But isn’t the lesson of John Hurt’s character’s speech that no matter how “well arranged ” your life is, if it is all about self interest, limited to self interest per se, you will end up with no life worth living? Or at least that if your perception of your life being “well arranged” does not even consider other competing interests, you may end up just drinking yourself to death in Wyoming?

(And peripherally, if you throw your lot in with the Fed Gov’t and the Army, against the “common good”, you may be even worse off than just dead drunk in Wyoming! )

Sounding more and more relevant …

So I came up with the “heavy hammer/John Henry” re: not wanting the funds used for…. oh well, it’s all too complicated…

What the “ho-tel” are ‘ya looking for, Norman!

Does the city administrator have the final say on the expenditure of funds?

I like your idea of a forum. Could a collaborative group, say Locally Grown Northfield.org and the League of Women Voters put together a plan and go to the council with a request?

The League has discussed such a public discussion earlier (beginning with, but not limited to understanding the city charter). I believe they would be interested in a cooperative venture on line.

I decided to blog about the CVB as citizen interested in seeing more transparency from an agency that’s supported with an unusual taxing arrangement. I’d heard occastional grumbling about the CVB over the years and decided to do something about it.

But the first public thing I did was not to blog about it but to attend Kathy’s presentation at the Council. I spoke at open mic after her. I was fully prepared to not speak at all if she’d been more forthcoming.

So I met F2F with Kathy, I attended a F2F Council meeting to listen to her, I made F2F remarks at open mic to try to influence the Council. That’s participating in the slow democratic process that we both believe in, right?

If I had submitted a letter to the editor or commentary in the paper for their 5-10,000 readers to see instead of blogging it for our 5-7,000 visitors to see, I’m guessing that you wouldn’t have written a follow-up letter, criticizing me as a vigilante or an un-elected public ombudsman.

As for a being a journalist/reporter on this story, I don’t think I was, nor do I aim to be. I did want to exercise care as a blogger because I was criticizing a well-known institution and its well-liked executive director. A reporter would have interviewed other city leaders, CVB advisory board members, and tourism-related business owners.

Can you give specifics on this? She doesn’t appear to participate in the discussions on her Think Again blog where her posts, as far as I know, are not reviewed by an editor before she publishes them there.

And I thought by launching this feedback topic on my CVB post, I was demonstrating that I was willing to take the heat for what I posted. 

I phoned Al Roder yesterday and asked if he’d consider allocating funds from the cable fund for me to do a forum on the City Charter. He’s not opposed to using funds for that type of forum but not for that topic, as he doesn’t see it as relevant to the current difficulties at City Hall.

The Council could go ahead anyway, of course, but I’m not going to lobby them for it.

Just a reminder:

• We had then-Charter Chair Alex Beeby on our show in late Nov, discussing Charter issues
• We had current Charter Chair Peter Dahlen on our show in March, discussion the conflict of interest issue.
  
• In early Nov., I blogged: Is the city’s Charter partially to blame for the woes at City Hall?
  

So any of you could start discussing ‘governance’ in any one of those message threads. If you do, I’ll link to it.

Why would it be a problem to have a less formal format, much like any other thread which deals with a serious theme?

I would hate to “kill the goose that laid a golden egg” … or in this case, the gander.

Regardless of the structure of the discussion, how formalized/loose it is, a beneficial group discussion can be had, and we can all benefit from David K.’s expertise. Can you re-evaluate the benefit to all of us in seeing that golden egg “laid” ?

I’d argue that Kersten, Grow and Coleman are not interchangeable in either style or substance. The only thing they share is a publisher who wants to sell papers.

Usually you provide insightful posts -- “goofball prayers”, and “bobos in paradise” are a couple of examples. The CVB post was mostly whining in the form of questions.

I think I’ll just keep working on my suggestions to the Charter Commission, then. That won’t cost the City any money as I’m not lobbying to be paid for this even though governance advice is one of the things I get paid to provide.

If anyone would like to meet to discuss, I am happy to do so.

I cite Katherine Kersten as an example, not out any endorsement of the content, but the process. Pick a column by Nick Coleman or Doug Grow, if you prefer.

My question is this:

How is my CVB blog post any different than when a newspaper columnist or a newspaper editorial publishes an opinionated critique of some public official or organization?

And if the newspaper publishes letters to the editor in support of the columnist/editorial, is that promoting ‘cult-like’ or ‘vigilante’ behavior?

If we purchase newspapers with opinionated columnists and editorial writers, isn’t that the same as you said crtically of me, “…enfranchising a non-elected official with the authority of a bully pulpit [and] fundamentally anti-democratic”?

I’m fully supportive of the slow, F2F process for enacting change via our representative form of government. I just think the media (mainstream and bloggers) can play a role in helping it to happen.

(I’ve got more thoughts about this to post that’s more CVB-specific but I’m off to shoot some photos!)

The online panel should include 1 or 2 members from the Charter Commission, 1 or 2 City councilors, and an outside expert, for example, someone from the League of MN Cities who’s well-versed in MN municipal charters.

The forum could include a variety of other ‘online tools’, such as a wiki (for group document editing), straw polls, audio interviews, a resource guide, etc.

During the same two-week period, Locally Grown could team up with the League of Women Voters and host a F2F event with the panelists. We could even (gasp!) team up with other media organizations in town.

After two weeks, a summary and a transcript can be produced and then made available/presented to the Charter Commission and the City Council.

Without this kind of more formal structure, an online event is far less likely to have an impact.

It takes a lot of time (and, dare I say, some talent!) to setup/produce an online event like this. The City of Northfield has a special fund for ‘community communications’ that’s funded by a surcharge on cable TV subscribers. It was used recently to fund the technology upgrades to the Council chambers. A few years back when Scott Neal was City Administrator, he contracted with Northfield.org to host several of these online forums and these were paid for out of this fund (and then paid to me as the moderator/producer).

So if someone from the Charter Commission, City Council, or City administration thinks this would be a good use of money from that fund, I’d be willing to submit a proposal. If not, it might have to wait till the RepJ reporter gets on board.

The exercise could be a great way to get people to read and think about the Charter, no matter what suggestions for changes are proffered. Should specific recommendations emerge from this process, I’m sure the Charter Commission will want to hear them.

I’m most curious, though, about how proposed changes will not only be forwarded to the Charter commission, but how supporters of change will advocate for their adoption and move from conversation to action.

The first things that would have to be corrected in the Charter would be the parts that the Chart/Comm changed back at the time of the referendum (should NF change to a City Manager system of governance). In anticipation of that passing (the then Chart/Comm was so certain it would pass, and it did not) that there were a few things changed that somewhat weakened our previously strong Mayor into a “mini-Strong Mayor”.

For instance: I think it used to say “the Mayor will set the Agenda with the assistance of the City Administrator” ; and now I think it says “The Administrator will set the agenda with the Assistance of the Mayor”. It’s late, I’m tired, and I didn’t look it up … just going by memory … so I could be wrong. But that’s the sort of minor change that was made at the time, and now needs to be put back to the original language to enable a truly strong Mayoral system.

At Politics and a Pint a couple weeks ago, Councilor Denison (not in favor of a strong mayor) said “why would you want to elect a ‘dictator’ “? I countered with “why would you want to HIRE a ‘dictator’ “?

I think it’s quite obvious that you must construct the system you prefer, and then if personality aberrations come into play, there must be a method for resolving that problem. Checks and balances, right?

It all sounds good, but when I think of my opinion of our Federal gov’t. during the current administration … Checks and Balances don’t seem to be working at all!