Ward 6 councilman Robert Lilligren said his resolution to create a working group on neighborhood funding adds transparency to City Council decision-making. But neighborhood advocates, unable to attend the group’s non-public meetings, said they're apprehensive about the working group following the council's December decision to cut neighborhood funds without much neighborhood input.

“I’m not sure whether this working group will see itself as an advocate for neighborhoods or not,” said Chris Sur, president of the Kingfield Neighborhood Association.

Neighborhoods said they weren't consulted when the City Council voted in December to cut neighborhood funding to pay down property taxes. For two decades, the program, which is closing at the end of the year, has approved and funded projects such as playgrounds, street renovations or home-improvements. Because of that decision, Kingfield stands to lose $185,100 in Phase II Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) money this year.

Lesley Lydell, chair of the Linden Hills Neighborhood Council, said she encourages the City Council to conduct a broader engagement with neighborhood organizations than it did before the December vote.

 “I’d like to think that all options are on the table,” she said. “The whole process that went through [the Ways and Means Committee] and the City Council was very abbreviated.”

The Linden Hills Neighborhood Council is set to lose nearly half of its Phase II allocations, $202,015.

In part, the staff directive that the working group will address outlines how the city will move forward after freezing NRP money. The City Council’s decision to take 50 percent of unspent Phase II money means some neighborhoods, largely those in poorer parts of the city, will be harmed more than richer neighborhoods, which have typically already spent more of the funds. The working group will especially address that equity issue between neighborhoods.

Lilligren, who voted against the budget in December, said members of the City Council meet with staffers all the time and typically working groups are not created through official council measures. Lilligren created the working group through a council measure to create an added level of transparency and to clarify confusion on the staff directive, he said.

“Where’s the transparency in that?” said Bob Miller, Director of NRP, referring to the fact that the working group will not hold open meetings.

Stakes are high for Miller, NRP’s director since 1992. After the City Council’s December vote to use unspent Phase II money for the city’s budget, NRP is working with neighborhoods to analyze legal and legislative options for a decades-old program to potentially hold onto that money.

 The working group can lawfully meet behind closed doors since it doesn’t constitute a quorum of council members, said First Amendment attorney Mark Anfinson. Working groups composed of elected officials and unelected staffers are common in city councils, Anfinson said—though he argued it’s always best for public bodies to hold open meetings whenever possible. Beside three City Council members, at least six other city staffers are on the working group.

Lilligren said he wanted to create the working group after confusion between council members about Phase II contracts for the Beltrami Neighborhood Council went through two different committees. There were “vastly different”  interpretations of the staff directive, he said.

“To me, that really illustrated even we the people who created the 2011 budget proposal did not have an understanding of it,” Lilligren said. “I wasn’t supportive of moving in this direction. I’m doing my best to protect the interest of neighborhood organizations and to ease the pain here.”

The councilman said the working group is tackling technical issues on how to move forward with the staff directive, such as a timeline for a community engagement plan and how to address the equity issue between neighborhoods. Official City Council committees simply wouldn’t have time to address these issues by March, Lilligren said.

“It’s really the concerned staff, the staff who were directed, essentially saying, ‘What did you mean by this?’” he said. “‘Does this satisfy what you were meaning?’ Things like that.”

Out of those meetings, Lilligren said, the working group will create a framework for how the city will implement the staff directive. The product of the working group’s efforts will come forward in public through different city council committees, he said.

Lilligren said the City Council created the working group “to delegate the authority for the council members on this group to speak for the whole Council,  but the other [reason] was to be transparent."