Also known as: Yodit Mesfin-Johnson · Nonprofit Enterprise at Work (NEW) · Water Street Ad Hoc Committee Facilitator · $1,500/session
Who She Is
Yodit Johnson — also documented under the name Yodit Mesfin-Johnson — leads Nonprofit Enterprise at Work (NEW), an organization in the Ypsilanti civic ecosystem. She has been contracted by the City of Ypsilanti to facilitate the Water Street Ad Hoc Committee at $1,500 per session — the public process determining the future of the 28-acre Water Street parcel that has cost the city $33 million over 27 years and currently hosts an active encampment.
Documented Connections
Water Street Facilitator — $1,500/Session
The City of Ypsilanti is paying Johnson $1,500 per facilitation session for the Water Street Ad Hoc Committee — the body charged with determining what to do with the most expensive and consequential piece of undeveloped land in Ypsilanti's history. The total cost of her facilitation contract is not fully documented in The Ypsilantian's archive, but the per-session rate is confirmed.
Trische' Duckworth — Personal Network
When the Ypsilanti BLM mural at Riverside Park was vandalized in September 2021 — "Black Lives" painted over, leaving only the word "Matter" — Yodit Mesfin-Johnson was the person who first messaged Trische' Duckworth with photographs of the damage. This confirms a personal relationship between Johnson and Ypsilanti's most prominent police accountability organizer. Johnson is not merely an institutional actor; she is embedded in the personal networks of the civic activist community.
Nonprofit Enterprise at Work (NEW)
NEW operates in the Ypsilanti-area nonprofit support ecosystem. The organization's full funding sources, board composition, and connections to other documented network actors are a research direction for The Ypsilantian. Johnson's dual role — personal civic activist network member AND paid city facilitator on the city's most contentious land decision — is the documented accountability question.
Ed Koryzno — Same Committee
Johnson facilitates the Water Street Ad Hoc Committee on which Ed Koryzno sits — the same Koryzno who proposed the original $29M Water Street purchase in 2000 as City Manager. The man who created the problem now advises its solution, facilitated by a paid contractor from the civic activist network.
The Question
The Water Street Ad Hoc Committee is a publicly funded process with a paid facilitator determining the future of $33M in city investment. Who recommended Johnson for the facilitation contract? What was the selection process? What are NEW's other funding relationships with the city or county? These are open FOIA targets documented in The Ypsilantian's archive.