Neighborhood funds survive with new name, same money

A new way to pay off Target Center debt and finance Minneapolis neighborhood revitalization efforts has cleared the Legislature.

However, unlike the previous funding scheme, the money is dedicated to Target Center and neighborhood revitalization, but not the popular Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP).

The omnibus tax bill keeps the previously planned 2009 cutoff of money to the NRP. But it provides a new 10-year stream of money from essentially the same source.

NRP has used the taxes created by certain city redevelopment districts to finance neighborhood-directed spending such as home improvement programs, funding for parks, schools and libraries, and youth programs.

It was supposed to get $400 million over 20 years but legislative tax relief in 2001 cut that to about $300 million.

Neighborhood advocates asked the Legislature to extend the life of those districts for 10 years to make up the difference. But key legislators opposed that, saying some already were more than 30 years old. Instead, they slapped a new name on the districts, calling them redevelopment districts, and allowed the money to continue flowing.

The neighborhood proposal would have given control of the new flow of funding to the current governing board for NRP, which has neighborhood and other community representatives, along with city, county, park and school elected officials.

A council work group agreed in December that $3 million annually should support funding to the city's dozens of neighborhood groups to continue their work and to fund a city division for NRP and other community programs.

It said that each neighborhood should get undetermined amounts to spend on neighborhood priorities, like NRP, and should also compete for money the city makes available for specific projects. Reaction to these recommendations among neighborhood organizations has largely been skeptical.

The legislation doesn't mandate that the new money be spent on both Target Center and revitalization, only that both are eligible. Council Member Betsy Hodges said she's pleased with the flexibility in the new law. She said the council wants to quickly pay down debt the city incurred to buy Target Center, to free property taxes for other programs. The legislation isn't clear on whether the new money could pay new debt if the city finances future arena improvements, but one of its crafters, Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, said that wasn't his intent.