Will the Green Party take a stand against the motions which the city is planning to make in federal court on October 17, 2003 related to "phase 3" of the heritage park development plan (rental housing, including 38 public housing units and 18 or 19 tax subsidy units)?
The city's contractor (McCormack Baron) says it ran short of money, wants another $7.5 million to do phase 3. Just what kind of a sweetheart deal did the City do with McCormack-Baron? HUD paid for the infrastructure, made funds available to cover the cost of replacing the 900 public housing units that were knocked down at the Heritage Park site. Ordinarily the cost of constructing the housing units is covered through loans to the developer. The city made a commitment to have public housing, section 8 and mixed income market rate housing at Heritage Park. That should make the developer eligible for low-interest loans through HUD to finance the construction that would require the developer to eat some or all of the phase 3 construction costs. The city is blaming HUD for this "funding gap" and is going to court on October 17, 2003 to ask Judge Rosenbaum to order HUD to fill that gap. If the plaintiffs go into court to support the city's motion, the plaintiffs stand to lose the yet-to-be built public housing and other low-income housing at heritage park. The Judge is not going to order HUD to fill the funding gap if HUD contests the City's motions. And the plaintiffs support for the city's motions will get the city off the hook. There is already a chorus of voices led by the city's attorneys who are blaming HUD for the impending loss of promised housing for poor people at heritage park. And who isn't going to believe that the Bush administrative is to blame for such a vile deed? That works for the Democrats as a vote getting strategy. The only way that the plaintiffs could lose the public housing at Heritage Park is if the plaintiffs back the city in its dispute with HUD. I think it would be in the best interests of the plaintiffs (folks eligible for public housing) for their legal representatives in this matter, Legal Aid and the NAACP, to stay out of the dispute between the City and HUD and to put forward their own motion for painful monetary penalties against the city for further delays in building the housing the city promised to build as part of the Hollman settlement. There is definitely going to be a special NAACP branch meeting about this Hollman situation before October 17, 2003. I think that one of the reasons that Albert Gallmon called in the cops to arrest Alfred Flowers outside of the Urban League building last Saturday was to create a pretext to break up the NAACP membership meeting that was under way. Its not the first time that Gallmon has broken up a general membership meeting that way. He did the same thing last May. If the meeting went forward the membership would have had the opportunity to vote down a motion to support the city's motions in court related to the Heritage Park funding gap, censure the executive committee for sacking the Housing Chair, Lisa Clemons, who was investigating the funding gap problem at Heritage Park, and take a position on the hiring of David Jennings as superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools. That's why the cops beat Al Flowers last Saturday. -Doug Mann REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
