MINUTES

 

Neighborhood Revitalization Board

St. Etienne Conference Room – Armory Building

April 2, 2003

 

Present:           Bob King, Betty Volm, Paul Sadler, Willa Mae Allen, Sheila Lumley, Nadine Hogate, Joann Muldoon, Kimberly Hansen, Martha Walden, Dolph Pulliam

 

Absent:            Claudia Hawkins

 

Staff:                Mary Neiderbach (CD); Mindy Miller (CD), Susan Minks (CD), Lyle Schwery (Parks), Jason Van Essen (CD)

 

Guests:            Gary Dodge, Joe Proctor, Dwight James, Mike Coppess

 

The meeting convened at 5:02. King said he had received a request from Capitol Park Neighborhood to be on the agenda.  Volm moved to approve the agenda with the addition of Capitol Park, seconded by Hogate, carried by unanimous vote. Sadler moved to approve the minutes of the March 19 meeting; seconded by Hogate, carried by unanimous vote.

 

OFFICER'S REPORT/CITY COUNCIL INFORMATION. Neiderbach reported on recent Council items including approving the 2002 CAPER report and the first reading of amendments to Neighborhood Housing Inspection procedures and fees.  Neiderbach said Council had requested a change - if a landlord with a consistently good record was cited for a minor violation of the rental code, he or she could notify the inspectors by letter when the repair was completed, and the City would forego a reinspection.

 

REQUEST FOR RECOGNITION - ARBOR PEAKS NEIGHBORHOOD.  Joe Proctor and Dwight James, co-chairs of Arbor Peaks, presented their neighborhood’s request for recognition.  Volm said their dues seemed quite expensive - $21/person.  Proctor said the fee was for a household.  Muldoon said the bylaws stated that a member must live in the neighborhood - what did that mean for businesses?  Proctor said they would like to include businesses.  Muldoon suggested they add language to say the fee could be waived for low income households.  She also said they may wish to reconsider the length of officers’ terms.  She asked how many members they had so far; Proctor said they had five.

 

Hogate said approval of this neighborhood’s boundaries would mean there would be an orphan strip containing apartment buildings left between Woodland Heights and Arbor Peaks.  Proctor said they thought it was part of another association.  James said they didn’t include it because it was not of the same character as the rest of Arbor Peaks. James asked that the Board approve their recognition now and they could discuss expansion of the boundaries with the rest of the association.  Hansen said her neighborhood North of Grand had the same situation and decided to take the apartment buildings to have a say in future developments.  She advised Arbor Peaks to do the same.

 

Hogate moved approval of the request for recognition; seconded by Lumley,

 

Allen

y

Muldoon

y

Hansen

y

Pulliam

y

Hawkins

out

Sadler

y

Hogate

y

Volm

y

King

y

Walden

y

Lumley

y

 

 

 

 

 

 

Result:

10/0

Carried

 

 

2002 CDBG NOTICE OF FUNDING AVAILABLE - HOMELESS YOUTH PROGRAM.  Minks reminded the Board that the City Council had set aside funding from the 2002 CDBG allocation for a program to be developed to address problems like those experienced last summer on River Drive with youth violence, vandalism and prostitution.  A NOFA to request proposals was prepared for the Board’s review and approval.  Minks said since it is already four months into the program year, they hope to receive a proposal from an agency or collaboration that can “hit the ground running.”

 

Hogate asked who would review the proposals. Minks said it would be up to Housing Services.  Hansen said she believed YESS was already doing most of the things identified in the NOFA and wondered if there would be a duplication of services.  Volm said she did not approve cutting funding from established programs to pay for a program that didn’t exist yet.  Muldoon asked staff for their recommendation.  Schwery, the City’s Homeless Coordinator, said he has been meeting with a group concerned about homeless youth in the downtown core, and said the City Manager has several times expressed his concern that he doesn’t just want a quick fix, but is concerned about the ongoing problem of homeless youth being victimized.  Schwery said his group wants to establish a place for youth to have a one-stop place to get connected to services, take showers, and do laundry and access a clothing closet.  Walden said a similar place was established 25 years ago, but wasn’t patronized by the youth so it folded. 

 

Schwery said the problems on River Drive last summer weren’t just caused by homeless youth, but by area high school students and others.  Pulliam asked if any youth were involved in the planning; Schwery said some were, and it was they who asked for the shower and laundry facilities.  Pulliam said there needed to be more youth involvement, but they would probably not respond to too controlled an environment.  He said $40,000 was only a drop in the bucket.  Schwery said they hope to leverage up to $160,000 in grants and contributions from churches and United Way.  Minks said they would have to wait until the proposals came in to see what resources and programs could be put together. 

 

Lumley said they may find the funding rounds have passed on a lot of grants. She said she felt the City might be better off putting the money into police overtime.  She said it was a very mixed and service-resistant population and a bad program could carry considerable political risk. Volm agreed, saying a hastily put together program that failed would make it that much harder to get any good programs started. Muldoon said there should be more efforts to involve parents and keep them from letting the kids be out so late.  Schwery said his group was addressing the kids who have no homes or parents - some of the kids have been on the streets for years.

 

HUD 2004 CONSOLIDATED PLAN.  Minks distributed copies of the current five year plan strategy and said it was time for the Board to review them because in the fall it will be time to do the needs assessment for the next five year Consolidated Plan.    Minks said this year’s needs assessment will have to take into consideration a lot of new factors including the war, new demographics, and a very different climate for charities. She said the NOFAs for the 2004 year will be presented at the May 7 meeting.

 

NEIGHBORHOOD FINANCE CORPORATION STRATEGIC PLANNING.  Dodge introduced the Neighborhood Finance Corporation Board president-elect Mike Coppess.  He said the NFC board was beginning strategic planning and wanted the NRB’s input on what things the NFC was doing well, and what needed to change. For what the NFC is doing well, Pulliam said NFC was a very important program and the inner city would be a very different place today if it had never existed to provide the impetus for rehabilitation.  Lumley said the financial mechanisms put in place had filled the gap left by normal lenders, and Hansen said the program had shown the high importance of investing not just in the worst neighborhoods, but in preventing downslide in transitional neighborhoods like North of Grand.  Hogate said the NFC has an excellent way of doing business, acting more as a partner to homeowners than an opponent.  Lumley said the NFC’s delinquency and foreclosure rates were low, so it was apparent they were doing business the right way.  Hogate said the NRB has always supported the tool library and the homebuyer’s club and she was very happy the NFC was keeping those programs going.  She hoped the NFC would be able to offer services in other languages.  Walden said she was pleased to see an NFC new construction project in her neighborhood.  Coppess said the NFC’s unique partnership of bankers, neighborhood organizations and the government didn’t exist anywhere else.

 

Dodge then asked what the NFC should stop doing or should change.  Hogate said she felt the NFC still hadn’t reached the really low income people.  Lumley said there should be more community education and outreach for their program, and maybe they should establish branch offices or sessions at community centers. She also suggested a high risk loan pool or one for people refinancing from contracts. Pulliam said they should partner with the Institute for Social and Economic Development and should work on helping refinance contracts. Hogate said she would like to see increased subsidies for the very low income and asked if the NFC could apply for block grants to get them.

 

Dodge said they had been following the Stockard and Engler model for 12 years and wondered if there were ways the NFC should expand.  Lumley said they had enough going and shouldn’t get too far from their center of expertise - it was sufficient if they just looked at doing different kinds of new low programs.  Dodge said the NFC had invested in a couple of downtown housing projects and wondered what the Board felt the NFC’s role should be in downtown housing.  Hogate said she felt the NFC was the product of neighborhood residential areas, and shouldn’t be used to revitalize downtown.  Lumley felt the opposite, saying Gateway resulted in a lot of lost affordable units that needed to be replaced.  Dodge said the NFC had made a policy that they would only fund affordable units.  Pulliam said there were areas outside the designated neighborhoods that were starting to slide, and it was time to make investments to stop the deterioration; perhaps NFC could do small pocket projects.  Hansen agreed, saying maybe a quota per neighborhood could be set.  Dodge said the new census data would probably bring a lot of change in the areas the NFC would work in.

 

NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATOR'S REPORT. Neiderbach distributed the Neighborhood Updates and said notes from the Zoning Focus Groups will be posted on the City website.  She said several items will be coming up on future agendas including the house moving ordinance, procedures for action items, charter neighborhood evaluations, CSBG six month report, King Irving Plan, and de-recognition of neighborhoods who have not responded to the annual survey.

 

COMMITTEE/REPRESENTATIVE REPORTS.

 

OTHER BUSINESS.  No Capitol Park representatives appeared to speak at the meeting.

 

The Board voted on its top five accomplishments to be forwarded for the 20th Annual Boards and Commissions Dinner.  Hogate said the following points should be added:

· Neighborhood-based Service Delivery Program

·               Neighborhood Improvement (NIRP) should be added, and the NRB had got the City to change how it inspects.

 

The meeting adjourned at 6:50 p.m.

 

 

                                               

Betty Volm, Secretary