By DAEMEAH KARBEAH
On October 7th, former East Phillips Neighborhood Institutions (EPNI) staff hosted a community meeting to discuss updates on EPNI and provide community members a space to ask questions. The meeting began by highlighting EPNI’s achievements, including grants such as a $120,000 grant from the Department of Agriculture.
However, as of October, there is no purchase agreement for the Roof Depot. The city of Minneapolis plans to deconstruct part of the building starting in December. Communication regarding this deconstruction has reportedly been inconsistent.
Daniel,the former Development Director at EPNI, discussed the internal rift between the board and staff, specifically after the alleged abrupt termination of the Interim Executive Director, Joe. A representative from EPNI’s Sustainable Community Investment Fund (SCIF) community advisory council also said the SCIF council voiced concerns about board dynamics in a letter to the EPNI Board.
Patricia, EPNI’s former Community Empowered Director, provided a document outlining EPNI’s recent turmoil. Afterward, community members raised questions and frustrations, particularly about the lack of attendees from East Phillips and EPNI’s overall state. Despite the tensions, Susana, an EPNI community leader, pledged $2,000 for mediation between EPNI’s board and former staff.
The meeting lasted over three hours and included discussions on East Phillips history with organizing, equity, and inclusion within the community.
Questions gathered from attendees were:
What is the Board’s perspective?
What is the main point of the meeting?
Where do we go from here?
How will EPNI operate without staff?
Where did all the money go?
A few statements from attendees:
SCIF Council: “Too many times Phillips neighbors have attacked each other over money once the money starts coming in, and now is not the time to be divisive. In the past 6 months, we have noticed the dysfunction and turmoil that has led EPNI off course. Board dysfunction does not allow for the critical thinking that is necessary for course correction; this is not the end but rather the beginning.”
Jolene, community organizer from Little Earth: “People do not engage with Little Earth, and few people in the community meeting actually reside in East Phillips. I felt as though the staff letter was threatening, and none of the staff are East Phillips residents.”
A representative from a Fairtrade nonprofit followed with a rebuttal, stating: “This [EPNI and Roof Depot] still concerns Minneapolis.”
Another rebuttal was from a Midtown-East Phillips neighbors association board member: “Phillips used to be one neighborhood before 2002. Pollution does not know the boulevards of Bloomington. We are Little Earth’s Neighbors.”
A different community member shared: “I respect the work that has been done and worked with Little Earth when they shut down the garbage transfer station. I was there when Jack Kemp, the Secretary of Housing, gave you guys your Indian preference status. I’ve been there. I respect your work and your leadership.I do not want this to be us against you or you against us. That’s not what this is about.”
Jolene spoke again: “So, you know, I know a lot of people are feeling ’cause I said, East Phillips, but I’m gonna tell you this. When our battle came, we stood alone. And Little Earth makes up a third piece of Phillips. I don’t care about Bloomington [Ave], and they’re dividing. We make up a third of his billings, now that it’s the way it is.
“We fought long and hard for this… We’re right here at the finish line, and all hell is busting loose. Why can we not get to the finish line before you guys start all this shit? And I say, you guys, because it wasn’t the board who started this shit. They let one person go, and their whole staff sent a letter and got ugly with them, and they stood their ground.
“If you don’t know me, I do events constantly, and I’m in my community, and I work, and I go to the reservations, and I go to St. Paul, I go all over. My board doesn’t come with me. I’m there representing that. That’s my job. That’s why I get paid. So all this whining about the board not showing up; give me a break. That was your damn job.”
Kent Oreo, climate justice organizer: “I know that everybody here was instrumental in stopping demolition, but I want people to really understand: it was the Native community that was strategic and stopped the demolition. So, if the Native community is saying you got a problem, you got a problem. And you gotta listen.
“If you go the standard nonprofit organization route, you’re going to have some of this stuff that’s going on. The way this community meeting was organized, it was like, ‘Oh, we are gonna speak from one microphone’, but that is not the way we went and organized to stop the demolition. We went into Little Earth. You do not dictate how the community’s gonna respond to that kind of stuff. The enemy is the city of Minneapolis trying to take over the roof depot again. Be clear: the strategic segment of the society is the Native community. You do not get that; you got nothing.”
Chino, contracted historian for the EPNI from last year: “One of the things that I am most surprised about is that, in the packet that we got, the timeline starts in May of this year. Because we can really talk for a long time before then. The inner conflict has been brewing slowly and is now boiling over.
“The reason why it is all boiling over is that a lot of us kept our mouths shut for a long time. We wanted to make sure this internal conflict did not boil over and spill out into the community because we did not want the project to be at risk. In the packet, if you read it thoroughly, you saw that there was ample opportunity to have discussion, to have mediation, to have these conversations, and each and every time it was shut down.
“We already have our food justice system. We already have our decentralized ways of continuing to fight for food, fight for our right to have land to grow on, have our rights to, you know, be in a gathering community. We have the East Phillips Community Garden. We have the Little Earth Farm. We have the tamales y bicicletas. We have all of these efforts that are community driven that need money. It is up to our community to tap in.”
Sam, community organizer: “I began organizing in East Philips along with Michael C. and Joan V. in 1985. A community divided cannot heal. I want to acknowledge publicly and appreciate Joan’s effort to connect and bridge that divide.That is work; that is work we all need to do. It is not her responsibility; it is our collective responsibility. And in the same way that fingers got pointed here tonight, we each need to take responsibility for stopping the finger-pointing and start to be the one who crosses the body.
“I have had several moments in my own organizing career where the vibe has impacted what is happening in this community and what’s happening in my own life. So when People Of Phillips was created, that Joan, Michael and I were some of the early staff; it was created because the earlier community organization got destroyed because of some conflict, because that community organization did not know how to bring the community together. People of Phillips then got killed because there was some money that disappeared, and nobody knew where that money went. The last thing I will say: 1985, when the garbage transfer station fight was going on; a 10-year fight.
“So we have to take lessons from our history in this community, and we have to recognize a few things happening. One, the community governance ecosystem has to be organized. Two, we have to train all of our members of the community how to lean in from an economic and environmental justice lens. Because until we do that, we are going to continue to be displaced and going to continue to be gentrified.
“So, Dean [EPNI’s Board Chair] is a manifestation of a dynamic of technical expertise taking power and control over the community. And on some level, we, in the broader community, let that happen; we have to take lessons about how we do not let this happen in the future. We have to heal our relations and not diss the people who are not coming. We have to bring them to the table. What does it look like? How can people in this room figure out how to close that body?”
Ben J., community organizer and resident of Powderhorn neighborhood: “I have played a significant role in assisting EPNI at a handful of critical junctures over the past three and a half years.
“My first major contribution, in the amount of $50,000, was to pay for the architectural renderings needed for PR and outreach. Needless to say, this money went directly to PJR [name of the firm in downtown Minneapolis].
“In the fall of 2023, when the originally promised investors were unable or unwilling to provide the money required to satisfy purchase agreement requirements with the city, I provided financial backing for the transaction in the form of a personal guarantee to the city, representing about 97% of my holdings at the time.
“In the fall of 2024, I helped negotiate the extension of the purchase agreement, entering a pledged asset agreement with the city, effectively freezing my assets for the following year. In the process, I entered into a conversation with Little Earth Protectors about the possibility of using $1 million of a $1.2 million redistribution to invest in the Roof Depot project and establish Native ownership. I wanted this card up my sleeve in case we needed more leverage with the city at the time.
“Last December, asked by no one, I promised, or I proposed to the board, a solution to save $1.5 million in federal solar credits, credits that were set to expire at the end of the year, by reminding of a 224,000 forgivable loan to Part of Energy Features. The idea was to buy time for EPNI to negotiate further into 2026 instead of accepting the unfavorable deal being offered at the time. I understood that the city was squeezing us, but also that they were stuck with us. And that we still have leverage to work with.
“However, I felt conflicted at the time because I needed to hear from the board that they were willing to take action on growing the organization in ways that staff and consultants alike had been advising them on for years. Really, since I’ve been involved, that meeting did not go well at all, but the deciding factor for me was learning from cooperative energy features that EPNI and I fell through. There were viable alternate locations within Little Earth and East Phillips, where the solar array could land. It was enough for me to know this massive array would make it to East Phillips.
“So I provided the loan, and the strategy worked; negotiations with the city proceeded favorably, which led to $400,000. arriving from the state this summer. I met with Dean [EPNI Board chair] again after EPNI fired Joe. I told him they were risking sustainable community investment funds, their ability to provide investor dollars, and asked him what would happen if Cooperative Energy features decided to move its solar array elsewhere in the neighborhood. Dean said to me that they did not need money, and they would be fine without the solar already.
“The last critical juncture I want to share was actually two years ago. When I sat down with Dean and Jovi Tal to discuss my inability to back a product, to continue back in the project, whose main expenses at the time were not in line with its mission and would severely limit EPNI’s ability to raise foundational money.
“My understanding is that in 2023, they could not pay one of their in-house legal counsels, one of two, $150,000 each. Just in that year, that particular legal individual was not doing the work they were supposed to do, but they were being divisive, sowing lies, putting in a lot of effort, and putting a lot of effort behind the scenes to steer the project in ways that were contrary to the community vision. One example was holding a private meeting with me to propose the launching of a new nonprofit to develop affordable housing in the parking lot. I said, that sounds great, but it should be brought to the community. That was the end of that conversation. The board ousted Liz on account of internal and external pressure.
“This is also the moment when Joe Vital was installed instead as chief of staff, and he had also been referred to in public by Ikonai as interim director in order to implement needed organizational changes. I believe Joe met resistance from the board throughout his tenure.
“Recently, I heard many rumors about B.J.R. ‘s role in Honeywell Development, something about a dated city within the city and the existence of a data center. I am asking publicly about these rumors, and about a government, a US government contract to build military housing. I would very much like us to learn more about these things from Dean. I see a great problem if someone who is negotiating a much larger development just down the road from the Roof Depot is also negotiating with the city on behalf of the community on his own, or even at all.”
Nicole Mason, Joe McCow’s mother and community organizer: “I just recently moved out of Little Earth, but my daughter and my granddaughter still live there. I raised my son, Joseph, there. I have heard rumors from board members saying that he was a wannabe Little Earth resident. This is my son we’re talking about. I want to thank EPNI for firing him, because since that, right, I got my son home. You know how much blood, sweat, and tears he gave up for this, and a lot of you guys did? I never got my son home. My own community [Little Earth] that sits here won’t even talk to me now. This is not us against them. We’re all supposed to be together. The board should be willing to listen to the community because it is a community project. Also, the Little Earth protectors do not speak for the whole Little Earth community. It’s a very closed group. I was pushed out a long time ago because I do have a voice.
“My son has put in so much work for this project. And he did it with his whole heart and soul. And I will be damned if people try to bash his name. I have watched him, and he has been torn away from our family for many years. Eight years that he has been on this project. And it has not been fair. Meetings, telephone calls. He has nothing. Nothing of a life. And it was all of this, and it was all taken away because of some egotistical board members. And if you guys did not know, y’all dropped the ball too by letting Dean [EPNI Board chair] be on this project at the top. He is gonna benefit off of the backs of our East Phillips neighborhood when the ________lives in Edina.”
Daemeah Karbeah is Communications Manager at Midtown-East Phillips & Community Connector at Alley Communications
