Longfellow Community Council (LCC)
NEIGHBORS4NRP FIGHT THE FRAMEWORK FOR THE FUTURE
On December 20, 2007, the City of Minneapolis released its Framework for the Future of the Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP). The framework, authored by the NRP Work Group made up of four city council members, a mayoral policy aide and the director of NRP, is designed to outline the future of NRP after tax-increment financing (TIF) expires in June 2009.
Board member Stacy Behm, who serves on the LCC Save NRP Committee and the Neighbors4NRP coalition, presented the city’s plan and the Save NRP Committee’s concerns to the board. Among their concerns is the fact that the city plans to allot only $2 million annually for all neighborhood organization administrative costs, while it is willing to pay a city office $1 million to administer that $2 million. Behm pointed out that the framework provides no information about how much money it will provide for neighborhood improvement programs like those that NRP has funded. In addition, the framework puts neighborhood organizations in competition for program funds with other city services like fire, police and public works. By making NRP part of the city’s annual budgeting process, neighborhood organizations won’t be able to do much long-term planning. Save NRP is also concerned that the organization structure moves the power to decide priorities from the neighborhoods to the city.
Behm asked board members to submit their comments on the Framework to the city’s Community Engagement Coordinator, Jennifer Lastoka, by March 17. She also asked the board members to contact their county commissioner and legislators and ask them to go to this year’s legislature to make the following requests: make NRP’s original legislative funding whole, at $100 million; extend TIF districts in the Common Project to secure a stable, long-term funding source for NRP; and guarantee an independent governing board with a majority of neighborhood-selected members. “Neighborhood boards all over Minneapolis are doing this same thing. This is a community and metro-wide effort,” said board member Marcea Mariani.
Preserving NRP “was the number one resolution out of the city caucuses. The next highest was to end the war,” said board and Save NRP member DeWayne Townsend.
BOARD ACTIONS TO SAVE NRP
The board approved sending the Save NRP Committee’s comments on the Framework for the Future to the NRP Policy Board, City Council members and the city’s Community Engagement Coordinator, Jennifer Lastoka.
The board passed a resolution to convene a congress of neighborhoods to discuss and take positions on the future of NRP. The board asked for help in planning and organizing the congress from the staff of NRP.
The board approved sending a proposal regarding NRP to the legislature for its 2008 session. The proposal asked that the legislature extend the life of the TIF districts to 2019; require that the City of Minneapolis portion of the excess tax revenues from the TIF districts be split equally between the city and NRP; and make the governance of NRP be an independent board with at least 60 percent of its members elected from the neighborhoods.
MIDTOWN ECO ENERGY PROJECT (BIOMASS BURNER)
Several members of the public attended the board meeting in the hopes of discussing the proposed Midtown “Burner”. Standish-Ericsson neighborhood residents Dan Cooke and Ann Novitske came to speak against the project, as did East Phillips Improvement Coalition President Carol Pass and Seward Environment Committee Representative Mark Sulander. Craig Wilson from Kandiyohi Development Partners, the group who wants to build the burner in the Phillips neighborhood, came to defend the project. None of the attendees were allowed to speak because the executive committee had decided to remove the burner discussion from its agenda.
Sulander was particularly upset, pointing out that The Bridge had reported [editor’s note: online in our February Reporter’s Notebook] that LCC would reserve space on its February agenda to hear public comment on the burner, given the interest in the topic.
Executive Director Melanie Majors told Sulander that the executive committee has the right to set the agenda that it feels best serves the board and the neighborhood. The board did disseminate the literature that the interested parties had brought.
“NO PIE CHARTS, ONLY PIES” ANNUAL MEETING
LCC will hold its annual meeting April 21 at Minnehaha Academy.
NEXT: Board meeting, March 20, 2008
MEETINGS: 3rd Thursday monthly, 6:30 p.m. at Longfellow Park, 3435 36th Avenue South
CONTACT: 722-4529, www.longfellow.org
BORDERS: Mississippi River to Hiawatha Ave., Minnehaha Park to 27th St. railroad tracks
last revised: February 26, 2008