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more on the Smith Parker CPED appointment:
published 08.08.03
online at http://www.swjournal.com/display/inn_news/news13.txt
He's the future of economic development
by Scott Russell
Southwest Journal
Mike Christenson has brought business, education and government
together to
create jobs.
Now, he'll try to do it as a new city employee in a new agency.
To glimpse the city's economic-development future in lean financial
times,
take a trip to the troubled Phillips neighborhood and the campus
of Abbott
Northwestern and Children's hospitals.
In the neighborhood just south of Downtown, you will find job-training
programs for residents, from entry-level housekeeping jobs up the
career
ladder to nursing. The Minneapolis Community and Technical College
(MCTC)
trains students for high-vacancy jobs -- and hospitals guarantee
jobs for
graduates. Called the Health Careers Institute, it is the nation's
largest
hospital-based jobs program, backers say.
Mike Christenson played a vital role in creating and shaping the
program; he
now will play a critical role in city development. Lee Sheehy, executive
director of the Minneapolis Community Development Agency (MCDA),
named
Christenson the director of strategic partnerships. He started Aug.
4. "There is a magical combination of need in the challenged
communities in
Minneapolis and need in the private sector for a sound workforce,"
Christenson said. "The challenge is to build between those
two needs
creatively and effectively to produce a model like this. The key
to this
model is you are guaranteed employment when you start. That is not
an easy
proposition. It requires a lot of trust from employers."
Christenson will help Sheehy create the department of Community
Planning and
Economic Development (CPED), a mega-agency that will merge the MCDA,
the
city's Planning Department, the Empowerment Zone and the Minneapolis
Employment and Training Program.
Mayor R.T. Rybak enthusiastically supported Christenson's hire,
saying in
tough economic times, the city must partner more with business,
nonprofits
and other government agencies to get things done.
Still, Christenson's appointment has sparked criticism. Some say
public-private partnerships could give the private sector too much
power. Others said Christenson was a good hire but that the CPED
organization was
flawed.
Christenson's job description reflects a new mega-agency still
in flux.
On July 11, Sheehy appointed Christenson as director of planning
and
strategic partnerships. In less than two weeks, Sheehy dropped planning
duties from Christenson's title and portfolio.
Christenson is a trained lawyer, not a planner. Some City Councilmembers
said the city's top planner should have planning experience -- and
have
clout equal to Christenson, not report to him.
"Planning is not going to end up a rung below everyone else,"
said
Councilmember Gary Schiff (9th Ward), chair of the Zoning and Planning
Committee.
Now, Sheehy said, he will personally oversee planning, and the
planning
director will be on the same level as Christenson. Christenson would
drop
planning but inherit some of Sheehy's workload, Sheehy said.
"For example, we have to strategically look at our theater
venues Downtown,"
Sheehy said. "It is likely Mike [Christenson] will pick up
that
responsibility."
The snafu means CPED will likely have four top managers making
over $100,000
a year. In March, Sheehy laid off three top MCDA executives with
similar
salaries, blaming the city's budget crunch.
Resume redux
Christenson, 44, of Falcon Heights, has worked as chief administrator
of the
Metro Transit Commission (1990-1993), Allina Health Systems Foundation
executive director (1993-2001) and most recently as an attorney
for Smith
Parker law firm. He is a past president of the Citizens League and
current
board member for Franklin National Bank and St. Paul's Day One Center.
His neighborhood improvement centerpiece has been at the Phillips
Partnership, a collaboration of Abbott and Children's hospitals
and Wells
Fargo Home Mortgage --large employers in Phillips -- and government,
neighborhood and foundation representatives. The Partnership has
worked to
improve safety, housing, job opportunities and infrastructure in
Phillips,
bounded by I-35W and Hiawatha Avenue and by Lake Street and I-94.
Christenson worked with the partnership at Allina and more recently
as its
attorney.
Among the partnership's initiatives is the I-35W Access Project,
a plan to
add freeway ramps in South Minneapolis. Smith Parker has lead the
Access
Project's public planning process. The most vocal critics of Christenson's
CPED hire are those who oppose the proposed freeway ramps and view
Smith
Parker as the prime, self-interested mover in a bad decision.
Kingfield resident Ken Avidor is a member of STRIDE, a group formed
to
oppose the freeway ramps. He compared the Christenson appointment
to former
Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton's appointment of Julie Idelkope, a Northwest
Airlines lobbyist, to the city Planning Commission.
Then-citizen R.T. Rybak vigorously criticized Idelkope's appointment
at the
time. Laura Sether, aide to now-Mayor Rybak, called the comparison
"ridiculous," noting Christenson will resign his job with
Smith Parker, but
Idelkope kept her lobbyist job.
Christenson said at CPED he would recuse himself from any discussions
involving the freeway ramps.
City Councilmember Robert Lilligren (8th Ward) represents part
of the
Phillips and has worked with Christenson on neighborhood issues,
he said. He
credits Christenson with "incredible energy and capacity."
Yet Lilligren, also an Access Project opponent, worries about Christenson's
Smith Parker ties.
"There is at least the possibility he is creating more access
for the people
he knows best," Lilligren said. "In the city of Minneapolis,
the critical
and somewhat neglected partnership is the one with the citizens.
It is more
difficult for the individual citizen to navigate the city and create
access
into the city's processes than it is for large business interests."
If his work in Phillips is an example, however, Christenson has
earned the
praise of neighborhood leaders. Muriel Simmons, chair of the Phillips
West
neighborhood and a Phillips Partnership board member, said Christenson
"was
greatly instrumental in keeping our crime-prevention group together.
We
worked on all kinds of problems, from noise to prostitution."
Beth Hart, former chair of Midtown Phillips, said, "he really
gets into the
community, listens to the community, asks the community's input
and respects
the community's input."
Career ladders and crime prevention
Christenson led organizing on several community collaborations,
such as the
Phillips Powderhorn Wellness Center and the Healthy Learners Board,
an
effort to boost school immunizations, his bio said.
He has worked to coordinate law enforcement efforts around the
Lake and
Chicago area, coordinating city police, county probation officers,
Metro
Transit police and other law enforcement officials.
"It was a matter of getting people around the table and saying,
'I am
interested in doing this' -- and to get everybody to pony up some
extra
shifts and extra time, and figure out how we could work together,"
said
Michael "Mick" Sandin, a Phillips neighborhood probation
officer. "Mike
[Christenson] is the one who brought us to the table. He was the
one who got
the various components, the right people, together."
Christenson said he wants to build on his Phillips experience to
improve the
city.
"Public safety is an economic development tool," he said.
"I hope to
convince the mayor and Council to allow me to work with communities
who are
especially burdened by crime."
The Phillips Partnership started the Train to Work program in 1999,
working
with Project for Pride in Living to train people for entry-level
jobs.
Phil Davis, president of MCTC, 1501 Hennepin Ave. S., said Christenson
approached him in 2000 to expand the program to train people for
more
skilled jobs, so they could move up the career ladder at Abbott
and
Children's hospitals and the Hennepin County Medical Center.
"I was quite taken by his enthusiasm, by how well thought
out this was, by
how much passion he had for improving the lives of the people in
that
community," Davis said. "Clearly Mike was the spark, the
person who had the
vision -- the one who was ensuring everybody was working together."
Christenson made sure the training lined up with the hospital's
needs, Davis
said. When the hospital had enough trained phlebotomists, for instance,
MCTC
discontinued the program.
"In some respects, it is like we are an extension of their
[the hospitals']
human resources division," Davis said.
The Train to Work and Health Careers Institute jobs program has
enrolled
nearly 1,600 students in three years, according to the partnership's
statistics.
Brenda Pike lives a few blocks from Abbott Northwestern Hospital,
800 E.
28th St., and attended a recent orientation for the nursing program,
which
will have its first class this fall. Pike and others got the basics:
what
books to buy, what equipment they needed.
Pike has driven cab for 17 years, she said. "I figured it
was a dead-end
job," she said. "I like the people contact and the challenge,
so I thought a
better direction for me was health care."
The Health Careers Institute was successful enough that MCTC just
launched
the Financial Careers Institute in conjunction with US Bank and
Piper
Jaffray, replicating the model in the financial services area, Davis
said.
He and Christenson are talking about creating business incubator
classes for
new immigrants and others trying to start businesses along Lake
Street.
"With the revitalization of the Lake Street corridor, we think
it is a
logical next step," Davis said.
Planning for planning
A key reason CPED exists is to better integrate planning and economic
development, a connection lacking at times in city decision-making.
One recent example of conflicting goals is Downtown's Padilla,
Spear, and
Beardsley office building at 1101 W. River Rd. MCDA backed the project
as
riverfront revitalization, despite objections from city planners
who said
the design violated the city's downtown surface parking lot ban
and placed
the building too far from the street.
When Sheehy announced Christenson would oversee planning, it caught
some
leaders by surprise.
Judith Martin is chair of the city's Planning Commission, which
does the
city's long-range planning and advises the City Council on matters
of
development, zoning and capital improvements. In the past, city
leaders have
consulted the comminssion when hiring a new planning director.
"None of us really knows what is going on," Martin said
shortly after
Christenson's hire. "None of us has been talked to about the
direction for
the new department, whatever it is going to be."
Schiff and others successfully argued to elevate the planning director's
status in CPED.
Sheehy said current Planning Director Chuck Ballentine would remain
on the
job until year's end. Sheehy said he accepted responsibility for
confusion
about the role of the planning director.
"I had always envisioned planning shaping and informing development,"
Sheehy
said. "That is the whole reason for creating this [new agency].
. . . I have
never felt that planning takes a secondary role."
Councilmember Don Niziolek (10th Ward) is unconvinced, calling
the planning
director's elevated role a "superficial change."
That Christenson was initially hired to head planning "clearly
shows that
planning is not a priority," Niziolek said. "I have no
confidence to believe
we will have a strong planning voice in the city of Minneapolis
because of
this new structure."
What's the rush?
Councilmember Lisa Goodman (7th Ward) chair of the MCDA's Operating
Committee, gave Christenson high marks after her first face-to-face
meeting.
"I am very impressed with his unwavering commitment to public
service," she
said. "He is unbelievably committed to public service work.
I think it will
serve this city well as we move through this important transition."
Lilligren questioned the agency's need to hire high-priced staff
after it
recently laid-off three top staffers in a cost-saving move.
"We are hiring three new upper management at higher salaries,
which seems to
contradict the earlier action," Lilligren said, before the
planning
director's job was elevated.
Earlier this year, Sheehy laid off Keith Ford, director of strategic
financial planning and partnerships; Terrell Towers, director of
economic
development; and Gerald Boardman, director of housing.
"Today, I am implementing certain personnel actions necessitated
by serious
financial challenges facing the MCDA," Sheehy said, according
to a March
MCDA newsletter. (Ford earned $100,293 a year, and Towers and Boardman
earned $96,132 a year, city communications staff said. Christenson
and Le Pao Xiong, the newly appointed director of housing, will
earn $100,136 a year. Sheehy said he would also hire a director
of economic development, in addition to a
director of planning. He also plans to eliminate a director of administration
position.)
Sheehy said Ford, Boardman and Towers were "talented and committed
folks who
served the city well."
He said it was tough to make an apples-to-apples comparison between
the
number of top staff the old MCDA and the new CPED because the new
department
consisted of several agencies.
The new CPED also needed new leadership, Sheehy and the mayor said,
noting
Christenson's and Xiong's experience in building community partnerships.
Lilligren said he also did not understand the rush to hire top
executives
when CPED didn't exist yet.
"This to me seems haphazard or after-the-fact," Lilligren
said. "If we had a
policy discussion about the structure and functions and put those
in place
first -- then inserted the people into those positions -- it would
be a
cleaner way of handling it."
Sheehy said the City Council had already made most of the key decisions
about CPED's structure, with the exception of the Neighborhood
Revitalization Program.
"In terms of things moving too quickly, there are others who
say they aren't
moving quickly enough," Sheehy said. "I am trying to keep
momentum in an
important initiative."
Sheehy said he hopes people would judge the agency and its leadership
by its
performance.
Rybak defended the timing of the hires.
"My answer is real simple," he said. "I don't expect
my entire term to be
moving boxes of an org chart and changing ordinances. . . . That
is
important to do. But now is the time to act and move."
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