03-30-1987 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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communities like Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Bloomington, Orono is not a recipient of these funds and so is subject to the program operation done by the County.) DISCUSSION - For the Year XIII program the City has been a1IocateeT $23,775.00. As noted in Attachment B the City has received a request from a private non-profit group called HERO (Hennepin Economic Resource Organization) who is looking for selected allocations from each of the communities so that they can purchase real estate in order to establish an incubator/accelator for small business in order to stimulate job stimulation. At present this is anticipated to be located in a first ring suburb in the area. While this request (51,172) does not represent a twbstantial share of the City`s funding, the staff does not recommend allocation to this group for the following reasons. a. It may provide economic advantage for certain small businesses over other small businesses in the local area for reasons of timeing, access etc. b. It provides economic advantage for this property as rental over other property and may put it in direct competition for other low cost rental properties in the metro area. C. Essentially this is a facility that may not directly benefit in either business or job creation for persons in the Orono area. one of the qualifying activities that had been used by a number of communities including Orono has been the use of monies for a housing rehabilitation program, Under this program the residents of the community are able to apply for grants to make certain improvements to their house in order to keep housing stock up. Over the past few years approximately 38 householders have been benefitted by these funds (averag inq $6,000 per recepient) and the County currently has had a number of individuals from the Orono community who, if the fund^ were availah3e, would apply for such funds. The other probable funding allocation world be for something in the Stubbs Bay sewer area. Because of the funds cycles for this program and the anticipated layout for any Stubbs Bay project, even if the go-ahead were given yet in 1907, the funding of such would not probably occur in a timely enough manner to use these funds for Orono residents. Should the funds not be committed by December 31 of this year to individuals the funds revert to Hennepin County and are redistributed through their 'discretionary fund'. (It was from this fund that the City had applied in February for additional grants for a total of $25,e00 for recipients in the Crystal Bay neighborhood. The Task Force that makes decisions on this did meet this past week and it is anticipated that they will make a preliminary decision on this money the week of March 30th.)