Great Expectations (Page 2 of 6)
January 11, 2007By:
PNI, a non-profit with a diverse board of directors, is charged with governance of the Empowerment Zone, including fund allocation. The city’s involvement in the Empowerment Zone is coordinated by the Community Development Division, whose director represents the city on the PNI board. City Council would have final approval on all PNI decisions related to the Empowerment Zone, and PNI ultimately sub-contracted with several other community organizations to facilitate its processes.
The non-profit Economic Ventures, Inc. (EVI) was sub-contracted to coordinate the Zone’s small-business loan program that ultimately received the largest allocation of Empowerment Zone funds, totaling $4 million. EVI also worked with the Tennessee Small Business Development Center to train and counsel loan applicants.
PNI subcontracted with the Center for Neighborhood Development (CND) and UT’s Community Partnership Center to coordinate Zone Advisory Councils (ZACs), 15-member groups representing the six communities within the Zone whose recommendations determined how funds were used.Becker says this set-up was another issue complicating the Empowerment Zone program.
“The prospectus submitted by the city for the grant included certain projects that were to be implemented in the first two years, that was preset,” Becker says. “The ZACs were there to designate the last eight years of the grant, but while they were doing all this prioritization, they saw predetermined decisions going through, like the Five Points development and the News Sentinel building—it led to some frustration.”
PNI Executive Director Terrence Carter says, “When I took the job in 2001 there was a lot of animosity and negativity, folks saying it was discriminatory in terms of the Empowerment Zone and what entities got funds, so that first year it seemed like that’s all I dealt with. What people didn’t understand was that Knoxville’s plan was approved based on certain entities being able to hit the ground running and after that first two years, we would go through the process of finding other public entities to involve.”
The Metro Village Market received $1.75 million in Empowerment Zone allocations to revitalize commercial development in the Five Points neighborhood. The Metro Village Market IGA held its grand opening ceremony in May 2006 but closed its doors in September, citing losses of $10,000 a week.
Other projects planned for implementation within the Empowerment Zone’s first two years fell victim to two major issues that potentially doomed the project from its start: after Knoxville’s prospectus had been submitted and the grant approved, HUD severely narrowed the program’s focus, funding only projects intended for economic development. And what had initially seemed like a winning lottery ticket was quickly deflated when President George W. Bush’s 2002 budget cut all funds for Empowerment Zone grants, leaving the city with only a fourth of its funds—$25.6 million out of the $100 million initially promised.
“The Empowerment Zone was so big, originally it was going to be $10 million a year for 10 years, but in the end we just got $25 million, so the promise from the feds was significantly different from what was delivered, and that was a huge problem,” Becker says. “CND spent a lot of time organizing these ZACs to make plans for the money that was going to come in, and a lot of people felt that time had been wasted when the money was cut.”
Margie Nichols, Senior Director of Communications for the city, points to another problem set in motion by the funding cut.“There was an expectation to get $100 million, and we created an infrastructure for $100 million,” Nichols says. “And then when all we got was $25.6 million, no one went back and said, ‘Do we have the right processes in place to function?’”
well does anyone know what happened in this? So they made 20 committees to figure out how to spend money, and those committees ate up all the money. and once again, the poor, monorities got fu**ed
Is that the jist of it?
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