The Kingfield Neighborhood Association (KFNA) Board of Directors is requesting that Members of the Association vote to approve a KFNA NRP Plan Modification to move $75,100 to support future Affordable Housing projects and $79,500 to support the administrative and organizing work of our organization for the coming year. These two funding moves are bundled together into one Kingfield NRP Plan Modification vote totaling $154,600.

Specifics:

KFNA has a gap in their proposed Fiscal Year 2022 budget and the largest line item for small organizations, including KFNA, is Staffing. The Executive Committee proposes filling this gap by moving all the funds available ($79,500) from a NRP Strategy for Commercial “Greening” to a Strategy for Personnel/Administration and contracting them immediately. It is anticipated that this will leave a carry-over of dollars in Administration into the next fiscal year.

Why are we proposing taking funds from this strategy? The purpose of this strategy was to provide matching grant funds to businesses that were doing build-outs in sustainable ways from solar energy to installing low-flow faucets or composting facilities in the kitchens of the restaurants. Since this strategy was initiated in 2006, only one business has taken advantage of the program.

KFNA invested a year and a significant amount of funding providing solar assessments for existing commercial structures. The age of the buildings typically made them incompatible for solar unless the property owner was willing to make a substantial investment, a far greater investment than our dollars could persuade them to make. Additionally, it was also determined that the timing of working with a new business owner vs. a property owner provided challenges in who was calling the shots, who was providing the matching dollars, and who was seeing the financial benefit on a project. Additionally since we initiated this program, the county has stepped in to assist restaurants with this work, making our dollars less important.

Kingfield Neighborhood Association has $75,100 of funding from the City of Minneapolis that remains uncontracted, and is required by our strategic document known as the NRP Plan (Neighborhood Revitalization Program Plan) and by State Statute to be spent on “housing”. KFNA would like to move this money off three separate housing strategy lines, and bundle it together with other dollars already allocated to “Affordable Housing”. This will allow KFNA to develop, or support, a more significant project.

Moving this amount of funding requires community input, so KFNA requests that Members vote online in conjunction with the Annual Election for the Board of Directors between June 9 and June 16, 2021 and vote YES if you support moving this funding, or NO if you are opposed to this NRP Plan modification. Questions can be directed to Sarah Linnes-Robinson, KFNA Executive Director at 612-823-5980 or .