76th Street

I just had an incident that builds on what I was discussing in a previous post “Open Government, Transparency and Civic Engagement (or lack of) on the City of Richfield’s Website” While this did not occur on the city’s web site but rather on the City’s Facebook page, it does bring up some very significant issues with Richfield’s refusel to develop open and transparent citizen engagement.

When I went to the City’s Facebook page I noticed a post about the video for January 24th  special work session being posted on the city’s web site and asked why they couldn’t keep the city council meetings up indefinitely like our neighboring suburbs. When I looked back to my astonishment I discovered that while my post was responded to (only partly) they had however deleted my original post. Now don’t get me wrong, it is the City’s site and they can set the guidelines. Even I would agree that Facebook is a not a great tool for doing meaningful engagement. However, deleting a rather benign comment because it asks a somewhat uncomfortable question about the city’s services is a bit over the top. More appropriately would have been to direct the discussion to a city blog where appropriate official could engage them a in public discussion or maybe even offer a guest post with an alternative view. However, unlike several other of Richfield’s neighbors the city chooses not to even offer a blog.

Richfield’s reactions so far have also shown the wrong way to respond to negative comments. Instead of trying to engage in honest conversations with its citizens on a democratic platform, the City of Richfield replied angrily by deleting a post.

Below are screen shots of the City of Richfield’s Facebook site. Showing each comment and response and subsequent deletion. It does not include my original post which was much more polite than my subsequent posts. I did not have the foresight to make a screen shot since I really did not expect my comment do get deleted. However, after it was deleted I pretty much expected any thing else I posted to get deleted as well so I figured I would at least give them something worthy to delete -but not until I took a screen shot.

Edina

After my screen shots showing my engagement on Richfield’s facebook page, I have included screen shots of my postings on Edina’s Citizen Engagement Blog where I asked a question that I could only assume would get deleted anywhere on Richfield’s social media sites. Interestingly, even though Edina may shirk it’s responsibility when it comes to affordable workforce housing it does a good job on engaging its citizens AND as evedenced by their interactions with me, a non-citizen.

Not only did they post my comments, they sought me out on the Richfield SOS site to make sure I comply with their guidelines (I did not include my last name in my comment)so they could post my initial first comment (I sheepishly admit to not having read the guidelines before I posted) .

Richfield’s Reactions

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Edina’s Reactions

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To illustrate my point, I provide a clip from Monty Python. The skit is about a man, Dennis Moore, and his misguided and poorly thought out attempts to level economic justice by robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. It goes well in the beginning, but Dennis is a one-trick-pony and not a very critical thinker. So he keeps robbing and robbing until the rich are poor and the poor are rich causing him pause to say “this redistribution of wealth is trickier than I thought!”

His original actions may have been motivated by the believe in economic justice but lack of understanding of the deeper issues topped with his lack of creative problem solving and sticking to the only thing he could do well lead him to be a major (if unintended) player in carrying out major social injustices.

Richfield’s City Hall – Viva la 1980s!

Many of the Richfield movers and shakers have been around since the 1980s and 1970s. I know this because I went to high school back then and was a political cartoonist for the Richfield Sun (Now Richfield Sun-Current). I moved away when I went to college but came back and bought a house in 2002 and was amazed to find some of the same people in power and even more amazing was that while the world and Richfield had changed dramatically they had not nor had their policies.

One example was the love affair with senior citizen housing at 66th and Lyndale. By 2003 they had created a large fixed income/senior ghetto and were effectively cutting off the blood supply to the business community so that even a Dunn Bros. or Quiznos couldn’t survive there. However, they created a great climate for medical storefronts like a dialysis clinic or for discount dollar stores.

What worked well in the 1980’s with the Lake Shore Drive Condos didn’t work so well thirty years later when repeated over and over and over…

This is clearly going on with the affordable housing issue right now. Richfield 1970/1980 was very white and very middle class, diversity and affordable housing were clear issues that a progressive thirty or forty-something would have seen and should have been concerned about. But fast forward to 2012 when Richfield is now one of the most diverse suburbs in the metro area, even more diverse than many areas of Minneapolis and St. Paul. It also now has one of the most affordable home owner and rental housing stocks in the metro as well.

So the issues toward these should change. Instead of “how do me make Richfield more diverse?”, it should be “how can we understand each other better?” and more importantly, instead of “how do we make more affordable housing for those with low incomes?” The focus should be on maintaining the quality AND affordability of the existing rental stock not adding more and more low income housing when the older forty to fifty year old rental apartments are running down.

If being a champion of social justice is what is wanted then they need a better understanding of the deeper issues and to start creatively problem solve as well as take unpopular political risks by holding accountable the Metropolitan Council and wealthy cities like Edina who continue to shirk their responsibility of helping the poor with low income workforce housing.

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Matthew 19:24

Are churches in Edina only for show?

One thing that has become apparent after working on the Pillsbury Commons project and looking into housing policy are issues of open goverment and transparency with City of Richfield, especially if you compare it with what other city governments are doing. Government transparency is important because it allows the public to be informed about what the government is working on as well as the policies they are trying to implement. Government transparency gives insight to the public on how decisions are made and hold elected officials or public servants accountable for their actions.

More and more people are expect to be able to access the information they need instantly online. Sometimes given the lack of resources and funding that expectation can be wishful thinking especially when it comes to historical data such as government records created in the pre-digital age. However, with newly created public documents there little reason they cannot be made available online and remain archived online for public accessibility.

The Matrix

Below is the result of some noodling around the city webs sites of Richfield, Edina, Bloomington, Eden Prairie and St. Louis Park. I was frustrated by what I precived as a lack of transparency and open government by City Richfield so I created a Matrix to compare the each city to one another. The results are interesting. Hands down, Edina is doing some of the best work in citizen participation. Not only do they open up their Facebook page to posts as well as comments from its fans but it has what it calls a Citizen Engagement blog where they actively seek out and engage comments on projects and budgets. Something not done by any of the other cities. The only one that comes close is Eden Prairie which does have blogs but has turned off comments on the “City Manager’s blog” the one blog they should be seeking comments on.

One common action across all web sites is live streaming of city council meetings. All cities provide a way for people to watch meetings live online. Most with the exception of Bloomington stream their Planning Commission meetings. However, one area Richfield does shine is livestreams its HRA meetings as well.

Live Streaming is one thing but what if you want to view an older meeting? All web sites do offer some way of archiving their older city council meetings and all but Bloomington archive their past videos of Planning Commission meetings. Since Richfield is the only one filming its HRA meetings it stands to reason it is the only one that can archive it which it does.

However, Richfield does have one big fail when compared to the other cities. It has a policy to only archive older videos of meetings for two months before pulling them down. Edina, Bloomington and Eden Prairie all have video archives of their council meeting going back several years. Given the plummeting cost of digital storage it is odd that Richfield would continue such a policy. It is important to note that all cities including Richfield have their meeting minutes (in PDF or HTML form) posted online going back several years.

One the things the matrix does not measure is the time it takes post agenda notices and the meeting minutes after they are approved which for Richfield seems to be a cronic problem. Other sites like Egan allow people to sign up with their email address to get the agendas and minutes automatically emailed to them like an e-newsletter subscription.

Civic Engagement

Social media is more than just claiming a Facebook account and posting information on it, it is about dialog and focusing on the “citizen” not the “customer” by seeking to engage its citizens as owners of and participants in the creation of public services, not as passive recipients of services.

The matrix reveals each cities thoughts on citizen engagement. Edina, Eden Prairie and St. Louis Park all have policies that allow its “fans” to post directly to the cities Facebook page. However only Edina and Eden Praire have “view all posts” as the default view rather than only posts by the city which going the extra mile for citizen participation. Unfortunately both Richfield and Bloomington do not allow their “fans” to post to their page. Ironically both Edina and Eden Prairie are affluent communities. It may stand to reason that they have less controversial 100% density low-income projects Pillsbury Commons that they have to wrangle by their citizenry like Richfield does or West Bloomington has to with East Bloomington.

South Metro Open Government/Transparency Matrix

The City of Richfield has just hired Stantec Consulting Services Inc. to conduct a Rental Housing Inventory and Needs Assessment and are paying them $24,750 to do so. And for the cost of $0 will I will give you the Needs Assessment answer and much earlier than Stantec:

1. the market for for-sale housing had decreased significantly from recent years
2. while Richfield has a good supply of affordable rental housing for efficiencies and units with 1 or 2 bedrooms, there is a critical gap in the supply of affordably-priced rental housing for units with three or more bedrooms.

Richfield has affordable rental housing, lots of it. In fact, it has so much (55% affordable) that the Metro Council did not require Richfield to build any affordable rental housing. THE CITY STILL DID.

You see, Richfield has an amazing amount of Class C Rental housing, that is apartments that are 30-40 years old and considered to be less desirable than Class A or B apartment housing. More so, many of those units are one bedroom or efficiency. So while we have a 55% affordable rental housing market it is lacking in rental units of three or more that can support large families.

I can tell you this because the city is paying Stantec $24,000 to answer a question that is already well known. However, Stantec’s report will make it “official” and it comes from an authoritive source and they can once again commence with building low income housing.

However

What probably won’t be discussed in the report is the appropriate thing to do. The City of Richfield will simply try add more affordable housing to a fill a multi-family niche numberswiki.com

in an already swelled low income housing market in Richfield. Instead the appropriate thing to do is what has been done in other cities and that is to rehab some of those older rundown Class C apartments from one bedrooms and efficiencies into 3 bedroom units. This results in more multi-family housing which the Metro Council wants and the rehabbing of marginal rundown Class C apartment buildings (if done right) will improve the surrounding neighborhood. There would be a loss of one bedroom and efficiency low income units but with Richfield at 55% low income rental it actually still wouldn’t hurt Richfield’s affordable housing standing. Edina could then pick up the slack and build one bedroom or efficiency low income rental units to offset the loss since they have most of the low wage jobs and a large waiting list for low income housing anyways.

But which Apartment Buildings should be Rehabbed?

Unfortunately there is no shortage of Class C apartment buildings in distress in Richfield. One set of apartment buildings that would be good candidates ironically are right next to the proposed Pillsbury Commons site on Not-So-Pleasant Avenue and 76 Street. The apartments have been suffering from the lack of good maintenance for years and have been a headache for nearby neighbors. They are the right size/density and if converted and manged by a respected, qualified non-profit property management company that specializes in affordable housing, they could be an asset to the neighborhood rather than a blight. Oddly enough the city staff, Planning Commission and HRA appear to look at projects like Pillsbury Commons in a vacuum with little interest about the surrounding issues with problem housing as if it would have no impact on the development.

Very interesting to compare the Richfield Corridor Housing Initiative with the Grandview small area plan. Even though Edina received a Metropolitan Council Livable Communities grant of $100,000 for the planning process. I can find nowhere in their minutes, agendas and meeting notes any mention or thought given to helping out the less fortunate with affordable housing. It seems like an ideal situation for creating affordable housing since the city already owns a good chunk of the site.

The Metro Council and the City of Richfield seemed to have stacked the deck in the Richfield Corridor Housing Initiative inorder to set the agenda to make it seem like the creation of affordable housing was a given more info

in the planning process.  They brought in the organization “Twin Cities Local Initiatives Support Corporation” to help facilitate the meetings with the Corridor Housing Initiative. Looking over their web site (http://www.tclisc.org) they appear to be more of a organization that does community planning for social services rather than an urban design agency like say; Close Landscape Architecture and Cunningham Group Architecture, which were selected to be co-lead consultants on Edina’s Grandview project. I am a strong believer in not just doing brick and mortar improvements but to help the lives of people as well. It is interesting that Edina in all of their planning process completely ignored that.

Richfield Corridor Housing Initiative:

http://bit.ly/y3Oqu6

Grandview Small Area Plan:

http://bit.ly/jUTuCk