February 22, 2007 Minutes (Neighborhood Resources Department)
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MEMBERS PRESENT: |
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Jeanette Collier, Susan Mangan, Greg Moore, Brenda Nunez, Kirsten Roussel, Mike Randolph, Patti Welty |
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MEMBERS ABSENT: |
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marci francisco, Curtis Harris, Carol Nalbandian |
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STAFF PRESENT: |
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Lesley Rigney, Margene Swarts |
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PUBLIC PRESENT: |
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Marilyn Roy |
Randolph called the meeting to order at 5:35.
Introductions
Members, public and staff introduced themselves.
Approval of January 25, 2007 Minutes
Roussel moved to approve the January 25, 2007 minutes. Welty seconded the motion, which passed.
Review Letter of Support – TTH and Habitat
Staff handed out the letter. There were some edits suggested. Staff will make changes, submit for CC consideration along with the letters from both organizations and e-mail the final version to the Committee prior to the March meeting.
Randolph asked the group to look at the 2006 investment summary. He stated that the Committee is dealing with the same available funding amounts, and that only two new groups have requested funding for 2007. He suggested looking at amounts from 2006 and deciding if the Committee is considering roughly the same amounts.
Roussel said she was unhappy with a couple of items last year. She wanted to fund Emergency Services Council (ESC) and Housing and Credit Counseling, Inc. (HCCI) at higher levels, particularly ESC.
Welty agreed. She would like to fund HCCI at quite a bit more this year.
Roussel moved to zero-fund 7a Corporate Commercial Residential Union’s Employment Project due to a lack of clarity in the proposal. Moore seconded the motion, which passed.
Randolph moved to zero-fund 19f Neighborhood Resources Voluntary Clearance Program. Welty seconded the motion.
Swarts said it is requested all of the time, especially after storms. A lot of low-income and elderly cannot afford brush removal. The request came from an environmental inspector who continuously cites people for environmental blight.
Mangan said brush removal was an issue with the child who was hit and killed recently. She feels that a lot of people need that service.
Motion failed. The group agreed to return to this project and fund if possible.
Roussel moved to zero-fund 4c Oread Neighborhood Association (ONA) blight survey. Moore seconded the motion, which passed.
Roussel moved to zero-fund 5d Pinckney Neighborhood Association (PNA) rezoning. Moore seconded the motion, which passed.
Randolph moved to zero-fund 3c North Lawrence Improvement Association (NLIA) neighborhood cleanup and 5c PNA neighborhood cleanup. Mangan seconded the motion, which failed. (3-4)
Welty moved to fund HCCI Tenant/Landlord Counseling and Education for $18,000. Motion failed for lack of a second.
Roussel moved to fund 11a Housing and Credit Counseling, Inc. (HCCI) for $12,000. Moore seconded the motion.
Welty likes HCCI’s application – they serve so many people and it states it is the cheapest way to assist in obtaining affordable rental housing, they help people help themselves.
Randolph said interest rates have priced many more people out of the ownership market.
Collier said HCCI does a lot of counseling for renters.
The motion passed.
Roussel moved to fund 15a Salvation Army (SA) Emergency Shelter and Feeding Program for $30,000. Moore seconded the motion.
Randolph asked if any additional funding opportunities had come available for shelters.
Staff said nothing new had become available for such operating expenses.
The motion passed.
Roussel moved to fund 8a Douglas County AIDS Project Emergency Financial Assistance for $4,000. Randolph seconded the motion, which passed.
Welty said there was a news article saying SRS would be making energy assistance available. Does this cut down on ESC’s load?
Collier said ESC requires a disconnect notice; SRS does not. There has to be an eviction notice to get assistance with this program.
Swarts said ESC pays gas, electric, water or rent – there is more on the utility end than the rental end and utility amounts are usually smaller. The percentage usually runs around 40% rent and 60% utility payments or something pretty close. Unlike a lot of programs, this one seems to pay attention to the changing times and needs that people have.
Collier said they typically serve 3-5 households per month with current funds. Some bills are pretty high.
Welty moved to fund ESC for $20,000. Mangan seconded the motion.
Roussel noted the jump in the request, according to the application, was due to being one-tenth of the budget while the ESC serves one of the ten Committee priorities.
Collier clarified that this fund can only be used in Lawrence. Since Ballard Center administers the program they will dispense CDBG funds in Lawrence and other funds in the county. CDBG doesn’t meet all of Lawrence needs – funding this program at a higher level would free up more funds for use in other parts of the county.
Randolph asked about the ratio of city to county demand.
Collier said the majority of requests come from Lawrence – more than 90%.
The motion passed.
Roussel moved to fund Lawrence Community Shelter (LCS) for $23,000. Moore seconded the motion, which passed.
Randolph suggested moving on to neighborhoods and stated that he feels the Committee should make it clear to NAs that more needs to be done in addition to newsletters and meetings. He would like to see some sort of tiered funding. He asked if NAs are always funded at their full request.
Swarts said no.
Welty said NLIA only puts out newsletters twice per year. They use the Journal World ad to publicize general meetings. It is specified in the Citizen Participation Plan that they should use a portion of CDBG funds to do that. She asked at the last meeting if it was a necessary budget item and the answer was a definite yes.
Moore asked if there was another way to get cleanups done.
Swarts said they are doing it for the least amount possible using a chipper. They do work to bundle as much at the curb as is possible.
Welty said when she put her package together and worked on the NA part of it she looked at how many newsletters are put out, the number of hours that coordinators work, and salary requests. She trimmed some things down and she is still $5,000 short. She looked at households in each neighborhood and considered how much each association spends per person and East Lawrence Neighborhood Association (ELNA) spent $7/person and all of the others spent between $4-5/person. ELNA has six newsletters, three NAs have four newsletters, and NLIA only has two. She trimmed some other items.
Roussel said she tried to do something very similar and in looking through the ONA application, she couldn’t find the number of residents.
Welty said those numbers are in the City’s Consolidated Plan. Oread, on average, has 46% more people than the others. Their coordinator salary request was 51% more and the operating request was only 36% more.
Moore asked if it was always broken down into operating expenses and coordinator salaries.
Swarts said in the beginning there was no public service funding available and then there was only operating expenses and then in the early 90’s the Committee started funding coordinator salaries.
Moore said Welty is dead on. Now maybe people will start bringing in stuff that we will fund. We could offer a base of $1,000 general operating and then take the population and apply a formula to the remainder we want to fund. The CDBG funds the City receives is based on a formula so it seems a reasonable method of allocating. It would make the process more objective.
Roussel asked Welty what numbers she came up with.
Welty said in order for her numbers to work, they would have to cut maybe $5,000 from SA.
Swarts said the Committee might consider a lump sum to NAs and say “this is what you are going to get” and let them figure out what to do. Since these are NAs and are likely not incorporated – you will want an actual accounting of what they did. Staff can track expenses but the Committee could ask for reports, semi-annual, etc. The Committee could define a percentage amount that could be used for coordinator salaries.
Randolph asked if there was a gap in the coordinator salary, what would happen. Could they shift some operating funds to salaries?
Swarts said they should not shift money around. However, if a NA has something they would like to do – something special they have in mind and they write a letter and say there is a gap and we need to shuffle something, we can work it out.
Randolph said NAs could determine how they want the money spent. Does the group want to go with a lump sum or continue to break the funding amounts down?
Swarts said it would be acceptable to allocate a lump sum. The City’s accounting system is set up that way as well.
Moore moved to combine all neighborhood public service activities into one line item and to call it operating expenses. Welty seconded the motion, which passed.
Welty moved to fund BCNA for $5,900. Collier seconded the motion and asked Welty what the amount was based on.
Welty said it was their request minus the newspaper subscription.
Collier said the amount we give per neighborhood has to be based on some common denominator.
Moore said you also have to consider what the overall NA budget is. Right now it is $33,547 since that is what is left for public services. A formula would have to be based on the total PS budget from the beginning.
Welty said if the Committee can come up with a formula it could turn out that NLIA would get more than what they ask for and ELNA could get substantially less, if it was based on population and percentages.
Randolph asked historical percentages that NAs have been funded out of the total available PS dollars.
Swarts said it has been running at roughly 1/3 of the total PS budget.
Roussel asked if the group was comfortable having 33-35% of PS funds going to NAs?
Randolph suggested Committee members go home and consider what percentage of PS funds should go to NAs and what criteria to use to determine amounts granted to individual NAs. The next meeting is in two weeks.
Welty and Collier withdrew the motion.
Miscellaneous/Calendar Items
Swarts said the next meeting date is March 8.
Public Comment
No public comment.
Adjourn
There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 7:00 pm.