Archive for September 2016
Politics, Governors, Attorney-Generals and The Port Authority of NY/NJ (The Downside of Public/Private Partnerships) – SeeAlso “NextCity,” and another UNESCO “Name It and Claim it” Project in Detroit
This post began with the Port Authority, but migrated to include a lot on Detroit through the reporting of a certain journal originally out of New York, but then (on picking up some more foundation funding — 5 ones were mentioned specifically, but I believe Rockefeller was one of the first — started a quarterly print magazine (B/W) called “The Next American City” which didn’t make ends meet, that is much anyhow.
It later moved to Philadelphia in a classy central building, and became primarily an on-line, daily, and with long-form articles. The article I saw recommended that the Port Authority of NY/NJ be “killed” that is, let to die a natural death and replaced by separate authorities of the respective states. Naturally, I started asking questions about that journal.
Post Title & Shortlink: Politics, Governors, Attorney-Generals and The Port Authority of NY/NJ (The Downside of Public/Private Partnerships) – SeeAlso “NextCity,” and another UNESCO “Name It and Claim it” Project in Detroit (short-link ending “-4hX” post originally published Sept. 5, 2016, now 16,000 words)
The Argonaut Building, renamed in 2009 the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Design Education (originally the Argonaut, or General Motors Research Laboratory), is a large office building located at 485 West Milwaukee Avenue in the New Center area of Detroit, Michigan, across the street from Cadillac Place. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.[1]
This image is from “EnterpriseCommunity.com” (Click on color photo of top of the building to access)
Other links to Argonaut Building in this Redevelopment Context:
From Michigan.gov (SHPO — State Historic Preservation Office) …
From “Enterprise.com“ of which the umbrella corp. seems to be nonprofit “Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.” (About us page) This brings up the “NMTC” (New Market Tax Credits), HUD, Pay for Success, LISC and other topics which, bottom line, the public’s tax receipts, ongoing, is the bottom line to ensure we stay strapped for cash flow and asset-poor, while paying the federal government ot play favorites, ensure a continual supply of LOW-INCOME, ASSETS-POOR people to fill their development projects… or redevelopment projects, after the prior neighborhood deterioration was in bad enough condition that ANY change would be welcomed, rather than abandoned buildings and a high crime rate to go with them.
ENTERPRISE COMMUNITY PARTNERS, Inc., “LISC” and HABITAT FOR HUMANITY TAKE HUD Section 4 grants and pass-through. Enterprise, however has so many “related organizations” and apparently passes through some of its grants (I’d have to check Schedule I Grants with Schedule R Part II, “Related Tax-Exempts” to double-check), that, from a home base of Maryland, its controlling housing development, and less than obviously to people who don’t follow the tax returns. No wonder the collective assets are so high. Incidentally, without belaboring this situation, for the top row (latest year shown below), $55M of its $69M Program Revenues were “CONTRIBUTIONS. Of those, most were government grants (compare to Part VIII, Statement of Revenues for exact details):
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| ORGANIZATION NAME | ST | YR | FORM | PP | TOTAL ASSETS | EIN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise Community Partners | MD | 2014 | 990 | 304 | $264,581,345.00 | 52-1231931 |
| Enterprise Community Partners | MD | 2013 | 990 | 76 | $241,632,111.00 | 52-1231931 |
| Enterprise Community Partners | MD | 2012 | 990 | 55 | $206,179,000.00 | 52-1231931 |
(Part III, Page 2, Purpose):
TO CREATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR LOW AND MODERATE-INCOME PEOPLE THROUGH AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND DIVERSE, THRIVING COMMUNITIES ENTERPRISE PROVIDES DEVELOPMENT CAPITAL AND EXPERTISE TO CREATE DECENT, AFFORDABLE HOMES AND TO REBUILD COMMUNITIES SERVICES PROVIDED BY THE ORGANIZATION TO COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS INCLUDE GRANTS FOR THEIR OPERATIONS, SHORT-TERM LOANS RANGING FROM WORKING CAPITAL LINES TO PREDEVELOPMENT, ACQUISITION AND CONSTRUCTION LOANS, TECHNICAL SERVICES AND TRAINING PROGRAMS, AND RESEARCH AND INFORMATION SERVICES
Enterprise is primarily government-funded, presumably HUD. As you can see, its Total Assets grew $58M in two years. Basically, HUD, or rather, CONGRESS, is saying, “we want the resources to go into nationalized nonprofits which will determine who gets what in local communities” –> but what about WHO FINANCES HUD? Some of those “low and moderate-income people” through their taxes.
WHAT’S SO OFF WITH THAT MODEL? To understand requires an understanding of how communities get to the point of needing “rebuilding” in the first place, and relates to the topic of governmental reporting to each other through CAFRs, but to the public deliberately only speaking (primarily) in terms of “deficit” referring to the GENERAL FUND and BASIC GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS. That requires an understanding of the level (and complete immorality) of Publlic/Private collusion to NOT talk about just how many assets are available to fund government debt (or maintain its infrastructure) and collusion ALSO in calling a municipal corporation (which Detroit is) “Bankrupt” when it’s not really. The “Bankrupt” refers to part — not collective — Municipal Corporation holdings. (7/20/2013, by Clint Richardson/”RealityBloger”) Detroit: The Latest Bankrupcy Lies” Has a copy of the Year 2011-2012 City of Detroit CAFR and explanation of the nature of the deceit. (Did you, for example, know that Detroit got a new City Charter in 2011?)
Its “Part VIIA employees total an outrageous $10M salaries (I’ve never seen so many officers — with many being paid over $200K each — on a Board of directors). it was organized in 1980, and legal domicile is, let’s put it this way — within commuting distance of Washington, D.C. Here are its Schedule R (ECP controlled) Tax-Exempt Organizations. Note, there are also other Schedule R organizations, in other Schedule-R sections. The tax return shows 304 pp because they listed their grants, 1 recipient per page instead of on the IRS form which provides for blank lines of about 10/page. Annoying….
Apart from the first one, all are labeled “Affordable Housing”, and all (incl. first one) are “Directly controlled” by ECP, Inc. See these in chart form on the last page (page 304) of the latest return:
(1) ENTERPRISE COMMUNITY LOAN FUND INC 11000 broken land parkway 700 COLUMBIA, MD 21044 52-0192004
(1)ENTERPRISE HOME OWNERSHIP PARTNERS INC 600 wilshire blvd LOS ANGELES, CA 90017 31-1737642
(2) EHOP- DALLAS INC 500 akard street DALLAS, TX 75201 72-1590088
(3) NEIGHBORHOOD PARTNERSHIP HOUSING DEVELOP 1 WHITEHALL STREET NEWYORK, NY 10004 13-3811616
(4) ENTERPRISE MARYLAND LLC 11000 broken land parkway 700 COLUMBIA, MD 21044 26-3262997
(5)IACENTERPRISE NEHEMIAH DEVELOPMENT 11000 broken land parkway 700 COLUMBIA, MD 21044 52-1742031
(6)CORNERSTONE HOUSING CORPORATION 11000 broken land parkway 700 COLUMBIA, MD 21044 52-1742293
(7)CITY HOMES INC 11000 broken land parkway 700 COLUMBIA, MD 21044 52-1479114
(8) ENTERPRISE ADVISORS INC 11000 broken land parkway 700 COLUMBIA, MD 21044 27-3846733
(9)Affordable Housing Solutions Inc 11000 broken land parkway 700 Columbia, MD 21044 35-2389470
(10) enterprise community investment inc 11000 broken land parkway columbia, MD 21044 52-1206840
From Michigan’s “LARA” (also referenced below regarding College of Creative Sciences Mini-Section) — where you look up Business Entity names, types, and dates of organization:
| Entity Name | ID Number | Type |
| ENTERPRISE COMMUNITY LOAN FUND, INC. | 902354 | Corporation [Formed* in 2006] |
| ENTERPRISE COMMUNITY PARTNERS, INC. | 902975 | Corporation [Formed in 2006] |
| ENTERPRISE COMMUNITY PARTNERS, INC. | 900578 | Corporation [Formed in 1985] |
*Formed (I added those phrases) means organized as a Maryland business to do business in Michigan.
Put another way, Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. “Competes” with only two other intermediary organizations, for HUD money appropriated under Section 4 of an Act dated 1993. The fiscal year starting Sept. 2015 (?), the “NOFA” amount to be awarded (split three ways) was a minimum of $35,000,000 — for that year, and for four-year projects.
See Description under last year’s NOFA (Notice of Funds Availability I guess) from HUD: This is about Capacity-Building, and they want to strengthen the so-called “Community Development” Housing developers, financers, and providers. Minor detail — they don’t need to be locally controlled, as we see from ECPartners, Inc., above’s list of “Controlled Entities.” ECP is serving as a pass-through from HUD to, basically, its own corporate offspring.
Essentially, while using the word “LOCAL” (part of the title of ‘LISC” — Local Initiatives Support Corporation) and ‘Community” repeatedly (the money is passed through to a certain kind of nonprofits), the ACTUAL CONTROL of the housing development is in three corporations, ALL of them East of the Mississippi (I.e., in States on the East Coast of the USA), and, ultimately — because that’s who could pull the plug, should it determine to — the federal government:
[This info could be obtained a number of different places, but this time was from a 25-page pdf: http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=2015capbldg4nofa.pdf, the quote is bottom of “Page 4” referring to document footer numbering //LGH]]
B. Authority.
The Capacity Building program is authorized by Section 4 of the HUD Demonstration Act of 1993 (Pub. L. 103-120, 107 Stat. 1148, 42 U.S.C. 9816 note), as amended. The funding made available through this NOFA is authorized by the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 (Public Law 113-235, approved December 16, 2014).
II. Award Information. A. Available Funds.
HUD is making available through this NOFA $35,000,000 for Capacity Building for Community Development and Affordable Housing Grants (Section 4).
Additional funds may become available for award under this NOFA as a result of HUD’s efforts to recapture unused funds, use carryover funds, or because of the availability of additional appropriated funds. Use of these funds will be subject to statutory constraints. All awards are subject to the applicable funding restrictions described in the General Section and to those contained in this NOFA.
Of the $35,000,000 available for the Section 4 Capacity Building Program at least $5,000,000 shall be made available for rural capacity building activities.
B. Number of Awards.
HUD expects to make approximately 3 awards from the funds available under this NOFA
For why “3 awards,” see next image (the related pdf copies 4 pages of text from the above link):
hud-pdf-from-2015-showing-authority-amounts-and-3-grantees-for-sectn4-%22capacity-building%22-grants-35m-total-that-year-pp7-10-of-pdf-only <==click for full-sized image, plus 3 more pp.
From “CrainsDetroit” (before the Tax Credits Bill for this project, and others, was signed by former Michigan Governor, Jennifer Granholm), “Tax credit legislation for Broderick Tower, Taubman Center for Design awaits governor’s signature (Article shows a $3M cap per year in tax credits per project. That’s a lot of tax credits, still!) 12/22/2009…
Hmm. Keith Crain I noticed is on the board of that College for Creative Studies, who are now in that A. Alfred Taubmen Center. Wiki on Crain Communications (with a flag, “reads like an ad” but also has a footnote to interesting, though possibly not fully current, “FundingUniverse” history of the publication:
G D. Crain died in 1973 and was succeeded by his widow, Gertrude Crain, who chaired the company until 1996. Under her watch, the company grew to have 27 newspapers and magazines.[5] Son Keith Crain replaced her as chairman in 1997. Following his father’s death, Rance Crain became president of Crain Communications in 1974.[4] Crain now has about 30 business, trade and consumer publications and related Web sites in North America, Europe and Asia.[6] The company currently has over 850 employees in 14 locations spanning the United States, Europe and Asia.
In 2001 the company relocated its corporate headquarters to the Brewery Park complex on Gratiot Avenue in downtown Detroit, as part of a move to consolidate its Detroit-based employees into one facility.[7]
…and from one of the contractors involved, “Wallbridge” (see their “About Us/Overview” for more info): Dec. 2010, Lansing, MI: Governor Honors Argonaut Rehabilitation ; Detroit Free Press “Detroit Spotlighted for Opportunity Finance Network” (/21/2015);
(WHERE POST STARTED AS FIRST PUBLISHED – – – – – – )
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation (“MEDC”) and with it, the “Michigan Strategic Fund” (“MSF”) came up in this post when looking at the Port Authority situation led to an article by NEXTCITY.org, which led to the illuminating information that UNESCO has ac/claimed Detroit as the first USA “City of Design.” (“DC3”) a project which involves Business Leaders for Michigan (“BLFM”) and the College for Creative Sciences (“CCS”).
I found out more on how our state universities — which are public institutions — are getting globalized, in “GAIA” at Rutgers. that is “Global Advancement and International Affairs.” This is hooked into the US Department of State, and it’s moving fast forward along a certain model, with the prestigious “*.edu” website justifying the process.
(more, when link becomes active, at “…(GAIA at Rutgers, Obama Admin’s “YALI” + the reticent-to-explain-itself nonprofit “IREX,” and a Quick Primer/Refresher on The World Bank and IMF)” which represents only about half the full post title, which starts with “Gender Wars” (stemming from the GAIA reference, obviously no accident in acronyms).
Obviously that won’t all fit on one post, but this is an introduction of the various topics and their relationship to each other and to why we should protest the continued takeover of center cities by public/private partnerships which existed before those city centers fell apart.
My, oh, my, the drill-down of the involved parties get real interesting…it looks like the people that were running things (state-wide) LONG before Detroit, and parts of Michigan, went economically belly-up, had prepared to take over the reconstruction of the broken-down city centers and transforming them into new, glamorously and politically-correct (if you’re a fan of NWO and UN taking over the USA) PR-friendly labels, with a token gesture to keeping jobs local.
Shortlink to last post published 8/25/2016==> “Case in Point, NEVER skip the Business 501(c)3 Entity Lookups, and Watch the “Fiscal Agent” organizations! (Edward Charles Foundation, Fiscal Agent to “FreedomAdvocates” and, apparently, the Stars (post begun 7/3/2016)
Shortlink to this post ==>”Politics, Governors, Attorney-Generals and The Port Authority of NY/NJ (The Downside of Public/Private Partnerships) – SeeAlso “NextCity,” and another UNESCO “Name It and Claim it” Project in Detroit” (A “shortlink” here is like WordPress’s version of “tinyurl.com.” The link contains letters which appear to be case-sensitive).
“PortauthorityNYNJConf.com” shows upcoming 9/21/2016 CUNY (City University of NY) conference for Construction Industry, “Building Relationships for Lasting Success” and talking about the major reconstruction/development projects with this Port Authority
Shortlink to next intended (but not guaranteed) post; the link will become active (regardless of title) when it’s published follows up on NextCity as a nonprofit and its five-named foundation financiers: How 501©3 “The Next American City,” with help from at least Five BIG Foundations, lost its “American,” while Devastated Detroit’s DESIGN is Anointed by UNESCO, This post references the UNESCO “Name It and Claim it” habit as endorsed by public/private partnerships — regarding the City of Detroit and explores some of “DC3” the Detroit Creative Corridor Center, which came up in the context of a 2014 article by “Next City, Inc.” on the politics affecting transportation networks regarding this Port Authority of NY/NJ.
A subsequent post called Did Regionalism under Public/Private Partnerships Help Detroit the First Time Around? A Look at MEDC, MSF, and Recent Gubernatorial EROs (Exec. Reorganization Orders) came from my noticing how Gubernatorial “Executive Reorganization Orders” (EROs) — lots of them in this century — started setting up new boards, and re-arranging the power to distribute grants set up under a year 2000 Michigan Trust Fund. The takeover,. in other words, has been progressive and it looks like we have to keep a closer eye (state by state) on the shift in state laws also, particularly (as it happens in Michigan) under Chapter 125: “PLANNING, HOUSING AND ZONING.”
Below, I also look again within the State of NJ CAFRs for how this Port Authority is classified (it’s as a Joint Venture) and remind us that CAFRs report things news media doesn’t — and are free to look at, the chief investment being of one’s time, and humility (for most people, I’ll bet) of seeing with your own eyes some of the accounting tricks of the trade, and, particularly, vocabulary used to describe the public (entity) projects, at a minimum. They are self-descriptions of how and for how much the reporting entity is organized, and what entities are underneath it, and how classified. That’s valuable information when there’s an issue with ANY of the component, blended, or discrete units within a government entity filing a report. Despite their length, they are good BASIC information…
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Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 