Winning at the Ballot Box
A Conversation with Bev ToppIn 2002, voters in Dakota County voted "Yes on 1." They passed a referendum approving a new tax that now supports protection of farmland and other open space in the rapidly developing county. Bev Topp, campaign co-chair, was involved from the very beginning. She led an effort that culminated in 57 percent of voters saying "yes" to funding green space and farmland protection. As a result of her work in 2003, Bev and three co-workers received the first "Champions of Open Space" award from the McKnight Foundation Embrace Open Space campaign.
Bev Topp
Photo by Brian Bradshaw.
Bev Topp has lived in Dakota County all her life and has seen the many changes brought by development over the years. It was the rapid loss of open space around her that led to her involvement in land use issues, though her professional background is in management. Acquiring her own piece of paradise (a 75-acre country property with woods and wetlands) was wonderful, but made her feel guilty, says Bev, because "everybody should have the opportunity to walk out into green space."
Can you talk about the beginning? How did citizens become
involved in land preservation efforts in your area?
During the late 1990s, I was involved with the effort to bring Chub
Lake in southern Dakota County into public ownership.[1]
Moving beyond this project, I became a member of the Eureka Township
board. Around 1999, roughly two years before the referendum campaign
began, other concerned citizens and township officials began getting
together to talk about preservation of farmland. Soon we set up
an agriculture task force to consider what to save, and how to
save it.
What kept you going, gave you hope?
Early in the discussions, a county commissioner, Joe Harris, came
to our group and suggested we join the county in requesting money
from the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCMR) to
study the issue. The collaboration, which was the beginning of a much
larger coalition, provided a big boost to the task force. You simply
cannot mount big-dollar campaigns on your own. A large network shows
you have support and gives validation and impetus to your cause.
What other groups or agencies became involved and how were
they attracted to the cause?
As momentum built, the township committee on agriculture morphed into
a "Saving Farmland and Open Spaces" group; we brought in new partners:
the Trust for Public Land, Minnesota Land Trust, the DNR and
their Metro
Greenways program, the Farmers
Union, the Soil and Water Conservation Districts, and the
Dakota
County Planning Department. The groups were all aware of the
LCMR-funded project and expressed a strong desire to be a part of
that process. Together, a strong coalition was built that developed
the logistics of a program to protect farmland and open space.
“Everybody should have
the opportunity to walk out
into green space.”
How did you gain public visibility for land
protection?
The coalition decided to hold a series of educational
meetings. Planning was done by a committee of about ten that
worked out everything: they developed goals for the meetings,
promoted citizen education, and solicited participants' choices of
lands to be protected. With many members of "green space" advocacy
groups now present, I attended the meetings to represent the views
that were prevalent in our agriculture task force. The meetings
themselves were held over a two-year period and educated people on
the rapid growth that could be expected over the next 20 years,
the need for saving open spaces while they were still available,
the tools (such as easements and purchase of development rights)
that could be used for protection, and the voluntary nature of any
preservation program. It was necessary to assure the agricultural
community that this program would not "take" lands, but would rely
only on citizens offering to place their lands under protection.
So how did you decide on a referendum to solve the money
problem?
In early 2002, some six to nine months before the election, the
educational meetings ended. At this point the county board stated
they would not call for a tax increase on their own, but would
follow the findings of a referendum.
What tactics did you use in your campaign for "Vote Yes on
1"?
A focused campaign to develop support for passing the referendum
began. I was a co-chair, along with Rick Hansen who was also
running for a seat on the soil and water board at the time.[2] To garner support, Rick went to hunting groups
and I talked to city councils and township boards. I also focused
on recruiting citizens to be leaders and spokespersons in their
communities. In general, people had doubts: there was skepticism
about the concept and skepticism that a citizen group could pull
off such a big undertaking — not to mention doubt that "no's"
could be turned into "yeses."
To turn this skepticism around, my co-workers and I employed a variety of tactics. One that garnered much attention was the distribution of "Vote Yes on 1" dollar bills to show how small the cost of preservation would be per person compared with the return. I recruited Paula O'Keefe, for instance, a community leader in Burnsville, who organized the distribution of the dollar bills during a Burnsville parade. We also brought in park proponents from Eagan, as well as community groups in Rosemount and Apple Valley.
I can't leave out the editorial board visits and the positive response we got from area newspapers. Their support was significant in convincing both citizens and elected officials that the referendum could be successful. We also gained additional publicity by our strong presence at the county fair, and by creating huge billboards, hand painted to save money, which we put up on private properties near freeways two weeks before the vote.
How did the campaign differ from the preceding educational
component?
The campaign was intense — around-the-clock involvement;
the educational work was much slower paced.
What words of wisdom would you give to others planning a land
preservation initiative?
You need to develop a broad coalition, and you can't forget any level
of government. You have to think of a funnel: people at the lowest
level (like township officials who have little power and relatively
small budgets) funnel ideas up the hierarchical ladder —
from citizen and township, to the county level and on up.
Can this referendum success, with the potential to protect
so much land, be replicated elsewhere?
I think so. The Dakota County program is functioning efficiently,
with formerly skeptical farmers now actively participating. So we
now have a successful, well-run model that can be used in other
places. Voters' positive responses to green space levies in Woodbury
and Eden Prairie in the November 2005 election point in the same
direction.
Footnotes:
1 See Citizens Guide to Endangered Green Space 2004, produced by the Sierra Club's North Star Chapter. The guide discusses the Chub Lake Wildlife Management Area, and is available at http://northstar.sierraclub.org/campaigns/open-space/greenGuide/index.html.
2 Rick Hansen was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2004 and represents district 39A (West St. Paul).