Follow the Money: Complete Streets

Most of these "Follow the Money" posts have dealt with private foundation grants to non-profits (NGO's), but the flow of taxpayer funds to non-profits should not be ignored. 

Case in point:  Minnesota environmental non-profit Transit for Livable Communities (TLC) is administering a 7-year, $28 million federal grant to fund biking and walking projects in the Twin Cities area.  Not all of these projects have been well-received by the local community.  One controversial project, on St. Paul's Jefferson Avenue, has attracted a good deal of attention.  The City of St. Paul has pulled back from the Jefferson Ave. project, because of complaints from local residents that they were not involved in the planning process for a $1 million project that would have rerouted traffic and converted a road into a "bike boulevard."

In fact, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports that local residents "have said that Transit for Livable Communities has come across heavy-handed.  In discussions with the city, the nonprofit at times has threatened to block funding for a [second] proposed $400,000 bicycle boulevard".

Local radio host Joe Soucheray, also writing in the Pioneer Press, asks the common sense question, "They're our streets.  It's our money.  So why isn't it our decision?"

Soucheray adds,

"Let us understand our civics, shall we?  The people who pay the bills, the taxpayers, watch, seemingly helplessly, as millions of dollars in federal funds - their money - is won by outfits like TLC to finance projects that the residents not only do not want but that also apparently circumvent the electoral process."

In this instance, we have a non-profit corporation (TLC) spending taxpayer dollars in ways that, literally, transform neighborhoods.  How I live my life, get to work, walk around, interact with my neighbors will be impacted by whatever this non-profit decides is best for me.

Here is my concern with this funding approach.  If I don't like the way in which a city is administering federal funds, I can complain to the city council and the mayor (and I have).  If it's a county, I can go to county commissioners.  The state, it's my local representative or senator.  The local office of a federal agency?  I call my congressperson or Senator.  The local school district?  A school board member.  Each of these persons will be held accountable to voters (like me) in the next election.

If I don't like the way a non-profit is administering funds, to whom do I complain?  To whom is the non-profit accountable?  Where on the November ballot does the non-profit appear?