Candace, I am very sorry that you are disappointed in the article. We went to
press with this last Friday. On Friday. I sent your corrections to my staff
at 12:30 and they literally Stopped the Presses to get in your corrections and
statements. We corrected one of your corrections. The school in South
Minneapolis is Jon Ericsson, not Erickson. I went there when it was an
elementary school.
Here is the draft of the copy I sent to our production team. Your corrections
and additions were in red:
See below in red.
In May of last year, the City Council of Minneapolis announced that there would
be new guidelines for funding neighborhood associations. The old guidelines,
deciding how much funding a specific neighborhood association would receive,
was based on neighborhood size, racial mix and livability, determined by crime
statistics and foreclosure rates.
The new plan would upend those guidelines. With a new system, developed by the
Minneapolis Neighborhood and Community Relations (NCR) Department and the
Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA), neighborhoods would not qualify
for any meaningful funding from the city unless their main focus was racial
equity.
This would mean redirecting the more than $4 million away from local
neighborhood associations, leaving base funding for many to fall from $75,000
to only $5,000 to $10,000, essentially forcing many to close their doors.
Active neighborhood organizations, such as the Standish Erickson Neighborhood
Association (SENA), could be one of them.
“I want to make something very clear,” sais Candace Miller Lopez, the group’s
Executive Director, “SENA is in total agreement with the City’s desire to
address the significant disparities in housing, education and employment in
Minneapolis. Where we disagree is their contention that this is an either /or
proposition. We believe there is a real missed opportunity here to elevate the
work of the neighborhood associations and use the strength of the 70-strong
network to move the city toward these goals.”
Neighborhood associations in Minneapolis started in earnest in the early 1990s,
when Minneapolis was being called ‘Murderopolis’ by the national press. The
violent crime rate was high and frightened people were leaving the city for
safer suburbs. In order to get the middle class to stay, the then Mayor Sharon
Sales Belton promoted the Minneapolis Neighborhood and Community Relations
Department. The plan worked. Crime went down and people again began to again
buy homes and stay in the city. But, there were unintended consequences.
Most homeowners were white and although much of the funds were distributed to
lower income areas, the programs did not help many minorities become
homeowners. The repercussions continue today. The current inequity is one of
the worst in the country, with Black homeownership rates in 2019 at only 22
percent, half the national average, according to an analysis by Zillow.
Representatives from the neighborhood associations met five times to express
their concerns and share ideas, but association leaders felt they’d been left
out of the process, leaving may residents with their voices and concerns
unheard, Miller Lopez said.
And, the Council kept delaying releasing the guidelines leaving the
associations in the dark, unable to plan a response. “The new plan is supposed
to help solve racial inequity problems, but the city council hadn’t asked us
anything. They were supposed to start this process in June, creating a racial
equity model. They didn’t get started until December.”
Miller Lopez wants to get local citizens involved and for people to speak their
minds, but she is pessimistic about whether many members of the City Council is
open to hearing them. “I don’t think they’ll listen. We’ve had a shift in
government,” she said. “We used to have citizen influence. The local government
would listen to their constituents. Now, it’s ‘We know best and we’ll tell you
what you need.’”
While the new guidelines are meant to help solve the inequalities in the city,
there is strong disagreement on whether this new plan will work as hoped. The
formula for CURA funding is strict. How much an individual neighborhood could
receive would depend on what percentage of the City's BIPOC population lives
there. “If it is only one percent, you get one percent of the available funds.
If it’s 20 percent of the population would get you 20 percent of the available
funds,” said Miller Lopez.
Robert Thompson, who runs Robert Thompson Consulting, a business management
service for nonprofit organization and who once worked at NCR, also sees major
flaws in the study’s conclusions.
“Two major issues I found in the CURA report are that they are drawing broad
and very negative conclusions about neighborhood programs through NRP, which
are not supported by the data they are using,” he said. “And they are
misrepresenting conclusions of previous studies of the NRP. CURA states in
their report that there is a $33 million NRP fund, with the implication that
the funds are unused. They are not. It is in fact a very active fund.”
In addition, while the neighborhood programs spent money on project, the often
came ahead, financially.
“From 1990 through 2010, the NRP Program allocated approximately $226 million
through neighborhood action plans,” he said. “However, neighborhoods expended
$14.7 million more than this figure. Neighborhoods developed creative home loan
programs that actually generated $35 million in additional revenue on top of
the original $226 million.”
“Before the neighborhood groups were created, Minneapolis was in a free-fall,”
he said. “The population was dropping at a rapid rate (the population of
Minneapolis dropped from over 500,000 to about 350,000 in three decades). There
were large numbers of vacant and boarded houses. Crime rates were much higher.”
“Neighborhood organizations used NRP funds to stabilize and improve their
housing, reduced crime by organizing block clubs, block patrols and other
activities, improved parks, supported improvements to commercial corridors, and
much more,” he said.
“Racial inequity in Minneapolis is rampant, and no single program or initiative
can be blamed. But, another real consequence is that the City is really
creating divisions in the community, essentially pitting the interests of
low-income communities against other low-income communities,” said Thompson. “A
primary goal of NRP was to restore the condition of housing stock in
Minneapolis, focused particularly on low-income communities. So, another
unintended consequence is to truly pit the interests of low-income and
disempowered communities against each other.”
Miller Lopez thinks that at least 30 percent of the local neighborhood
associations will disappear if the plan goes through.
I get 10 calls a week from 311 for people asking for help and information, she
said. These are seniors asking where they can get help for snow removal. I got
one that needed emergency furnace repairs. Operators at 311 tell them to call
their neighborhood association. We keep track of the resources. We do outreach.
Who will be there to do that, then? Who will help these neighbors?
“If we lose the neighborhood associations, there will be no more community
meetings to inform residents about new developments, transportation activity
and other community concerns,” said Miller Lopez. “No more community events or
community-wide garage sales, no more newsletters, environmental programs or
programs that serve residents like home improvement loans, support for small
business, emergency support, or clean-up events.”
Miller Lopez said that neighborhood associations would have to reinvent
themselves to survive. Her SENA office is already planning to offer business
office co-working space for a fee, to help generate the $16,000 a year it costs
to rent it. She is already rebuilding a local business association and so far,
nearly 100 local business owners have expressed interest in paying membership
dues to join.
SENA is hosting a second public meeting on the issue on March 23rd at Lake
Hiawatha Park Building from 5:30 - 7:30 pm. They are still working on the
details for a joint Longfellow Community Council/SENA meeting, and are hoping
that concerned neighbors will come to hear what the city is planning and if
anything can be done to save their neighborhood associations.
[plus, new endings]
Rest of post
________________________________
From: candace <<email obscured>>
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2020 6:32 AM
To: Ed Felien <<email obscured>>; <email obscured>
<<email obscured>>; e-democracy
<mpls-staneric@forums.e-democracy.org>; <email obscured>
<<email obscured>>
Subject: Re: [Mpls-StanEric] The future of Neighborhood Associations
Ed, I am very disappointed to see this article published. I am repeatedly miss
quoted and many of the facts were misinterpreted. I emailed both you and
Stephanie with my concerns on Friday and received no response. The article is
a poor reflection on my professionalism and could even be damaging to our
cause. It is unacceptable that I would not have been given an opportunity to
review it before it was submitted for publication when it was based on a
presentation and interview that I gave.
Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
-------- Original message --------
From: Ed Felien <<email obscured>>
Date: 3/10/20 9:22 AM (GMT-06:00)
To: <email obscured>, e-democracy
<mpls-staneric@forums.e-democracy.org>, <email obscured>
Subject: Re: [Mpls-StanEric] The future of Neighborhood Associations
My apologies to Doris and everyone: when Doris and I were communicating about
the changes in store for neighborhood organizations and, also, the need for an
article about crime in South Minneapolis, I somehow confused the two and said
it wouldn't appear until the April issue (meaning the crime issue). The
article by Stephanie Fox on the future of neighborhood organizations is
published in current Nokomis edition of Southside Pride:
https://southsidepride.com/2020/03/09/city-council-threatens-neighborhood-associations/
In May of last year, the City Council of Minneapolis announced that there would
be new guidelines for funding neighborhood associations. The old guidelines,
deciding how much funding a specific neighborhood association would receive,
were based on neighborhood size, racial mix and livability, determined by crime
statistics and foreclosure rates.
The new plan would upend those guidelines. With a new system, developed by the
Minneapolis Neighborhood and Community Relations (NCR) Department and the
Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA), neighborhoods would not qualify
for any meaningful funding from the city unless their main focus was racial
equity.
This would mean redirecting the more than $4 million away from local
neighborhood associations, leaving base funding for many to fall from $75,000
to only $5,000 to $10,000, essentially forcing many to close their doors.
Active neighborhood organizations, such as the Standish Ericsson Neighborhood
Association (SENA), could be one of them.
“I want to make something very clear,” said Candace Miller Lopez, the group’s
executive director. “SENA is in total agreement with the city’s desire to
address the significant disparities in housing, education and employment in
Minneapolis. Where we disagree is their contention that this is an either/or
proposition. We believe there is a real missed opportunity here to elevate the
work of the neighborhood associations and use the strength of the 70-strong
network to move the city toward these goals.”
Neighborhood associations in Minneapolis started in earnest in the early 1990s,
when Minneapolis was being called “Murderopolis” by the national press. The
violent crime rate was high and frightened people were leaving the city for
safer suburbs. In order to get the middle class to stay, then-Mayor Sharon
Sayles Belton promoted the Minneapolis Neighborhood and Community Relations
Department. The plan worked. Crime went down and people again began to buy
homes and stay in the city. But there were unintended consequences.
Most homeowners were white and although much of the funding was distributed to
lower-income areas, the programs did not help many minorities become
homeowners. The repercussions continue today. The current inequity is one of
the worst in the country, with black homeownership rates in 2019 at only 22
percent, half the national average, according to an analysis by Zillow.
Representatives from the neighborhood associations met five times to express
their concerns and share ideas, but association leaders felt they’d been left
out of the process, leaving may residents with their voices and concerns
unheard, Miller Lopez said.
And the Council kept delaying releasing the guidelines, leaving the
associations in the dark, unable to plan a response. “The new plan is supposed
to help solve racial inequity problems, but the City Council hadn’t asked us
anything. They were supposed to start this process in June, creating a racial
equity model. They didn’t get started until December.”
Miller Lopez wants to get local citizens involved and for people to speak their
minds, but she is pessimistic about whether many members of the City Council
are open to hearing them. “I don’t think they’ll listen. We’ve had a shift in
government,” she said. “We used to have citizen influence. The local government
would listen to their constituents. Now, it’s ‘We know best and we’ll tell you
what you need.’ ”
While the new guidelines are meant to help solve the inequalities in the city,
there is strong disagreement on whether this new plan will work as hoped. The
formula for CURA funding is strict. How much an individual neighborhood could
receive would depend on what percentage of the city’s BIPOC population lives
there. “If it is only 1 percent, you get 1 percent of the available funds. If
it’s 20 percent of the population, that would get you 20 percent of the
available funds,” said Miller Lopez.
Robert Thompson, who runs Robert Thompson Consulting, a business management
service for nonprofit organization and who once worked at NCR, also sees major
flaws in the study’s conclusions.
“Two major issues I found in the CURA report are that they are drawing broad
and very negative conclusions about neighborhood programs through NRP, which
are not supported by the data they are using,” he said. “And they are
misrepresenting conclusions of previous studies of the NRP. CURA states in
their report that there is a $33 million NRP fund, with the implication that
the funds are unused. They are not. It is in fact a very active fund.”
In addition, while the neighborhood programs spent money on projects, they
often came out ahead financially.
“From 1990 through 2010, the NRP Program allocated approximately $226 million
through neighborhood action plans,” Thompson said. “However, neighborhoods
expended $14.7 million more than this figure. Neighborhoods developed creative
home loan programs that actually generated $35 million in additional revenue on
top of the original $226 million.
“Before the neighborhood groups were created, Minneapolis was in a free-fall,”
he said. “The population was dropping at a rapid rate—the population of
Minneapolis dropped from over 500,000 to about 350,000 in three decades. There
were large numbers of vacant and boarded houses. Crime rates were much higher.
“Neighborhood organizations used NRP funds to stabilize and improve their
housing; reduced crime by organizing block clubs, block patrols and other
activities; improved parks, supported improvements to commercial corridors and
much more,” he said.
“Racial inequity in Minneapolis is rampant, and no single program or initiative
can be blamed. But another real consequence is that the city is really creating
divisions in the community, essentially pitting the interests of low-income
communities against other low-income communities,” said Thompson. “A primary
goal of NRP was to restore the condition of housing stock in Minneapolis,
focused particularly on low-income communities. So, another unintended
consequence is to truly pit the interests of low-income and disempowered
communities against each other.”
Miller Lopez thinks that at least 30 percent of the local neighborhood
associations will disappear if the plan goes through.
“I get 10 calls a week from 311 for people asking for help and information,”
she said. “These are seniors asking where they can get help for snow removal. I
got one that needed emergency furnace repairs. Operators at 311 tell them to
call their neighborhood association. We keep track of the resources. We do
outreach. Who will be there to do that, then? Who will help these neighbors?
“If we lose the neighborhood associations, there will be no more community
meetings to inform residents about new developments, transportation activity
and other community concerns,” said Miller Lopez. “No more community events or
community-wide garage sales, no more newsletters, environmental programs or
programs that serve residents like home improvement loans, support for small
business, emergency support, or clean-up events.”
Miller Lopez said that neighborhood associations would have to reinvent
themselves to survive. Her SENA office is already planning to offer business
office co-working space for a fee, to help generate the $16,000 a year it costs
to rent it. She is already rebuilding a local business association and so far,
nearly 100 local business owners have expressed interest in paying membership
dues to join.
SENA is hosting a second public meeting on the issue on March 23 at Lake
Hiawatha Park Building from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. They are still working on the
details for a joint Longfellow Community Council/SENA meeting, and are hoping
that concerned neighbors will come to hear what the city is planning and if
anything can be done to save their neighborhood associations. The City’s
Guidelines to the 2020 Plan are here:
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/groups/public/@ncr/documents/webcontent/wcmsp-223035.pdf
All Community Meeting
Monday March 16
6-8 p.m.
Bartsch Room
Trinity Lutheran Church
2730 E. 31st St.
Light refreshments and child care provided.
This meeting is open to all Minneapolis neighborhood associations and
residents. It will also be live-streamed on the Longfellow Community Council
Facebook page.
Print<https://southsidepride.com/#print>Facebook<https://southsidepride.com/#facebook>Twitter<https://southsidepride.com/#twitter>LinkedIn<https://southsidepride.com/#linkedin>Email<https://southsidepride.com/#email>Share<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Fsouthsidepride.com%2F2020%2F03%2F09%2Fcity-council-threatens-neighborhood-associations%2F&title=City%20Council%20threatens%20%20neighborhood%20associations>
________________________________
From: Minneapolis Standish Ericsson Neighbors Forum
<mpls-staneric@forums.e-democracy.org> on behalf of Doris Overby
<<email obscured>>
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2020 3:07 AM
To: <email obscured> <<email obscured>>; e-democracy
<mpls-staneric@forums.e-democracy.org>
Subject: Re: [Mpls-StanEric] The future of Neighborhood Associations
Good morning, Candace: Could you respond in some way to my email?
Thank you.
Doris
On Fri, Mar 6, 2020 at 5:09 PM Doris Overby <<email obscured>> wrote:
> Thank you, Candace, for the email. I appreciate your efforts and hope
> that neighbors will go to the website and read....and read.....and
> read.....and then take action. Realistically, however, my gut tells me
> that they will not do that. You know what it is like in this hectic life
> that most people lead....it is discouraging but true. Too much time on
> Facebook, Twitter, etc., and too much frustration out there. Unless there
> is a crisis, people do not seem to care anymore. People need the quick few
> sentences to make things real for them. You tried in your email by saying
> that "these are our tax dollars" and we should have a say in how they are
> spent. But, honestly, Candace, more information needs to come from you vs.
> attaching a 24 page document for neighbors to read.
>
> Ed at Southside Pride did an informative article, but it will not appear
> until the April issue. More "rumbles" need to happen now....and I think
> that direction needs to come from you. The SENA board, in my opinion, is
> not doing a good job.....I am not sure how many are there now, but being
> active and showing up for meetings doesn't seem to be the mode of operation
> with the SENA board. In my opinion, they should all be making headlines in
> the community.....letting neighbors know what they think. Unless SENA has
> a board that truly truly is proactive and doesn't lay everything on you,
> there will be no major changes.
>
> Doris
>
> On Fri, Mar 6, 2020 at 10:10 AM Candace Lopez <
> <email obscured>> wrote:
>
>> The City of Minneapolis department of Neighborhoods and Community
>> Relations release the draft Neighborhoods 2020 program guidelines last
>> week. If passed by the City Council on May 19th, Neighborhood Associations
>> across the city will see up to a 90% cut in funding. If you value the work
>> of your neighborhood association, please take some time to review the
>> framework. This is all being done in the name of racial equity, but the
>> meager amount of money the City is committing to this work at a
>> neighborhood level will to little to address the problem. The only
>> guaranteed result will be the decimation of the decades old neighborhood
>> network You can be view the plan at the link below. These are your tax
>> dollars at work. You should have a say in how they are spent.
>>
>>
>>
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/groups/public/@ncr/documents/webcontent/wcmsp-223035.pdf
>>
>> Candace Lopez
>> Standish Ericsson, MN
>> About/contact Candace Lopez: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/candacelopez
>>
>>
>> ** Everyone welcome - Live, Work, Play in Standish Ericsson **
>> Invite people here: http://e-democracy.org/se
>>
>>
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>>
>>
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>>
>>
Doris Overby
About/contact Doris Overby: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/dorisoverby
** Everyone welcome - Live, Work, Play in Standish Ericsson **
Invite people here: http://e-democracy.org/se
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