How Can We Lose Our World Class NRP Program? Top Down
| Written by Michael Katch |
| Saturday, 27 September 2008 |
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I have been asked by many to do a post mortem on the Neighborhood Revitalization Program, better known as NRP. In doing so, I feel more like a coroner doing an autopsy on a patient who is still in a coma than anything else.
NRP has until June 2010 to become Lazarus and return from that country where once one enters no one has been known to return. So, with that in mind, let's look at the errors that led to the demise of this once award-winning program.
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NRP has until June 2010 to become Lazarus and return from that country where once one enters no one has been known to return. So, with that in mind, let's look at the errors that led to the demise of this once award-winning program.
First, we should look at a lack of neighborhood buy-in. What do I mean by that remark? NRP seemed to concentrate its efforts only in neighborhoods that were in the greatest need, and has chosen to not put any effort into neighborhoods where we were not experiencing the urban problems that created needs that were not visibly understandable.
If you take a walk through the North Loop neighborhood, you can see what it is I am talking about. For example, there exist blocks and blocks of barren industrial landscape with no way to create green space that could truly enhance livability. North Loop doesn't have a crime problem, but they are not short of noise problems, having the Star Tribune's printing facility as a neighbor. Yet they have no access to the resources NRP could have brought to fill their needs.
The Neighborhood Association was never encouraged nor educated by NRP in how to enroll in the program, so even though they have uniquely urban neighborhood needs with low-budget fixes that the residents would appreciate and would be inspired by as a community, they had no interest in saving the program; what had they ever reaped from that garden? So why should their CM support it? (Other than a long view of what would actually benefit our city, of course. Oops.)
For NRP to rise from the dead, universal buy-in is a prerequisite. All neighborhoods across the city must have and understand their stake in this program. The funny thing is that the council members representing the wards that used the most NRP funds were the ones that took Caesar down, leaving me with the thought, et tu, Bob Lilligren?
Barb Johnson and Don Samuels both silently followed and plunged their knives in the back of this program, while Ralph Remington made a long speech about how African Americans were not welcome in the neighborhood associations in his ward, letting us all know that to be a black politician in America means that you only represent blacks. If anyone was listening to Council Member Remington's speech, I couldn't help wondering how that is going to play in the Obama campaign, as he wishes to become president of the United States, which is 80%+ non-black.
Keith Ellison is running unopposed, but as Keith represents mostly white folks, like myself, perhaps he should attempt to help his colleague on the city council see race as less of an issue, and poverty and the erosion of the middle class as the driving force behind politics in the new millennium. If you ask Senator Obama, he will tell you these are issues we can actually improve on.
Another problem that is contributing to the death of our neighborhood organization is the lack of understanding on how to classify jobs and better compartmentalize them. There are three great examples of government waste that are a part of the new Neighborhood and Community Department.
First is the Homeless Coordinator. Although this department is not about filling neighborhood needs, Cathy Tenbroek's position will be funded under this new department, while she and the homeless outreach team play a much greater role in conjunction with Hennepin County. This office would have greater synergy in City Planning and Economic Development, thus allowing us to find and create efficiencies to capitalize on and grow, even in this cramped economic climate.
This group also must work more closely with the Minneapolis Housing Authority. After all, their job is to comply with the Heading Home Hennepin Plan, which has been spearheaded by County Commissioner Gail Dorfman. I need to give credit to Council Member Gary Schiff, as I first heard this Idea from him at a budget meeting.
The next problem in this new department is the Multi-Cultural Task Force. This department of translators should also be further leveraged with Hennepin County. If you think Limited English Proficiency is strictly a city problem, you have not gone out to the suburbs lately, and for poor Minneapolis to shoulder this burden unto itself is truly unfair to our residents.
Our Civil Rights department needs to also find synergy with both Hennepin County and the Met Council. The whole idea that Minneapolis can continue to support 5200 FTE's (full time equivalents employees) at a time when our property tax base is eroding may also be a pipe dream. Keep in mind that we have been placed under levy limits by a State government that is facing a massive budget deficit whereby any predetermined dollar amount of LGA (Local Government Aid) is hypothetical at best.
We must eliminate any department that does not provide direct and vital services to our city. We must not lose a single police officer or firefighter over this grand plan to waste our precious and limited resources. The federal government will not be sending in the cavalry, as they are spending the weekend trying to dispose of another $700 billion dollars that we as a citizenry don't have.
If congress passes this plan, our national economy will be in ruins for at least the next 20 years. Just ask the Japanese how they did with their very similar plan to bail out the banks in the 1980's. Any economics professor will tell you that you cannot tax and fee your way out of a recession, and now the pundits on CNBC and Bloomberg are openly talking about a possible depression. Northwest Airlines is leaving the Twin Cities and taking 30,000 jobs with it. 3M has been quietly relocating to San Antonio, Texas; Medtronics will be here until the medical research grant money dries up, but may also begin to look for a better business climate as local taxes increase.
We live in a global world, for better or worse, and it's time to get lean and compete or be left behind and join our true sister city, Detroit. Actually, Flint, Michigan, might be a better comparison; if the city continues to establish special service districts imposing more and greater fees and higher taxes, our business districts will soon become wastelands.
On that cheery thought, a new city department is ill conceived and no public service job can be considered safe. We have already hit the iceberg, and if I were smart, I would be heading for the life-boats, instead of bailing out the water with all the effort I can muster.