Mike said: There is also no requirement that participants verify their residency as is required in general elections. This deficiency could result in great mischief by special interest groups willing to pack meetings.
I say: There is an expectation within MCDA Citizen Participation requirements that an organization follow their by-laws, respecting the membership and who is eligible to vote sections of the by-laws. Verification of voting eligibility is done in many neighborhoods prior to voting at NRP all neighborhood meetings. They are also expected to follow their by-laws in determining who can vote at the various meetings held in the neighborhood. Sign-in sheets are generally available for people to review to ensure eligibility. People in the neighborhood who believe that the process is not fair can file a grievance in accordance with the grievance procedure established by the neighborhood. They can also request a copy of the sign-in sheets to determine for themselves that everyone that voted was eligible to vote. However, in the case of Prospect Park, PPERRIA is NOT a recognized Citizen participation group with the MCDA. To date, no other group In Prospect Park has surfaced to submit a proposal to the annual Request for Proposal issued by the MCDA for citizen participation. NRP works with PPERRIA because no other group has emerged and asked to be recognized as the official citizen participation group. This is only pointed out for reference and not as a statement that PPERRIA is somehow performing in an adverse way. I am not saying that NRP thinks PPERRIA is not a great group and does not have to follow NRP policy. For the record, I think PPERRIA does a terrific job of holding all neighborhood meetings and conducting it's routine board business. Many neighborhoods would salivate at being able to get nearly 300 people to an all neighborhood meeting. I was thrilled. I was even more thrilled that there were so many New Americans there. I also differ with you on the outcome Mike. I think the process was very fair and democratic. I think Steve Cross did a fabulous job of running the meeting. I think by and large the majority of people that attended that meeting felt business was conducted in a fair and orderly manner. The ability to stack meetings has more to do with individual neighborhood by-laws then it does NRP or MCDA requirements. For instance, in Ventura Village, each business is allowed only one representative. That prevents business owners from paying their employees or threatening them to attend meetings to vote a particular way. If Central had that requirement in their by-laws a few years ago, their board may have not been taken over and they might not be in the situation they are in today. My neighborhood of Whittier requires a form signed by the employer for employees who work in the neighborhood and want to participate. NRP policy does not require verification of voting eligibility in order to vote at all neighborhood meetings. I don�t think PPERRIA is alone in not requiring I.D�s or fingerprints to verify membership. I think most neighborhoods can conduct NRP business without a lot of contention. Most don�t feel they need participants to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they should be allowed to participate. If a person signs in as a resident, in most cases, they are believAfter allrall, neighborhood groups are not legislative bodies. Business conducted by neighborhood groups are only recommendations and require further approvals to carry out. The further approvals either come from the director of NRP, NRP NPR Policy Board or the City Council. Perhaps you should bring the verification issue to the PPERRIA Board for consideration for use at future meetings if this is an issue for you. Mike said: There is something here that I am unclear about. If the NRP had wanted to meet the stated 52% housing goal and they approve all neighborhood development plans (and allocations) how could they have fallen short of the goal? To me this implies that managerial oversight is too lax or interested in some other agenda. I say: You are jumping the gun here Mike. The current percentage of funds spent on housing is close to 52.5%. It is very possible that the program will reach that percentage in Phase I when it is completed. The insurances were built into Phase II to guarantee we could reach the goals. The people on this list think Phase I of NRP is done and over. Quite the contrary. I have a neighborhood who has just begun planning for their Phase I action plan. I have neighborhoods that are in year two, three, four and five of their NRP spending plan. We are no where near the point that we can definitively say we haven�t reached the goal or are not going to. The legislature has already made substantial changes to the funding stream. My question with respect to this is if the funding is substantially cut to Phase II of NRP or God forbid the program is eliminated, is the program still bound to the 52.5%? Be advised that I have requested an official legal opinion regarding the 52.5% housing expenditure requirement from Bob Miller. He has indicated that a legal opinion does exist and he will have it posted to this list by our communications specialist shortly. Mike said: The NRP often touts the use of periodic audits as a method of insuring the legitimate expenditure of funds. I bought into this for a while until I learned that the audits are superficial. As I understand it, the state auditor comes in and checks to make sure that the records exist and are available (in the case of my neighborhood association not all of them were), but does not check the validity of those records. In other words, and the NRP is free to correct me if I am wrong, in the majority of audits no auditor checks that expenditures went to legitimate subcontractors and that the goods and services were actually received. I say: If you think audits are superficial talk to the people at People of Phillips. They will tell you audits are far from superficial. In fact, they carry a mighty big stick. Talk to the people in my neighborhoods who get the "voice of nag" from me when their financial house needs some paint after an audit. I do not work with one neighborhood that doesn't take the audits very seriously. All of my neighborhoods make great efforts to comply with any recommendations made by the auditors. The full audit threshold is $50,000. In other words, an individual contractor has to have $50,000 or more flowing directly through it�s bank accounts to qualify for a full audit. PPERRIA is no where near that threshold. Based on their financial threshold, they are only required to have a financial review to ensure that their financial management practices are in order. Copies are available to the public. Full audits do check invoices, checks, general ledgers entries, bank accounts, policies and procedures, payments to subcontractors, etc. to determine contract compliance and the use of sound financial management procedures. As I have stated before on this list, copies of any neighborhood audits are available to the public by calling the NRP office at 673-5140. Barb Lickness Whittier NRP Staff ===== "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Send all posts in plain-text format. 2. 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