Baltimore Mayor Catherine E. Pugh’s proposal to raise $55 million by leasing publicly owned garages and then use the money to create a neighborhood investment fund is meeting resistance from City Council members who are demanding more details.
The mayor wants to use the $55 million as seed money for what she is calling the Neighborhood Impact Investment Fund, which would be run by a board that would attract additional money to be invested in some of the city’s most distressed communities.
But during a budget hearing Wednesday, a majority of the council expressed frustration that the administration had not shared details about how the fund would operate: Council members were not clear on which neighborhoods would receive investments, which projects the fund would finance and who would be accountable for investment decisions.
Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young said his biggest concern was who would be appointed to the board of the nonprofit entity that is being proposed to manage the fund.
Baltimore Mayor Pugh to launch new neighborhood investment fund with $55M from garage leases “The board is going to determine whether communities that need this shot in the arm are really going to get it,” Young said.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Ian Duncan over at the Baltimore Sun
