This is way too long, but I don't have time to respond to
these negatives very often.
This is a reply to Russell Wayne Peterson:
Your analysis of the way NRP works is so distorted from my
experience that it is hard to believe we live in the same
city.
> Months ago I said that the under-supported NRP system in this city
> was going to explode in some additional neighborhoods. We have
> over worked volunteers, under trained staff, lack of city hall
> support, way too much movement in staff within the system, poor
> financial controls, and a clear lack of accountability (especially
> through elected officials).
I will not for a moment deny that we have overworked
volunteers, but we had overworked volunteers before NRP and
we will likely have them after NRP. NRP just gave more
people the opportunity to be overworked volunteers. If your
staff were under trained, I would suggest you get them some
training, there is great training available not only for
staff, but for those overworked volunteers as well. I would
guess that you do not have city hall support for other
reasons than NRP. We have very good city hall support,
especially when we can demonstrate community involvement.
There is some give and take with some political realities,
but to imply that the community is not supported by city
hall is simply not true. Where do you find these "poor
financial controls" they do not exist in our community. I
would venture to say that LCC could account for nearly every
penny of our $9,100,000.00 (a 1x10^-7% error rate). Not
only have we been audited every year and given a clean bill
of financial heath. The only problem we have is that
sometimes we have not had enough people in the office to
separate all the financial detail so some individuals had to
handle some checks twice. There is no pleasing an auditor.
Much more important than the fact we have accountability for
all of our NRP $$ is the fact that we have leveraged that
money some where in the neighborhood of 100%, maybe more.
It is part of the challenge that makes this "overwork" so
exciting. The NRP board which oversees our projects and
expenditures, at least in our case, is made up of elected
officials or their representatives I think we are pretty
accountable to our "elected officials" and there are a lot
to be accountable too. A community project of any size
requires that many jurisdictions need to be convinced of its
merits and most often these jurisdictions have some
conflicting goals or requirements. This is where the
community can many times accomplish what the "elected
officials" cannot. Because the community elects them the
community can bring these jurisdictions to the table face to
face and negotiate on behalf of the community. No one
elected official can do that, and certainly not with the
passion of "overworked volunteers".
> We have volunteers in control of millions of dollars that are not
> trained or properly tied into the strategic vision of the city.
Perhaps our focus is a bit narrow, but it is truly hard to
imagine how helping individuals fix up their homes in South
Minneapolis is going to change any strategic vision.
Maintaining housing stock is pretty universal in the
"strategic vision" biz and so are 90% of the rest of the
projects NRP funds. Not only that but some of the
overworked volunteers are the same people that volunteered
to help draft the strategic vision in the first place. Hard
to get more tied in than that.
> On top of it we've got under funded departments within the city
> trying to go after NRP money as a hot pot of gold and boundary
> violations between council members, staff and NRP funds. Who is
> watching the dog here?
Which dog? I think the community councils do a better job
of watching the dogs because we have to work with all of
them. There is no question that the MPRB made out like a
bandit with NRP, but that is only because MPRB was
underfunded for many years and the community knew where the
$$ needed to go. The community did not like the way the
game was played sometimes, but we are playing as well as the
human condition allows us to play. IMHO no jurisdiction
could have done better.
> Frankly, I think the state auditor should take a good look at all
> of the NRP system. At least we'd have some fiduciary
> accountability.
Send me your address and I will send you our auditor�s
report, in fact I will send you 5 auditors reports and a
dozen years or more of MCDA financial statements. I think
we could challenge any jurisdiction, with the exception of
the state auditor�s office (the deck is staked), in
fiduciary accountability. Why do you think that any other
organization can do better?
> After Phillips, then Central blew up, now we're on the north side.
> And there will be another. Let's face it, this is a rag tag
> system that is promoting the status quos image of "generosity to
> the neighborhoods" when in reality we are wasting money on
> historic lamps when we should be fixing the curbs and streets and
> picking up the garbage.
Lets wait until the dust settles before saying that there
was a "blow up" (not sure what that means anyway). In
Phillips it was a case of trying to do to much to fast and
not taking time to dot the i's and cross the t's. I have
yet to see any data that suggests there was any fraud or
that the city was in anyway damaged by the disregard of a
proper paper trail. IMHO the NRP is a far better way of
spending money in the community than the wheeling dealing
from city hall communities experience not so long ago. And
for which I might add several are still paying the price.
> If we really want to get people into the mix, then we need an
> inspirational vision for our city, not money doled out in an
> over-bureaucratic system that can't even watch itself.
People are going to go downtown to get into the mix rather
than become involved in the local community. Give me a
break. That was tried and failed, just how many minorities
ever served on CLIC? The only way to get people involved is
to convince them that it is to their best interests to do
so. Communities that can visit religious centers, day
cares, and apartment buildings can do that. The brick
castles of city hall do not have a chance.
> By the way, you would think at a cost of $2.5 million in graffiti
> cleanup a year we could actually invest a few dollars in a system
> that could wipe it out. But hey, let's put up a few more historic
> lamps to tag instead.;-)
Graffiti has been with us since the dawn of man. Give me
the lamps to get people out on the street to keep an eye on
the vast concrete walls. There might even be some good
ideas coming from those overworked volunteers, like planting
ivy or other green plants to remove many of the easels from
use. Probably would not hurt to have $2,5 million for
graffiti prevention, but remember these are our tax dollars
at work. My guess is that the communities could come up
with some far more efficient ways to deal with graffiti than
the police or fire department.
Sorry for the long rant, but this sort of innuendo about NRP
has been going on for a long long time. It is just that
some overworked volunteers don't have the time to dispatch
with the negative stuff when there is so much positive
things going on. I just don't want anyone to believe that
the negative stuff is any reflection of reality.
Cheers;
DeWayne Townsend
Cooper
