Please VOTE NO on the one Charter Amendment that will be on the Minneapolis 2009 Election Ballot this fall. If you value the autonomy the Minneapolis Park Board has had for over 125 years, do not support this amendment! Simply described, the Board of Estimate and Taxation (BET) is the “faucet” for the revenue stream that comes to the Park Board.

A Park Board member presently sits at the BET table and has a voice in the decision making. What this Charter Amendment proposes is to wipe out the present membership of the BET, which includes the Park Board, two independently elected members, the Mayor, the President of the City Council, the Chair of Ways and Means and a Library Board member, which used to also sit at the table until they were dissolved into Hennepin County’s Library System. The BET powers would then be transferred to the City Council, thereby silencing the Park Board’s voice in setting their maximum Tax Levy Rate. If this passes, our Parks’ “revenue faucet” is unprotected from being turned off.

Please go to http://savethebet.org/ and support this effort.

VOTE NO TO:
CHARTER AMENDMENT NO. 168

PROPOSAL TO CHANGE THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOARD OF ESTIMATE AND TAXATION

Should the City of Minneapolis adopt a change in its charter to the composition of the Board of Estimate and Taxation so that the Board’s membership consists of the members of the City Council, with the actions of the Board subject to the powers and duties of the Mayor?