tinues. "They have th potential for be­
ing Godfather to an entire area of the
dty."
egotialions are still underway in
Boston.
Toledo neighborhood organizers say
that evc said "no" to dealing with ex­
-isting Ie dership until th y found it to be
in their interest.
hile dissatisfactiori
with City Venture is
ri ing in all its tar et
cities, it does
have allies. Stron est of its friends are
businessmen and politicians. Within city
halls there are planners and bureaucrats
who believe that, despite failings and a
bit of grandiosity, eve has � lot to offer.
John Claypool. for example, of
Philadelphia's Department of Housin
and Community Development, said,
"The big thing they bring is th presence
of a corporation. They are making a
reinvestment in the urban area where no
one had dreamed they would find a cor-
poration. evc h.s the carrot to attract
corporations like Bell Telephone, Room
and Haas, or APeO, who won't come in
without another corporation first."
Of all the "City Venture cities." only
Baltimore seems to have achieved the
equal partnership sought by
neighborhoods in Minneapolis and
elsewhere. Mark Sissman, Deputy Hous­
ing Commission r, explains it this way:
"We don't have the problems of other
citi because 'we hired CVC as a con­
tractor to handle parts of a development
process which a local community-based
development corporation has already
defined and begun. We intentionally
picked a very strong neighborhood for
them to work in. City Venture is a part­
ner with that community organization
and profit will be shared on a project-by­
project basis."
Seip said, "Th y're going into a very
well-developed neighborhood and
they're going to have to deliver on their
promise of 2500 jobs." Morris lies, presi­
dent of the community-development
BER 19 - 25, 1 80 THE CITIZE
PAGE 9
corporation in partnership with CVC,
and Congressman Parren J. Mit,hell told
City Venture that they did not want to
see a proliferation of part-time jobs.
ational neighbor­
hood groups such as
A (ational
Association of
eighborhoods) and the Neighborhood
Training and Inform tion Center, as well
as the ational Council of Churches'
Pr ramme to Combat Ra ism, have
launch d inquiries into evC's effects on
neighborhood movements for self­
determination. Accordin to Cal Brad­
ford, a professor at th U. of Minn.
"Th yare concerned that City Venture's
scope is so large that CVC will be gain­
ing control over money intended to be
used by ·neighborhoods, i or
neighbo hoods."
IGlTtJl Brm"", is " cOJitrib,diuS wriw for
BluePrint, wl,OSt work luIS ,'ppttlrui in
Mother Jones mul Good Housekeeping.
Ktn Mtltr is " (mlmlCt umter.
K,lTa, Ltl,ma" provicltd rtStllrel. 'lSsistllflCt.
c
c:
•
1
m
c
c
ortan
illS l\L I dollar) over the past 18 month .
Private investments, on the other hand,
I com dribbling in. Toledo is th only ci­
ty where written commitments" have
been made by industrialists. The only·
private commitment made thus far in
Minneapolis is by Control Data. .
City Venture and Control Data are
now running job training program in
Urban Ea t, :all d Fair Break, that is
funded" by th federal government. An
internal memorandum from a progress
evaluator reveals that evC's Fair Break
training costs taxpayers almos three
times more that the average cost of
federally-funded job training. Fair Break
spends $9,3·39 for a successful training;
the Comprehensive Employment T rain­
ing Act (CET A) programs spend $3,555
per success. To make matters worse, Fair
Break had a job-placement rate. of only
29 percent, significantly lower than the
46 percent average of 0 her programs.
The average CETA job-trainee increased
her previous income by $1.08 per hour
while City Venture's upped hers by 62
cents per hour. ,
. oneth It: '-. important pt' ric � em
to cluster art und eve. r�nn�# 1\' .. lnia\
Cov. Richard Thornburgh arran' d a
w!OO.l>llu tate 'rant tor cve to plan tor
th Wl�t r.Jrk�it n i�h lfhc.ltlli in
.. 1 ,", '" h)( t
s er aroun
pi k d. a )rdin� to a city official.
aus it v as poor. bla . isolated. not
well-organized nd in the ri zht congre .
. ional di: tri t. At Phila lphia' City
Hall. (. ntrol Data e 'uti Robert
Price ch r d eve entry to the "city of
brotherly love" by thanking Con­
gressrnan Bill Gray. "who help d to
strengthen- th partn hip with th
fed ral government." Baltimore con­
�r ssman Parten J. Mitch lli personally
involved with n ntract n rotiation in
that city' Park Height neighborhood.
Corporate otticiell' boa ted in
Philadelphia of having direct connec­
tion: with Carter aid [a k Wat" m.
cighlx rs in each city tell 'tori ' e. t
CVC� proud references to "our man in
Wa�hin zton."
In competition between cve and
Il "ell citizens' groups. evc u sually win'.
In I '-)7t"' Control Data official. went to
Washin�h')f1 and 'pres nted a paper at a
Whitl' House contercn e that said. in
part: "Th ' normal. cumber sorn '" bureau­
cratic intcrtacc l tv c n go crnmcnt and
business must l '.lvoid 1. Th relation­
ship sh mid more de. 'Iy n:. -mble that
l h en a bankin y institution and �o·
me. 11(.' seeking 1(. an." Apparently evc
I�� created such a rclatk nship in Toledo.
Eloi� R pen l. pr . id nt f the cntral-
ressrnan that CVC got a $160,000 plan- I
ning grant in early 1 79 from the now­
defunct Economic Development Agency
with one phone call to Chica 0, follow­
ed up with a one-pa e proposal mailed
after �h money arrived.
. evc has also exhibited a pragmatic
reluctance to cooperate with other plan­
ning groups. When Boston's Community
Development Corporation requested
CVC's.assistance on an incubator proj ct
to start small businesses, CVC balked.
Meanwhile, CVC appro hed city of­
ficials about a planning grant for the
same neighborhood. '
In three 0 CVC's
pro] ct citi - Min­
neapolis, Toledo
and Miami- the publisher of th I al
new paper is an important b er or in­
v tor. TheMinneapoli Star' Tribun
Company i th second major
_ hareholder in City V cnture C( rpor -
tion. Wh n Minneapolis May r Fr r
told CVC to rna c a fr h start, it w nt
unnoticed in th daily pr