Grant Distribution I Top
The Urban Resources Partnership regrants
were used to help support the main goals of the group:
• To support the activities of existing groups
• To grow the number of organizations involved with the river
• To increase the coordination and collaboration between the
groups
A grants committee was formed, in part
with representation from groups that would not have otherwise been engaged
with the river. This was done to build the involvement in and support for
the river. The first round of grants went to program support for
organizations already involved in the river and the next two rounds went to
existing groups that were branching out to include the river in their
programming. In addition, due to the history of neglect the South Bronx had
experienced, the grants were mindfully distributed to groups along the
length of the river to help allay the fears of imbalance that many of the South Bronx groups had.
The requirement for those that received
money was that each group had to attend a grant recipient meeting to report
back to the Working Group about what they were doing and how the money was
being used. The goal was for the groups to start meeting each other and
learning about what else was going on along the river in the hopes of
improving the coordination and collaboration among them. (10) This also led to the growth and strengthening of
the Working Group. (*crucial strategy*)
Team Structure I Top
By the end of 1998, the Working Group
was comprised of over 35 organizations, including local groups, citywide
and regional organizations, and city, state and federal agencies. From the
beginning, and especially as the number of organizations involved grew, the
members of the Working Group had different priorities and interests. As the
coordinator stated, "they had one goal in common, which was to restore
the river, which could mean different things to different people. To some,
it meant restore access; to some it meant restore ecology; to some, it
meant making it available to kids and educating them about the river."
(17) The creation of a mechanism whereby all the members' needs could be
recognized was crucial and as a result the Working Group established a team
structure that reflected the four areas of interest of those involved in
the Working Group – Ecology, Education, Outreach, and Greenway. (*crucial strategy*)
Within each team, the groups' different priorities could be addressed
without sacrificing the interests of the other partners. The new structure
also allowed newly involved organizations to plug-in where it made most
sense for them. Each year the teams identified priority projects and shared
them with the group at large. (11)
Technical Assistance I
Top
Also around this time, NPS hired a new
Trails & Conservation Assistance Coordinator to work on the Bronx River project. He worked closely
with the Partnerships for Parks Bronx River Coordinator on the
organizational structure and evolution of the Working Group, but his main
focus was to provide technical assistance and guidance to the Ecology Team.
This additional staff time was a huge asset for the project. Each meeting
was a building block, resulting in action items for participants and
forward movement.
Implementation I Top
From the beginning days of the Working
Group, the member organizations embraced the idea of a greenway. Although
the founding impulse for the creation of the Group was the river, and
restoring the ecology of the river was the first priority, it was very
clear to all involved that access to and along the waterway was key in
developing it as a resource for the community. The Working Group, however,
did not spend time working on a new “plan” that would run the risk of
sitting on a shelf as the two before it did, but rather, they took an
action oriented approach and focused on getting on-the-ground changes in
targeted areas. The older plans were used as reference points. (12)
In order to facilitate this
action-oriented approach, the Bronx River Coordinator realized that the
groups that were already involved, and those that had the potential to get
involved, did so due to a kind of enlightened self-interest. In the words
of community activist Majora Carter, “The Point
CDC got involved
because they were interested in making a connection to the river to support
their own programming. Their involvement was totally self serving.” (13)
For this reason, the $421,000 NOAA grant
that came through Congressman Serrano in 2001 was strategically regranted,
just as the URP money had been. However, in order to promote a
collaborative environment, the grants were only available to those groups that
partnered with others in on-the-ground projects. This way, local groups
with no restoration experience could get involved and build the skills of
those community members taking part by working with more technically
oriented organizations. This strategy served to further build and
strengthen the connections and relationships among the members of the
Working Group. For example, the Natural Resources Group of DPR partnered
with a local community based organizations such as Youth Ministries for
Peace and Justice and submitted applications together. Their relationship
has become an ongoing one. In addition, because the Coordinator was worried
about NOAA approving the funding for only those projects that met their
normal, scientifically based criteria, she had the Ecology Team rank the
project applications in order of importance to them. Although many of the
groups had to rank their own proposals, the process went surprisingly well
and NOAA ended up funding the projects that were most important to the
Team. (14) (*crucial strategy*)
Events I Top
In addition to participating groups holding
small, local events, the Working Group wanted to do something that
demostrated the linkages between the very different communities along the
river. Through NPS' Rivers & Trails Program, artists Mags Harries and
Lajos Heder were commissioned to help create and arts based fesival down
the Bronx River. The Bronx River Golden Ball
event was created in 1999 and is a day of canoe trips down the river,
paired with community events and festivals along the river banks. This
yearly event, and subsequent others (The Amazing Bronx River Boat Flotilla
and the Bronx River BioBlitz) have supported the goals of the Alliance and
strengthened the bonds between the groups working on the River. (*crucial strategy*)
Acquisition I Top
The majority of land along the River was
already owned by DPR. This was a great benefit to the Working Group as they
could spend the majority of their time coordinating with one agency (*crucial factor*).
For the work that was being done toward
the creation of a greenway, most of the property that was acquired by the
Working Group was already City owned land (Department of Citywide
Administrative Services, Department of Business Services, etc) that was
just transferred to DPR. This was much faster and easier than the process
for acquiring private land so it was tackled first by the Group.
As for the privately owned land, key
properties and conservation easements were acquired with the help of The Trust for Public Land
(TPL). TPL was especially helpful in working with State Department of
Environmental Conservation to acquire land for Soundview
Park in the South
Bronx. Building this one segment in Soundview Park
between April 1999 and June 2000 was crucial in showing people what the
greenway could be.
The State Department of Transportation
(SDOT) was also very integral to the acquisition of key properties. SDOT
has the power of eminent domain. While the community was very adamant about
not pursuing that as an option, it remained a tool in the background of
negotiations. It has not yet been needed though, as many of the private
landowners have been amenable to working out some sort of solution for
access. Actual acquisition of the land was not required.
Funding I Top
Collaboration with SDOT was crucial and
as a result Governor Pataki came out to the river in October 2000 to
announce the $11 million SDOT project in the northern part of the river
that the bicycle and pedestrian coordinator had been working on with the
Working Group. Immediately after that Congressman Serrano announced $11
million for the river, which was a result of the adding up of a number of
smaller grants including the NOAA money and Intermodal Surface
Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) funds. He believed in the river as a
quality of life issue for his district and was confident in the Working
Group due to its success in regranting the URP money. Coincidentally,
shortly after this, Mayor Giuliani, in part due to the politics of the
situation, announced an additional $11 million for the river from the City.
(*crucial moment*)
Formalized Leadership I
Top
As the Working Group became more
coordinated and sophisticated, the amount of resources flowing to the river
increased. It was this influx of large amounts of money that became the
main mandate for the Working Group to become more formalized. The 65 groups
now involved knew that they needed to create structure to really be able to
see the full impact of the new resources. It had also become clear that the
available resources had grown and so the creation of a new organization
would not necessarily mean that there would be any fewer resources
available to the existing member groups. In addition, the creation of a
more established leadership system with by-laws and officers would make it
easier to interact with funders and city officials.
The Working Group created the
Organizational Structure Team that looked at various models of parks and
greenway management organizations. They knew that they wanted the new
organization to be a non-profit, so it would have kind of freedom it needed
to take on innovative projects, but they also realized that because DPR was
the main landowner, it would be in their best interest for the agency to be
integrally involved in whatever organization was created.
In they end, the Working Group used the
model of the Prospect
Park Alliance as a guide, with an Executive Director who would also
serve as the Bronx River Administrator and report jointly to the Alliance and DPR. The
rest of the structure of the new Bronx River Alliance reflected that of the
Working Group, with the retention of the teams, and the leader of each team
also sitting on the board. Staff of the Alliance would directly support the teams
and would include Education, Outreach and Greenway Coordinators, as well as
a Conservation Specialist. The group also identified their priorities for
the organization's mission, values, and board representation and among the
values identified by the group were Inclusion, Collaboration, Environmental
Justice, Respect, Integrity, and Public Access.
When designing the structure and makeup
of the board, the group placed a high priority on a board that represented
the ethnic, economic, and geographic diversity of the river's constituents.
The prospective board members that the group sought out included local
leaders from participating groups; educators, community organizers, and
environmental activists; as well as elected leaders as ex-officio members.
The Partnerships for Parks Bronx River
Coordinator became the acting Executive Director, but stepped away from
this role five months after the launch of the Alliance in November 2001. This break
with the project's origins was vital to the continued progress of the Alliance as an
independent, sustainable organization. (*crucial strategy*) In June 2002,
an Executive Director/Bronx River Administrator was hired. All funds
managed by the Alliance were transferred
from their fiscal sponsor, City Parks Foundation, to their own account, out
of which they began paying some Alliance
staff, while other staff continued to be paid by the Parks Department. (15)
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