June 2016







Part I: Northside Achievement Zone: Return on Investment doesn’t add up to success

Again in 2014 – using the formula below, NAZ cites, “The social return on investment in NAZ is $6.12 for every dollar invested, with a net benefit to society of $167,467 per participant. The return on taxpayer investment is $2.74 for every dollar invested. Society gains $200,178 in benefits for the average NAZ participant, but spends only $32,711 to implement NAZ solutions with that participant. These benefits result from: Increased net earnings as a result of increased educational attainment, career counseling, and increased productivity ($147,794) Improved health outcomes ($28,281); Increased tax revenues ($15,943); Other public savings due to lower crime rates, reduced need for special education, and fewer public assistance and child welfare cases ($8,160); The total social gains from NAZ total more than $16.7 million in net.


Minneapolis Initiatives and Community Love is Fake

I cannot attack or be upset at EMERGE, or its leader Mr. Mike Wynne for being responsible for $4.2 million dollars and having every vulture in the community at his door step to present a plan for a payday. Mind you, this payday is not for the community – but a continuation of a multiyear, politically-skewed funding stream that accommodates the needs of the few while the needs of the many are left at homeless shelters, welfare lines and the Twin Cities middle-class that live from paycheck-to-paycheck worrying if the drive home will be safe, or if they will become another statistic by a stray bullet from another black man or woman that has lost the luster for life, love and liberty and chosen the streets.