Clock is ticking on NRP funds

BY DENNIS GEISINGER

Concerned citizens listen to City leaders discuss possible solutions to the NRP crisis. (Photo by Dennis Geisinger)

Representatives of Longfellow, Corcoran, Standish Ericsson, Midtown Phillips and Nokomis East neighborhood associations joined as one voice at two community forums held Feb. 20 and 28 to ask the question, “Is the City of Minneapolis’ new proposal for continuing the Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) a real plan for investing in neighborhoods, or an attempt to dismantle the program?”

Called “Framework for the Future” of NRP and put together by a six-member working group last December, the City’s plan would take $2 million each year from its own budget to finance neighborhood organization administrative costs and a variable budget amount for neighborhood development projects.

Neighborhood representatives say they want to extend the 20-year-old system of maintaining and developing inner-city neighborhoods with the money collected primarily through state sales tax collections from tax increment financing (TIF) districts. Originally targeted for an annual $20 million, TIF money going to neighborhoods has dwindled in recent years because of, among other things, the slow growth of property values and changes to the state tax system made at the beginning of the decade. The current NRP system will expire next summer if the state Legislature does not vote to extend its TIF financing.

“There is no leadership in the city right now to champion this—to ask for a study—I can’t move until someone in the city champions this,” said State Sen. Patricia Torres Ray (DFL-Minneapolis) to City and neighborhood representatives at the Feb. 20 meeting. Torres Ray told the crowd that unless someone representing the City could work with her that weekend to develop a proposal to take to the Legislature, the time to save the current NRP program well may have passed. (Torres Ray’s legislative assistant, Rachel Hicks, told Southside Pride on March 3 that the senator was putting together the language for such a proposal.)
“The City Council has stalled for time,” said Beverly Conerton, Longfellow resident and member of NRP Policy Board.

“The City Council voted to not support the bill in last year’s Legislature that would have required a study of the NRP,” said NRP Executive Director Robert Miller.
“I think if there was a proposal in the Legislature this year to extend the TIF district funding, we would have the seven votes on the council to support it,” said Minneapolis Ward 9 City Council Member Gary Schiff.

But beyond the source and the amount of money that neighborhoods would receive for their organization and development, the City has proposed a new system for administering the funds—the “who would decide” and “how would it be decided” of which neighborhoods would get what. According to the Framework for the Future plan, “A newly-created Community Participation Governance Board (CPGB) would comprise representatives directly elected by neighborhood groups, representatives appointed by the City Council and Mayor, and representatives appointed by the other members.” This new board would “oversee administration and implementation of NRP, including administration of a Neighborhood Investment Fund (ensure funds are allocated properly and decide on competitive allocations) ... and ... oversee distribution and use of administrative funds.”

“We’ve been hearing from City sources that the City is very unclear how neighborhood representatives for the new governing board would be chosen,” said Corcoran Neighborhood Executive Director Amy Arcand.

“This is a City-controlled program and is not responsible for its budget or the hiring and supervision of its director,” says a presentation prepared by the Longfellow Community Council (LCC). “Under the current NRP structure, [we have] independent governance not subject to City control and the director reports directly to the NRP Policy Board,” according to the Council. Those close to the details of CPGB organization say it has no real power of oversight.
“ ‘Governing’ board is truly a misnomer,” said NRP Policy Board member Debbie Evans.

“In addition, the framework puts neighborhood organizations in competition for program funds with other City services like fire, police and public works,” said LCC and Save NRP member Stacy Behm. “By making NRP part of the City’s annual budgeting process, neighborhood organizations won’t be able to do much long-term planning,” Behm said.

“For sure the funding’s going to be uneven among the neighborhoods,” said LCC member DeWayne Townsend.

“The overwhelming conclusion reached at our meeting about the City’s plan for NRP was negative,” said Rita Ulrich, executive director of the Nokomis East Neighborhood Association. “The least they could do is not call it NRP,” Ulrich said.

“I keep hearing about all these proposals to fix NRP—I thought NRP was a pretty good proposal,” said Midtown Phillips neighborhood organizer Shirley Heyer to a round of applause at the Longfellow meeting.

“The important thing to remember is that this is a draft proposal,” said Minneapolis Ward 9 City Council Member Gary Schiff. “We want to challenge this with a model that represents the neighborhoods,” Schiff said.

But the clock is ticking. Neighborhoods are already running out of program funding. In December, the Standish-Ericsson Neighborhood Association had to poll its residents about moving $25,000 of unused NRP funds that had been set aside for area home improvement loans into its general operations budget. Unless measures are taken to fill the gap left by insufficient NRP revenues, neighborhood organizations will within the next few months begin to lose staff and offices. And the funding process under the proposed new framework has yet to be decided upon.

“I’m nervous. My concern is the TIF Districts have already started to melt away,” said Hennepin County District 4 Commissioner Peter McLaughlin. “We have to do something in the Legislature this year. A lot of this is about finding the money and then getting it to the neighborhoods to use,” McLaughlin said.

“This program [NRP] has helped create the Minneapolis we know today, jump-starting a generation of community empowerment, decentralized decision-making and neighborhood involvement,” said Ward 2 City Council Member Cam Gordon in one of his blog entries last year. “It has strengthened and in some cases helped create neighborhood groups, now commonly accepted as the cornerstones of most Minneapolis communities. Many of the political leaders now in City Hall have come up through the ranks of NRP neighborhoods—myself included,” Gordon said.

Gordon introduced last year’s resolution supporting the legislative study of NRP’s future. Both resolution and legislative proposal were voted down.
“NRP is one of the few, fine examples of government as it was first modeled by the founders of the country—of the people, by the people, for the people,” said NRP director Robert Miller. “The neighborhoods can handle their own responsibilities if they are just given the support,” Miller said.