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REGULAR MEETING <br />JULY 9, 2007 <br />to the Council regarding not having better communication with them before this <br />announcement of the closing of the neighborhood partnership centers. Mayor Luecke <br />stated that he will make every effort to communicate better in the future. <br />Mr. Jeff Gibney, Interim Director, Community and Economic Development, resides at <br />726 W. Washington, South Bend, Indiana. <br />Mr. Gibney advised that he joined the City of South Department of Community & <br />Economic Development in January 2007 and the task that he was asked to do was to <br />continue to work on the ongoing administration of the Community and Economic <br />Development, the recruitment of new economic development opportunities, the <br />development of new neighborhood revitalizations strategies that are particularly in line <br />with the City Plan and lastly evaluate the existing programs within the three divisions <br />within the department. The Neighborhood Partnership Center Program was jointly <br />managed by the Neighborhood Resources Corporation (NRC) Board of Directors and the <br />department which he represents the Department of Community & Economic <br />Development and it is a fourteen year old entity. Although originally created as an <br />internal program that the City manage exclusively by itself. The NRC has really been a <br />partner in this management of the program for the last thirteen years. The goals for <br />partnership centers were designed to spawn neighborhood organizations, community base <br />planning and small scale neighborhood revitalization through the occasional sale of a <br />center building and the rehabilitation of a subsequent center. Neighborhood Partnership <br />Centers were designed to occasionally move from one location in a particular to the next, <br />sell to an owner occupant and then rehab another property. Today, NRC owns five (5) <br />centers and has five (5) part-time staff. There are scheduled visit from the various City <br />Departments and planning support from the Community Development Division. The <br />NRC Board also administers a small re-granting program that provides training and <br />planning for neighborhood organizations initiatives on a City wide basis. The City of <br />South Bend provides in its annual budget approximately $350,000.00 to the NRC to <br />administer these programs in administrative costs, overhead, and pro-rated salaries for <br />various department staff personnel. He stated that the department planning for the future <br />for the neighborhood revitalization initiatives begins with the sale of scattered sight real <br />estate holdings due primarily to the expenses of property management. In addition to the <br />disposal of real estate for the five (5) centers, they will be disposing of approximately <br />sixty (60) units from the Housing Development Corporation. This is also an initiative <br />that is approximately fourteen (14) years old. The HDC which is then an outgrowth of <br />the Bureau of Housing, slowly added to a portfolio of its real estate approximately <br />sixteen (16) rentals, and unfortunately, with a reasonable high vacancy rate with the fairly <br />substandard condition for a variety of those properties and again as the City looks at the <br />most effective and efficient management of several of these not for profits, the sale to <br />owner occupied, single family owners is going to be the high priority. The department is <br />assessing the performance and the cost benefit of each of its closely related not-for- <br />profits. Resources says from program reorganization or program termination will be <br />targeted to new initiatives, all new initiatives will be evaluated on an annual basis for <br />their impact. Mr. Gibney stated that as he looked through records and looked at the <br />history of programs, in some cases there had not been critical evaluation of many of these <br />programs for more than a decade. Mr. Gibney stated that he believes that it is appropriate <br />that the current programs and the new programs that they institute are evaluated on an <br />annual basis for the effectiveness of reaching the goals that they have created for them. <br />Mr. Gibney stated that his department fully intends to support the Neighborhood <br />Resource Corporation in the future with financial resources and technical assistance. The <br />NRC will be encouraged to expend the depth oftheir re-granting program for training and <br />planning again city wide for other neighborhood organizations. Currently the Executive <br />Committee of the NRC is in the process of negotiating with the Board of Directors to <br />increase program funding, funding for their own full time administrator, not a City Staff <br />Person, but an administrator for themselves and the creation of an endowment for NRC <br />that will be funding through proceeds from the sale of the five (5) partnership centers. <br />The savings to the City of South Bend for this activity will be about 2/3 of the <br />$350,000.00 budget or in excess of $225,000.00. Mr. Gibney reviewed the new <br />programs that have been created or are in place or also are in the planning and <br />implementation stage. They have expanded the demolition activity City wide and in <br />