A new organization that supporters believe could help bridge wealth and opportunity gaps while helping rebuild areas damaged in the unrest that followed the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd took a step toward its creation Tuesday.
The House Government Operations Committee approved SSHF85, sponsored by Rep. Fue Lee (DFL-Mpls), on a party-line vote. It would establish the Metropolitan Area Redevelopment Corporation, a nine-member board that would oversee planning and award millions of dollars in grants to the impacted areas.
Grants would go to nonprofit organizations led by people of color and indigenous people working to rebuild areas damaged in the unrest. Lee said the bill would direct money to cities listed in Gov. Tim Walz’s Executive Order 20-64 – Minneapolis, St. Paul, Roseville, Brooklyn Center, West St. Paul and Blaine – until the end of 2025, and then any city in the metropolitan area thereafter.
He said the bill would create a “long-term framework” to address systemic problems.
“We are not just looking at how we will rebuild the affected areas, we are addressing the long and historical exclusion of black, brown and indigenous people from owning assets, generating wealth and passing it down so that these communities can have generational wealth,” Lee said.
The bill was referred, as amended, to the House Ways and Means Committee. There is no Senate companion.
One amendment removed language that would have established how the grants would be funded. The original language sought to divert a portion of the proceeds from existing county transportation sales and use taxes imposed by metropolitan counties, which it was estimated would raise as much as $60 million each year.
Lee said the section removed from the bill would be taken up by the House Taxes Committee on Wednesday morning when it debates SSHF87, sponsored by Rep. Kaohly Her (DFL-St. Paul).
Members approved two other amendments, one that would allow the corporation to hire its own executive director and the other that would add a new definition for its purpose and also require that it is “led by a person of color or an indigenous person, and has a staff and board of which at least 51 percent are people of color or indigenous people.”
Rep. Duane Quam (R-Byron) was one of several Republicans to vote against the bill, saying that he supported its aims but was concerned the board would be appointed by a small group of people, which could lead to a repeat of past problems.
“Part of the reason why we’re in a bad situation is a repetition over decades by an entity or entities that have neglected these neighborhoods, these communities and caused some of the issues,” he said, adding that a lot of local government aid that should have gone for urban renewal over the years has been used for other things.
Representative Lee responded to the Dispatch article on Facebook:
The white fragility Kaohly Vang Her and I have to deal with from our Republican colleagues for intentionally centering black, brown, and Indigenous people in the redevelopment and transformation of the Twin Cities.
This isn't the first time Lueck has lashed out at his POCI colleagues. As we reported in our February 2019 post, Dominant culture: Lueck gets in a huff about proposal aimed at getting kids into the outdoors:
In Questions of equal access, outdoors outreach come out of bill debate, Lillie News staff writer Matt Hudson reports on a remarkable moment last week in the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Committee:
The proposed bill was straightforward. It would create a grant program aimed at getting kids into the outdoors.
The bill’s author, state Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn, DFL-Roseville, gave the bill the title No Child Left Inside. She introduced it to the House Environment and Natural Resources Policy Committee on Jan. 30.
Becker-Finn told the committee that to maximize reach, the grants in the bill should focus on finding new groups of would-be outdoors enthusiasts. That means low income families, immigrants and people of color, all of whom have statistically lower access and participation rates in the great American outdoors.
Facing pushback about why existing state programs fall short, she said that the best conduit into those communities are often the organizations that are already there.
“We cannot just keep thinking that we know best and that we can send someone from the dominant culture into another community and when they say, ‘Listen to me. This is what you need to do,’ that that community is obligated to trust and engage with that person,” said Becker-Finn, who represents House District 42B.
The tone of the committee discussion changed. Some committee members took offense to Becker-Finn’s comment and said as much.
“I can tell you your program is not going to go very far if you’re going to go around and you’re going to label people you don’t know,” said state Rep. Dale Lueck, R-Aitkin. “Label people you don’t know and anticipate how they’re going to deal with human beings. I find your comments about the dominant community very offensive.”
There was some back-and-forth in the official committee parlance. Lueck demanded an apology. Becker-Finn said none was needed. State Rep. Dan Fabian, R-Roseau, said he was troubled by Becker-Finn’s comments. State Rep. John Persell, a Bemidji DFLer and committee chair, tried to smooth things out. Everyone’s heart is in the right place, he said.
Near the end of the hearing, Rep. Aisha Gomez, DFL-Minneapolis, was exasperated by it all, particularly by what she called hostility toward Becker-Finn’s bill presentation.
“I’m surprised at a lack of basic understanding about the history of our country, where we are, what the realities that people in Minnesota are living with, as indicated by some of the conversations that we had today,” she said. . . .
The day after the committee meeting, Lueck said in an interview that he took offense on behalf of the people at his local outdoors outfit, the Long Lake Conservation Center near Palisade. He perceived that Becker-Finn attacked the ability of those organizations to conduct diverse outreach.
“The idea that if they’re crippled from a standpoint, because somehow this new phrase that has entered our language, the power of the majority, or you speak from a majority position, and then it goes downhill from there,” he said.
He disagreed with the idea that all communities might not get the same degree of outreach and referenced the “snide, almost ethnically motivated comment that Rep. Becker-Finn made.”
Lueck, whose district is 98.4-percent white, said that there are many organizations whose goal is to get young people outside. . . .
While the fragile Lueck felt "his local outdoors outfit, the Long Lake Conservation Center near Palisade" would be discriminated against, testimony at a later House division hearing revealed that not all folks in his district shared his views. As we reported in Aitkin Co Land Commish: local conservation center would benefit from Becker-Finn bill:
Back on February 6, Bluestem reported in Dominant culture: Lueck gets in a huff about proposal aimed at getting kids into the outdoors that the Aitken County Republican state representative was offended on the part of local environmental education center:
The day after the [House Environment and Natural Resources Policy] committee meeting, Lueck said in an interview that he took offense on behalf of the people at his local outdoors outfit, the Long Lake Conservation Center near Palisade. He perceived that Becker-Finn attacked the ability of those organizations to conduct diverse outreach.
Interestingly enough, Aitkin County Land Commissioner Rich Courtemanche showed up yesterday to support the bill at a special informational hearing at an informational hearing Friday in the Environment and Natural Resources Committee, which met at the Dodge Nature Center in West St. Paul, according to KARE 11's John Croman in New push to get for children outdoors:
Aitken [sic] County Land Commissioner Rich Courtemanche told the panel that many school districts have backed away from the multiple-day trips to environmental learning centers such as Long Lake Conservation Center in north central Minnesota.
He said Long Lake averaged 6,000 student visitors per year before the Great Recession, and now that's down to 3,500 per year even though the economy recovered.
"Since 2010 budget shortfalls have eliminated nearly all funding for environmental education. Environmental learning centers throughout the state are feeling the pinch," Courtemanche explained.
He said if the trend continues there's a risk the next generation won't value the outdoors or understand the relationship between nature and people.
While the Aitkin County Land Commissioner was at the hearing, committee member Lueck was far, far away. At the Brainerd Dispatch, Gabriel Lagarde reports in Eggs & Issues forum participants talk scrambled politics in St. Paul:
The Brainerd Lakes Chamber of Commerce's Eggs & Issues forum is an annual breakfast and interactive panel discussion featuring Brainerd lakes area legislators Friday morning, Feb. 15, at Madden's Resort on Gull Lake.
The panel included state Reps. Josh Heintzeman, R-Nisswa, John Poston, R-Lake Shore, and Dale Lueck, R-Aitkin, . . .
Both Heintzeman and Lueck serve on the House Environment and Natural Resources Finance Division, but apparently scrambing politics with the local chamber of commerce was more important than hearing testimony in a committee, even if a local official traveled all the way from Aitkin County to a nature center in West St. Paul to give testimony.
Lueck seems to have a bit of a pattern going here in expressing himself about the needs of people of color.
Related posts:
Still: From D.W.Griffith's critical view of Reconstruction, Birth of a Nation.
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