Embracing a City, The Kresge Foundation in Detroit: 1993-2017 by Tony Proscio M. A. Farber

Author:Tony Proscio, M. A. Farber [Tony Proscio, M. A. Farber]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, Development, Economic Development, Social Science, Philanthropy & Charity, Sociology, Urban
ISBN: 9780983965497
Google: OwmDDwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: The Kresge Foundation
Published: 2019-01-14T00:00:00+00:00

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced $25 million in federal funding for the M-1 Rail Project on Jan. 18, 2013. Photo Credit: John T. Greilick / Detroit News

The one entity that could not push for the legislation, or even fund others to push for it, was Kresge. As a private foundation, it is forbidden to lobby or to directly fund lobbying. Having labored, literally and figuratively, on virtually every stage and aspect of the streetcar project for close to five years, the Foundation was for once relegated to the sidelines — just at the moment when the project’s survival was about to be decided.

It was able, however, to keep up the effort to resolve all the other questions and concerns federal officials had raised. Trudeau, Fleisher, and other M-1 team members systematically responded to question after question, offering to raise additional money as a reserve for operating subsidies, firming up cost projections, verifying sources of capital, defending ridership projections, and creating the labyrinth of interlocking legal and financial entities required for blending the multiple sources of money. By this stage, as Fleisher remembered it, “the concerns weren’t really about, ‘Is this a good transportation project?’ By now, I think they knew it was going to be a great transportation project. I think the failure they were really worried about” — apart from the fate of the RTA legislation — “was, ‘Can this group of philanthropists, this nonprofit consortium, really pull this off?’”

On Dec. 19, 2012, in the small hours of the legislative session’s final day, with the holidays approaching and temperatures in Lansing near freezing, the Legislature approved Public Act 387 creating the Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan. The governor promptly signed it. A separate bill also authorized state funding to support streetcar operations. A month later, on Jan. 18, 2013, Secretary LaHood traveled to Detroit to announce, with the governor, mayor, and much of the congressional delegation in attendance, that all conditions had now been satisfied, and that a $25 million federal grant would support the creation of the M-1 rail line.

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