask me to assume some of that leadership myself.

I agreed to site on the sub-committee and more than three years later, let me tell you…it sucks. The meetings are twice a month, two hours, bureaucratic and boring as all fuck. Around the same time, 2017, I’d really taken the red pill learning about governance through friends like @mada, @robrigo and @roadscape, so fully absorbing blockchain governance and pitting it against the contrasts of archaic meat space city governance was frustrating. The inefficiency and snails pace is maddening.

Last summer, after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis Police officer, the world was swept up in a passionate demonstration in justice. Our city council, somewhat emotionally announced that they wanted to defund/disband the police. That hasn’t happened, and guess what? It’s an election year for those members. I saw an opening to bring new information to Councilman Reich, so I set up the call.

Tonight, myself, @lovejoy and @mada worked out some viable models based on @dantheman’s writings and philosophies, including Eden and small democratic democracies, accountability, representation and voluntary participation and taxation. Tomorrow afternoon, we’ll be meeting with Kevin to discuss pretty radically simplistic alternatives to a traditional police force. I warned Kevin weeks ago that some of these ideas are “out there”, assuming he wasn’t familiar with blockchain governance and he replied, “Right now, everything is on the table.”.

Nothing may come of it, but this is a unique time in history when elected leaders at the city level are willing to entertain these kinds of ideas. Blockchain is a household name again and our city is in the opening days of the Derek Chauvin trial. There’s a lot of anger and a desire for something else. I feel that my journey has lead me to this moment, so regardless of the outcome, I’m stepping up to connect these ideas with the people that could potentially implement them. Wish us luck.

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If there's one thing this city needs it's clearly leadership. I'm not sure if the incumbents are even capable of that, because they've as a whole been put to the test and failed it. I think we need to find leaders willing to do the job and vote for them.

It seems to be a thankless job, but maybe that just applies to the people who want the job because they want to be thanked for it. I once thanked a now-retired city council member for opposing the Vikings stadium debacle, but I was in an insomnia-induced stupor so it accidentally came out sounding sarcastic. Fuck 😂

By the way, the intro about your experience in speaking against Northern Metals made me think of two other significant polluting neighbors in Minneapolis: The HERC and Nico Plating. I'm sure the HERC is far worse than Northern Metals was/is, but it doesn't seem to be a topic of much discussion. Even though the population living nearby has exploded. And Nico is in the middle of a fucking residential neighborhood.

Pfunk! Cool to see you commenting on @komminezuspadt blog. I was just poking around his page and there you are! I've been in Thialand since the whole covid thing, and life is still good. Hope you are doing well! And down with these scumbag polluters!

Hey, good to hear from you. Glad to hear things are good in Thailand, are people getting the Chinese vaccines there?

Speaking of pollution, that Northern Metals place Lars mentioned had a big pile of scrap metal catch on fire a couple weeks ago. Is there that sort of thing where you are? As an ignorant guy, I sort of have the idea of less regulations in Thailand.

Hey! Good to hear from you too.

I think "first line" workers have access to several different vaccines here including the Russian one which they just made a deal with Russia over. But at the moment, hardly anyone in the country has been vaccinated.

Yeah in this part of the world there is a lot of corruption and health and hazard regulations can be given the blind eye for sure, however I don't know how bad it really is. Where I am here on an island, everything is clean and healthy.

Good luck to you and your people. This is quite some action aimed at effecting positive change, which is what we all need in our various parameters. Well done, keep doing your bit👍

Wow, very interesting. I thought that was you at first before I even started reading the post. I know how boring those meetings can be. I have to do some twice a month school board meetings myself. We are on Spring break right now and my wife has been watching the trial pretty much all day. I also sympathize with you about the pollution thing. I grew up in the home of Dow Chemical and Dow Corning and I still live just down wind from the plants!

I love politics and getting involved is important, but I think the Minneapolis City clowncil, mayor, and Governor are all helpless. Our city has been turned into more of a dumpster fire than the polluting business you fought in 2017. I would love to read your ideas on how you would change policing in the city. The defunding and demoralizing the police hasn't worked out so well as crime, murder ect are all skyrocketing. The gas station across the street from my dad's house in N. Minneapolis was fire bombed. A month later someone through a molotov cocktail through my dad's upstairs window burning his house down. It's been really sad to see the downward spiral of our once beautiful city. I wish you luck in talks with the council member but I think your time would probably be better spent on a free write for Hive.

Good luck, you must have nerves of steel to be able to cope with the bureaucracy and stiffness of the political system. I hope that you will be able to implement some changes, mentalities are hard to change, but not impossible

I admire YOU💜