I understand this dynamic.  After all, I'm as deeply concerned about what happens in my ward as any of my colleagues are.  However, sitting this year through the budget hearings, the "Balkanization of the City Council" was more obvious than ever.  This "Balkanization," meaning the more and more narrow approach of viewing solutions and objectives for the entire city through an ever smaller and more partial lens, in my view is not healthy for the City.  It leads to fewer questions asked and even fewer answers.  It leads to half information being provided and the ability to only find half solutions.  It leads to ultimately failed communications between people of different backgrounds and experiences and ultimately to two or more cities within one.

During the process of the budget hearings which I attended every day, one evening during that seven-day process, I had occasion to go to another part of the city.  Actually, I was going to a church in another part of the City to visit with some friends.  It was in the evening; it was dark.  I was driving down the street, and I noticed I couldn't see very much.  I reached for my carphone to call into the Radio Room to tell them that the lights were out.  I attempted to see what streets I was on - the names of them - and I realized in the course of looking at them that the problem was not that the lights were out - the problem was there were virtually no lights.

There was one street light and those that were covered by trees.  One was out and covered by trees. The point here is that in the North side, where I spend much more of my time, it is my experience and expectation that there are a certain standard number of streetlights.  I was shocked to find that in another part of the city the standard was only one.  The reason I raise this is to describe what I mean by "Balkanization."  We have a city where on some level we all need to be concerned about the entire city in addition to the areas we represent.

To create fairness in a city is to establish a basic standard that exists on every single quality of life issue that we each impact in our own wards and look at in terms of citywide standards.  When I go somewhere else, I'm as impacted as where I live or where I work or where my own responsibilities lie.  This, to me, was an experience where - when I walked out of the church that night, I could not see a foot in front of my face.  That affects me.  It affects everyone who lives there.  The point is that there is not the same standard.  When we request a service in our ward, we're not starting at a basic standard, which means that services that have not been distributed equally or fairly continue to be distributed unequally and unfairly in the long run.