On Tuesday my local NRP contractor will oversee a budget reallocation meeting. This meeting is designed to reallocate approximately $600,000 in Phase I money that was originally budgeted for housing. There are a number of proposals as to what to do with this money many of which have nothing to do with housing. If the NRP is behind its mandated housing goal and my local NRP contractor is significantly below the 52% housing requirement, why is it that there is no mandate from the NRP management that this money be spent on housing as was originally intended?
Beyond this fundamental issue is a question of equality and equal protection. One proposal for the reallocation is to spend $400,000 of this money remodeling a portion of our community center to add grade levels to an existing community public school. I believe that such budget allocations perpetuate educational funding discrepancies between wealthy and poor neighborhoods, and illustrates another flaw in the concept of the NRP. Do children receive equality in educational opportunity when poor neighborhoods need to spend NRP funds on housing and while better off neighborhoods can add their funds to their community school budgets? In our neighborhood this issue is complicated a little by the fact that in the area in which the school is located has contains both a small public housing project and a wealthy neighborhood (Tower Hill) where houses often sell for more than $300,000, but the fundamental issue remains: Does the ability to fund secondary needs beyond housing result in unequal economic outcomes for wealthy and poor neighborhoods? Michael Atherton Prospect Park TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Send all posts in plain-text format. 2. Cut as much of the post you're responding to as possible. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
