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The New Markets Tax Credit Coalition released its 2022 New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Progress Report, providing policymakers and practitioners with the latest trends and successes of the NMTC. The report was prepared by the NMTC Coalition, a national membership organization of Community Development Entities (CDEs) and investors organized to advocate on behalf of the NMTC. The NMTC Coalition brings together community development professionals, the nation’s leading experts on tax-advantaged community development investments and investors all committed to the success of the NMTC.

Read The Fresno Bee article, “ Progress starts with Black-run organizations that help Black-owned businesses .”

Established to identify reform recommendations around making Fresno a better, safer place for all, the commission’s work aligns with Central Valley NMTC’s focus on transforming economically disadvantaged neighborhoods throughout the Central Valley. Congratulations to Central Valley’s NMTC President/CEO Oliver Baines on his appointment to lead this important work. Read City of Fresno media release: https://www.fresno.gov/news/mayor-city-council-announce-members-of-new-police-reform-commission/ 

Oliver Baines is a 25-year resident of Fresno with an extensive record of community service. His professional career began in law enforcement as a police officer for the Fresno Police Department. During his 11 years as a Fresno Police officer, he was a highly decorated officer, receiving two Life-Saving Medals, 2008 Officer of The Year recognition, Chief’s Commendations, and multiple Peer Commendations. Mr. Baines’ experience in community policing caused him to run and become a Councilmember for the City of Fresno, representing District 3 from 2011 to 2019. During this time as Councilmember, he was active in many programs addressing the economic, social, and environmental problems afflicting Fresno, including the Workforce Investment Board, the Fresno Works, the San Joaquin Valley Air Board District, the Successor Agency to the Redevelopment Agency of the City of Fresno, along with numerous community-based programs. Mr. Baines became involved in workforce development programs. He founded the Valley Apprenticeship Connections (VAC). This workforce development program focuses on preparing young men and women from the most challenged neighborhoods to serve populations in the Fresno Region for a career in the Construction Trades. Since 2016, the VAC has had 339 students enrolled, 250 completed (73 percent), with 196 gaining employment (78 percent) with wages averaging over $20/hour, and 185 students (94 percent) retaining their employment.

$3.5 Billion in New Markets Tax Credits Awarded to Spur Economic Growth Nationwide. The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) awarded 73 Community Development Entities (CDEs) $3.5 billion in New Markets Tax Credits today. The tax credit allocation awards, made through the calendar year (CY) 2017 round of the New Markets Tax Credit Program (NMTC Program), will help stimulate investment and economic growth in low-income urban neighborhoods and rural communities nationwide. “Today’s awards will finance projects ranging from large manufacturing plants that create jobs to critically needed infrastructure,” said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. “I want to congratulate today’s award recipients for their outstanding work in improving distressed communities.” 

As the City of Sanger grows so does the need for basic services. The brand new United Health Centers facility stands out downtown. Watch the video: https://abc30.com/health/united-health-centers-opens-new-medical-facility-in-sanger/2985834/

NMTC investments generated more than $156 billion in economic activity, creating 1,013,837 jobs in low-income rural and urban communities from 2003 to 2015. With that kind of track record and a cost of just $1.7 billion over ten years, it was difficult to understand why the House would terminate the New Markets Tax Credit in the first place. The NMTC is a great deal for the federal government. Still, most importantly, it is a critical tool for our country’s small, overlooked rural towns and blighted urban neighborhoods that have been left outside of the economic mainstream for far too long. Thank you to Congressman Jim Costa for your support of the NMTC program, maintaining the credit’s authorization for 2018 and 2019, as was agreed to in the bipartisan PATH Act that Congress passed in December 2015. Read the whole letter: 2017-12-05-LTR-to-Ryan-Brady-re-NMTC.pdf

Motel Drive runs along the seam of Highway 99 as it slices through Fresno, Calif. The road, a strip of motels, motor inns, and prime rib houses that stopped glittering sometime back in the 1970s, is an area of general disinvestment, where criminal activity, vandalism, and blight are commonplace. So much of Fresno’s population has hightailed it north to the river that the core sits abandoned. Motel Drive has been left to its own devices, and when officials talk about revitalizing urban Fresno, the strip is usually left out of the conversation. If you look close enough at this long stretch of neglect, though, you’ll see a piece of Motel Drive being transformed by an extraordinary project, which, when completed, will transform the lives of mothers and their children. On a 10-acre parcel that once housed the Tradewinds Motor Hotel and its Gaslight Room Steakhouse, the nonprofit Fresno Rescue Mission (FRM) is building an $8 million community campus to redirect the lives of mothers. The facility serves mothers who may come to the center for many reasons — some are victims of domestic violence, some were recently released from prison, some are on the brink of homelessness, and others are at risk of losing their children to foster care. Read the full article: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/10713841/fresno-rescue-mission-embarks-on-project-to-rescue-the-children

Phoenix Energy announced that two of its developments, North Fork Community Power and Blue Mountain Electric Co., received offers for power purchase agreements (PPAs) from Pacific Gas & Electric. The offers were awarded under the Bioenergy Market Adjusting Tariff (BioMAT), a program the California Public Utilities Commission developed to implement California Senate Bill 1122. Under the PPAs, NFCP and BMEC will receive $199.72 per MWh exported to the grid for 20 years from commencement of operation. Once they are operating, Phoenix Energy expects the projects to collectively export 37,500 MWh per annum, equating to nearly $7.5 million of annual revenue from power sales, before revenue from biochar and other byproducts. NFCP and BMEC have two and ½ years from the date of contract award to interconnect to the grid. NFCP, located in North Fork, California, and BMEC, in Willseyville, California, are forest-based biomass gasification plants. The plants will utilize local forest biomass as well as fire threat reduction activities from the Sierra and Yosemite National Forest areas to make electricity, heat and biochar—a solid carbon byproduct that is used as a soil conditioner and filter media. The plants are the first projects that will use forest-based fuel to receive PPA offers. Under the BioMAT program, which runs through February 2021, Pacific Gas & Electric expects to award 111 MW of PPAs to biomass power generators up to 3MW, with 47 MW reserved for those that utilize forest-based fuel.

Just last week, I received a call that I’d been dreading. The banker at the end of the speakerphone announced to all of us, the architect, engineer, contractors, and owner sitting around a conference room table, that our project — a new 15,000 square-foot community health clinic to serve Central Valley MediCal patients – was being put on hold. Continue reading: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article148347799.html

Here’s a state-by-state breakdown of the NTMC at work in communities across America. Read the report: https://cvnmtc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/NMTCatWork_2016.pdf

Central Valley NMTC Fund earned the 2016 Operating Business QLICI of the Year Award for its investment in the North Fork Bioenergy Plant in North Fork, California. The deal was funded with $6 million of Central Valley’s NMTC allocation to build and operate the nation’s first forestry-fueled biomass gasification plant. The plant uses Sierra Nevada Forest waste as its feedstock to produce electricity, reducing fire hazards in the Sierra. Though North Fork, Calif., is a small, low-income community, the town has taken an active role in redeveloping a vacant mill site that closed in 1994. As noted by Janice Hetland, 2016 Community Development QLICIs of the Year Awards judge, “[the North Fork Bioenergy Plant] addresses a variety of issues by using forest waste as feedstock for a biomass facility, which will produce electricity to be used by businesses in the area which manufacture forest-produced goods.” The project will create jobs while maintaining local forests. Central Valley NMTC Fund addressed Gov. Jerry Brown’s emergency proclamation that specifically called for the development of forest waste-to-fuel plants.  Historic Image Caption:The North Fork Bioenergy Plant in North Fork, California was able to build and operate the nation’s first forestry-fueled biomass gasification plant following an investment by Central Valley NMTC Fund

“Yuck” was the immediate reply from my off-at-college daughter after I recently texted her a picture of Fresno’s air quality.Yuck is right. Her response made me reflect on a Fresno Bee opinion piece by several members of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District Board about the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent proposal to establish more stringent health-based limits on ground-level ozone (smog) – lowering those thresholds by a whopping two-thirds of 1 percent (from 75 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion) – through the Clean Air Act.Continue Reading at FresnoBee 11/2015 The Fresno Bee FRESNO, CA

An animation describing how the New Markets Tax Credit revitalizes low income communities by financing businesses, community facilities, and economic development projects. 06/2015 NMTC Coalition Some Location