Statement from Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton and City Council President Jackie Cherryhomes: 2001 Tax Bill and Community Development in Minneapolis. The City of Minneapolis supports tax reform. City officials have been working tirelessly to ensure the 2001 tax bill would protect the interests of the people of Minneapolis and continue state support for community development investments. However, with the passage of the 2001 tax bill, funds for affordable housing, small business development, pollution cleanup, and most importantly, our Neighborhood Revitalization Program, were drastically reduced starting next year. Our work to build strong neighborhoods has been handed a real setback by a few, short sighted Republican legislators who don't value investment in our neighborhoods and citizen involvement. We thank the Minneapolis legislators, especially Senator Larry Pogemiller, who worked so hard to head off these unwarranted and unwanted impacts on our neighborhoods. We continue our commitment to community development, the NRP and neighborhood planning. We have realized substantial gains and have worked too hard to lose momentum now. We have taken the following actions today: 1. Created a NRP Community Development Work Team consisting of City Coordinator Kathleen O'Brien, MCDA Executive Director Steve Cramer, Planning Director Chuck Ballentine, Finance Director Pat Born and NRP Executive Director Bob Miller. The charge of this task force is to identify strategies to continue our neighborhood community development commitments. 2. Directed Cramer to update the Agency's 10 year financial projection to include the effect of the 2001 tax bill by July 9, 2001. 3. Directed Cramer and Born to prepare a preliminary report on implications of the tax bill for the Minneapolis NRP program by July 9, 2001. 4. Requested that Ways and Means Chair Joan Campbell and Community Development Committee Chair Jim Niland schedule a special joint meeting for the afternoon of July 9 to receive information from the NRP Task Force on community development resources. 5. Requested that NRP Policy Board Chair County Commissioner Mark Stenglein convene a special meeting of the Policy Board to receive this same report and provide appropriate direction to NRP Director Bob Miller. We will build a new NRP for our city with neighborhood empowerment as our core belief and neighborhood action as our core strength. The new NRP starts today. It is Our NRP. We will be calling on the thousands of citizens of Minneapolis who built Phase I of NRP to join us. XXX Ann Freeman Communications Director Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton (612) 673-2156 . . _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
