LNA to Consider Resolution for How Neighborhoods Will be Represented on City’s Neighborhood and Community Engagement Commission
Minneapolis neighborhood organizations will be coming together this spring to choose the process for how they will be represented on the City’s new Neighborhood and Community Engagement Commission (NCEC).
The NCEC was created when the Minneapolis City Council adopted the Framework for the Future. This is the City’s plan to move the oversight for neighborhood funding from a multi-jurisdictional governance board to a City run department. LNA opposed this move because it will exclude government partners like Hennepin County and move neighborhood funding into the highly political environment of the City’s annual budget process.
The new Commission will consist of 16 members, with 7 selected by the Mayor and the City Council, 1 by the Park Board, and 8 selected by neighborhood organizations. The framework did not provide any structure for how neighborhood organizations will select their representatives.
To help facilitate this process the NRP Policy Board adopted a resolution at its November 24th meeting inviting neighborhood organizations to submit their ideas and volunteering to convene a meeting – if neighborhood organizations want it to.
NRP is asking neighborhood organizations to adopt a formal resolution of support for having their neighborhood organization participate in the process and to submit their ideas for how neighborhoods should choose their representatives for the NCEC.
If 60 percent of neighborhood organizations adopt resolutions supporting this meeting, the meeting will take place on Saturday, February 21st. At the January 26th General Membership meeting LNA will be considering a resolution in support of the meeting and choosing people to represent the neighborhood at the meeting.
Currently neighborhood representatives on the NRP Policy Board are elected by representatives from each neighborhood organization.
For more information, or If you have ideas about this process, or are interested in representing LNA on February 21st contact Mark Hinds at mark@lyndale.org or 612.824.9402 ext 16.
Update: At it’s January Board Meeting the LNA Board approved the following resolution supporting the meeting on the 21st and selecting three LNA Representatives, who are LNA Board Members Holly Reckel, Tricia Silpala and Executive Director Mark Hinds. The resolution will be voted for final approval at the January 26 General Membership Meeting.