City Council creates department to oversee NRP
The Minneapolis City Council approved a proposal Friday to authorize the creation of a new city department to oversee the future of the Neighborhood Revitalization Program.
The NRP began 20 years ago and includes all 84 Minneapolis neighborhoods. The program allows neighborhoods to use taxes from city-assisted development on priorities set by community members, such as developing housing, taking care of public spaces and offering programs for youth and the arts. Funding for the NRP stops next year, though it will begin again in 2011.
“This was done to assure the NRP didn’t go away, and I want to thank everyone involved in making this possible,” Tenth Ward representative Ralph Remington said to the council Friday.
The framework the City Council approved reorganized the NRP under a new city department, Neighborhood and Community Relations, which will be part of the City Coordinator’s Office. There will also be a resident-based Neighborhood and Community Engagement Commission to help guide the new department.
The commission will consist of 16 members — eight selected by neighborhood groups and eight appointed by the City Council, Mayor R.T. Rybak and the Minnesota Park and Recreation Board.
Although city officials have spent much of this term reworking and devising a 10-year successor to the NRP, their solution is unpopular with many neighborhood activists.
workaround
Comments
NRP Story lacks perspective
Your NRP story gives a completely erroneous perspective on what happened at the Minneapolis City Council. Theirs was not an attempt to “Save NRP” but to bury it. The Council members with the exception of Covin Roy, Hofstede, Gordon and Schiff stabbed neighborhoods and the residents of Minneapolis in the back. Only those four attempted to fight for the neighborhood residents. Elizabeth Glidden was absent with maternity leave.
Covin Roy and Hofstede in particular were passionate in their attempts to have some participatory democracy included in the “Framework”. Other Council Members such as Ostrow, Lilligren and Remington shot them down. Lilligren and Remington in particular were either condescending or downright vicious in their attacks on an NRP program that gave ANY power to residents.
Ralph Remington gleefully and pompously condemning NRP in what can only be described as a racist rant. Your article implies his intent was to assure the “continuation of NRP”. Nothing could be further from the truth. He celebrated its death, drove the blade in the Neighbors back, and said his interest was to represent the 20% of his community that were people of color. Not the 80% who were white. He even condemned White people for attending neighborhood meetings and working in their communities. It was rather amazing in its virulence and hate. Something one might expect from a David Duke in the South but not from a supposed DFL politician in Minneapolis
The discription of neighborhood activists’ reaction to this naked grab for power and money by some Council Members as “their solution is unpopular with many neighborhood activists” is like saying Katrina was just a summer storm. The vast majority of “neighborhood activists” are totally morally outraged by those Council Members who are supposed to represent the people of Minneapolis but who really only represent their own personal interests.
It was a sad day for Minneapolis.
Jim Graham
Neighborhood and Community Engagement Commission
This should more appropriately be called the death of participatory democracy. This was an arrogant, condescending and mean-spirited move to disempower the over 5,000 volunteers that are working so hard to make this city the great city it is. This council and mayor just didn’t like not being able to take credit for any of it. And to think this effort was lead by the very council member who rose to power through the very system he just effectively squashed like a bug. Disgusting. Robert Lilligren should be ashamed of himself.
Not the full article
For whatever reason, the short piece above is an abbreviated version of the MN Daily article. Go to the www.mndaily.com for the complete article.
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