Notes and Quotes: Community Meeting
Oct. 7th About EPNI
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.… Read the rest “Notes and Quotes: Community Meeting
Oct. 7th About EPNI”
Phillips Oral History Project Nov. ’26
This month, Mary Ellen Kaluza talks about organizing a neighborhood credit union.
The South Side Federal Community Development Credit Union that was organized for Lake Street and originally had been in a building near Abbott, across the street from Abbott. Abbott bought that property and the credit union had to move. It moved next to Robert’s Shoes. I was a volunteer for that and eventually came to be on the staff.
It was closed, that was during the Reagan years so the National Credit Union Administration got very conservative. Plus it was the savings and loan crisis. I can’t even describe it. So banks and credit unions were closing. That was community-owned and it could have survived if there had been the will on the federal regulator’s part.
Then a group of us got together to organize a new credit union that went into the Arts Bar. That was the Wendell Phillips Community Development Federal Credit Union. We had to include the ‘Community Development Federal Credit Union’ part. The part we wanted was Wendell Phillips, to highlight who our namesake is and why.
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[Wendell Phillips Credit Union] was born because we didn’t have a bank in the neighborhood. We had to go to Seward or the other side of Nicollet or something for banking.… Read the rest “Phillips Oral History Project Nov. ’26”
