[Mpls] Prospect Park and NRP Funds Reallocation

[Steve Cross]

All: Since Prospect Park's then upcoming meeting to reallocate NRP funds has been mentioned here several times, I thought that I should report to this community on what happened now that it is over. Approximately 250 people met Tuesday evening at St. Frances Cabrini Church. The meeting lasted for 2.5 hours. The meeting was complicated because of the size, the complexity of the issues, the number of potential programs offered, the complicating factor of legal opinions on the validity of some programs, and the need for translation for a substantial number on non-English speakers who attend the meeting.  (So that no one thinks I'm an impartial reporter, I was significantly involved with the meeting by being its presiding officer.) To cut to the chase, the ultimate decision were: (1) To spend $495,628 for renovation of Pratt School and to fund school transitional staff. Those funds will be matched by about $500,000 from the School Board. Without that neighborhood commitment, a major neighborhood asset might be lost because of the fiscal crisis facing all levels of government. The school has been highly successful on both integration and academics and is a model for similar efforts elsewhere.   (2) To spend $85,000 on the Somali Women in Minnesota (SWIM) program. The program will provide needed and important assistance to aid that community of Prospect Park.   (3) To spend $25,640 on the Southeast Seniors program. The program principally provides home-nursing services enabling seniors to remain in their homes. Several issues came up at the meeting. The principal one of them was whether the neighborhood was required to spend 52.5% of the money on housing. Those in attendance had five times been given written and oral warnings of the consequences of failing to spend significant sums on housing. Specifically, NRP had warned the neighborhood that a significant amount of funds allocated to it for NRP-2 would be withheld until the 52.5% goal was achieved citywide. I think that it is a fair statement of the neighborhood�s attitude that it knows the consequences and will live with them since it feels that those three projects are where it needs to spend the money now. Letters from the NRP said that while there would be consequences for the choice eventually made, that claims that 52.5% for housing in Prospect Park during NRP-1 were misinformed. The statutory goal did not apply to one neighborhood during one particular period. NRP discharged its duty by telling the neighborhood of the consequences and the neighborhood made and adult choice to take certain action despite the sanctions the NRP will impose. Objections were made that money cannot be spent on school programs by law and a motion was made to exclude Pratt funding because it should be supported entirely by the property tax rolls. But, the very existence of the 52.5% goal obviously means that 47.5% are going to go to programs OTHER than the housing that is specifically mentioned in the NRP law. Furthermore, that same NRP statute (469.1831, Subd. 2) says that the program includes programs to "preserve and enhance ... public physical infrastructure." Therefore, spending money on Pratt was clearly within the ambit of the law. It was pointed out that a legal opinion of the attorneys for the NRP that the SWIM and SE Seniors programs do have problems AS THEY ARE CURRENTLY PROPOSED. However, those same legal opinions said that the problems were not absolute and could be remedied. The neighborhood�s fiscal agent, PPERRIA, was designated to work with NRP to get the programs into such shape that there are no longer legal problems with them. There were 22 original proposals for funding and most were offered by motion, either alone or in combination with other "packages of programs" to be funded. They were offered as alternatives to those that were originally proposed and ultimately selected. They were proposed because they received the highest number of "dots" in a "dotocracy" informational meeting on all the proposals held last December.  In essence, the final decision meeting approved the same outcome as from the dotocracy informational meeting. The meeting culminates a process lasting approximately six months to reallocate funds. The reallocation was principally made necessary because by the fact that about $500,000 in funds was allocated originally to aid in the redevelopment of the "Unocal Site. The funds were unnecessary because the site, now "East River Mews" that will begin construction in the spring, was redeveloped without the need of aid. Everyone went home excited at the prospect of the benefits to be achieved from the reallocation. Personally, I wish to thank everyone in our neighborhood who helped with the entire effort. Steve Cross Prospect Park