Former JACC Executive Director Jerry Moore Hired By U of M, Neighborhood Leaders Are All, Like, WTF?!!!

Stock Photo, U of M

Word reached me about a week ago from a source that former JACC Executive Director Jerry Moore had been hired by the UROC program at U of M; the nice (but obviously naive) folks bringing North Minneapolis that big, expensive, rather slowly-delivered project at the former Penn-Plymouth shopping center. Another credible source made some calls and confirmed firsthand this was, in fact, the case. Jerry Moore is now--among many other things--a gopher.

My U of M gopher blood boils with shame. THE SHAME!!!!!!!!

Jerry Moore--who has been a plaintiff in a lawsuit against JACC, and was fired from his executive director position for misconduct, (fistfight, cough cough) is nothing if not a controversial figure in the Jordan Neighborhood...

So when word reached certain neighborhood movers and shakers about Jerry being hired by UROC, and being involved with some kind of "research" about mortgage issues in North Minneapolis, consternation was followed by seething anger. Repeated and specific evidence in Hennepin County District Court shows Jerry Moore was involved with a high-profile fraudulent mortgage at 1564 Hillside Ave. N. The collective judgment of decent people in the Jordan Neighborhood--"decent" being defined as "not actively involved in mortgage fraud"--is that Jerry Moore is the last person who should be working on this kind of task and WHAT THE HELL was U of M thinking by hiring him?

Even assuming (as lawyers say) "arguendo" that Jerry Moore has received a bad rap over 1564 Hillside Ave. N., the problem remains that current JACC leadership will have nothing to do with Jerry Moore, and the Jordan Neighborhood makes up a big part of North Minneapolis. It's not hard to picture situations where the UROC people attempt to engage the leadership of Jordan, but all the "Jordanites" will want to talk about is, "Why the hell did you hire Jerry Moore, and when will you be getting rid of him? Get rid of him and we will talk."

That's the word I'm getting from neighborhood leadership. In fact, my reason for delaying posting about this matter was because I was prevailed upon to avoid airing this dirty laundry until there was a chance, behind the scenes, to call some leaders at U of M and fix this mess. With the matter still pretty much the same as it was a week ago, I was contacted and told to please, please blog about this matter. So: Jerry Moore is working for UROC, and UROC has just lost major cred with North Minneapolis leadership. (The ones not involved with mortgage fraud, anyway, which clearly doesn't include all the self-declared leadership)

In fact, some are going so far as to say UROC has never had the creditability of CURA, which is another program at U of M which has been working with neighborhood issues for a long time, very successfully, though often with a low profile. The question being asked in this time of budget cuts is "Why is there a UROC at all? Why not just have things done under CURA, a program with a proven track record which would never, in a hundred years, pull this kind of stupid bulls***t?"