NRP's sudden demise is a loss for Minneapolis, but those of us in
neighborhoods at the back end of Phase I may get doubly nailed.
Phase II might never happen, but now it looks like our neighborhood may have
Phase I program - which we are right in the middle of - effectively
terminated. I understand that the $58 million Rep. Dibble referenced is
unspent Phase I money - money for late-coming neighborhoods like ours, which
we've planned for but have not disbursed. The legislature seems to have
specifically prohibited spending it on anything other than debt service, not
NRP
In King Field, dozens of low-income homeowners whose grant and loan
applications we've approved may now find themselves double-crossed. Ditto
the small businesses accepted by our exterior fa�ade improvement program.
The four blocks of Nicollet expecting allocated money for streetlights and
boulevard improvements? Sorry, forget it. And our low-income housing group,
which has been planning to leverage over $100,000 worth of NRP funds for
housing at a soon-to-be-abandoned site, now has no cash to bring to the
table.
We've only spent one-third of our money because we've been thoughtful and
diligent about neighborhood input and fiduciary responsibility. We may have
only given the legislature extra time to renege. Although we have
neighborhood-level agreements, we're still in the midst of the MCDA's
financial procedure. If they haven't cut us a check, they may not be able to
now.
Many city cynics thought Phase II would never come. But the dozens of King
Field volunteers have put in thousands of hours over several years to come
up with a Phase I plan thought a deal was a deal, that this was a plan we
would be implementing.
I would like elected and appointed officials to email the list and let us
know the fate of the late Phase I neighborhoods. There's a lot of planning
to be done for the future, but we need some information about how to handle
the present.
Respectfully,
David Brauer
King Field - Ward 10
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