Proposed North Minneapolis CU Organizers Rescind State Charter Application

The new executive leader of a proposed credit union for the underserved black community in North Minneapolis, Minn., said an application to obtain a state charter has been rescinded.

Nevertheless, the credit union’s organizing group, the Association for Black Economic Power, said it plans to resubmit a state charter application to establish the Village Financial Cooperative with its mission to address the neighborhood’s longstanding economic disparities.

The Village Financial Cooperative, which has been in the making since 2017, suffered a major setback after its former executive director, Me’lea Connelly, was ousted for alleged financial misconduct, mismanagement, gross negligence and other issues. In October, the ABEP board of directors publicly acknowledged these allegations and initially reported them to the Minneapolis Police Department. An investigation is underway by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, a statewide criminal investigative bureau.

Shortly after her termination, Connelly claimed she was fired because she reported racial discrimination, according to an article published by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. She alleged the organization was “engaging in racially discriminatory behavior,” but she did not offer any specifics or documentation to back up her accusation, according to the media report.

Despite this turmoil, which attracted widespread negative news coverage from the Minneapolis media, the ABEP said it is dedicated to developing and opening a credit union that will serve the specific banking needs of the North Minneapolis community, said Samantha Lee Pree-Stinson, who was named the executive project director for Village Financial Cooperative.

“It was very public what happened in our organization, so the fact that we were still able to get that support despite everybody knowing what had occurred [was because] we had a clear plan forward that made sense, and it was sound and it was still rooted in our purpose and our mission,” Pree-Stinson said.

That mission is to build a cooperative economic renaissance in North Minneapolis where the dollars that come into the community stay in the community, she said. According to MINNPOST, which calls itself a nonprofit, nonpartisan news website, North Minneapolis has had challenges with housing, education, jobs, crime and racial disparities for decades. In 2016, a federal government revitalization program identified North Minneapolis as having alarmingly high unemployment, gun violence, housing blight and poor educational outcomes.

Pree-Stinson is overseeing the reorganization of the ABEP, which includes appointing a new board of directors, developing a new strategic plan and hiring new staff members.

“None of our funders have pulled out. We’ve received four additional grants since all of this happened,” she said. “We got our first federal grant for the CDFI certification. Those are all key progress indicators to me, along with the feedback from community meetings and surveys, which shows the support for this project hasn’t gone away.”

Press-Stinson said the decision to rescind the credit union’s charter application with the Minneapolis Department of Commerce came because it was discovered that the former executive director submitted several versions of the application after the initial approval of the original application.

“No one was aware that these changes had been submitted or that changes were considered,” she said. “Once that was found out and we were able to get a copy of the most recent application that was submitted, it was not in alignment with our organization’s purpose, mission or vision. It wasn’t reflective or representative of the people that we hope to serve. The business plan was also severely lacking.”

The ABEP board decided to focus first on its reorganization, which is expected to be completed in the spring and then start the work on reapplying for a state charter.

“The board definitely deserves kudos that they acted promptly and with transparency and accountability in mind when they made the decisions that they made to reorganize and change the way that this organization was operating,” Pree-Stinson said.