The Minneapolis City Council heard public comments on the proposed Framework for the Future of neighborhood funding at a standing-room only public hearing at City Hall on August 20. Thirty-one neighborhood volunteers and staff and three public officials testified at the hearing, with none speaking in support of the Framework proposal authored by an aide to Mayor R.T. Rybak, four City Council members, and the current director of the NRP. The City Council has postponed its vote on the Framework for the Future proposal to its September 26 meeting.

For the last twenty years, the Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) has been the backbone of funding for neighborhood organizations such as Corcoran (CNO). The Framework is widely viewed by its critics as an effort to dismantle the citizen-empowerment-based NRP model, to weaken neighborhood capacity, and thereby centralize power for elected City officials.

CNO Executive Director Amy Arcand used her testimony on August 20 to ask, “Where did the Framework come from?, because we’re not hearing of any resident support for it.”

Carol Pass, president of the East Phillips Improvement Coalition (EPIC), also testified and provided a possible answer to Arcand’s question. Pass reminded attendees that the Framework is part of a broad, long-term process through which the City has reviewed its “community engagement” practices. An important milestone in this process was a 2002 report by the McKinsey Corporation, which advised the City of Minneapolis on ways to streamline its workings. Many believe it was the McKinsey Report, with its recommendations to centralize the NRP within City government and trim “middle management” (i.e. decision-making at the neighborhood level), that prompted elected City officials to take aim at neighborhood funding. Pass pointed out that McKinsey recommended the same management strategy to its client Enron, which led to elimination of oversight and top-down control by the few, and in Enron’s case, radical mismanagement and collapse in 2001.

Earlier this year, Pass, EPIC, and other area residents played a major role in defeating the controversial "Midtown burner," a project that was backed by the Mayor and several council members.

Melanie Majors, Executive Director of the Longfellow Community Council, spoke at the hearing of a December 2007 resolution by the City Council defining the City’s “7 Principles of Community Engagement” moving forward, including “Participants Design Participation,” and “Right to Be Involved.”

“Since passing that resolution in December,” Majors told council members, “you have violated all seven principles.”