7:30 AM . . . I was 5 minutes late, but I beat several committee members and staff . . . This was essentially live-blogged with little editing.
[I had a request to tell people up front why they should be reading some of the meetings that I post. The bottom line is, if you don’t know why you should be reading this, then you probably don’t need to. Let’s just say this one is a service to my fellow non-profit staff who don’t have time to attend these meetings. It was also requested that I say what should have been done instead, which I agree would be a worthwhile exercise and I likely will at some point, but for now, this is about getting the info from this morning’s meeting out to people who need to know about it. In the end of this process, there may be programs that no longer get funded by the city and other programs that never got funding that will and that will have a big impact on the community. How, is still a little murky and that is what we are all trying to figure out!]
TESTIMONY
VanRooy starts out by trying to discourage people from speaking to the committee in the interest of time. He says we don’t need to hear about the programs, we need to hear about the priorities, he knows they are all good programs. He repeats himself as people come in late, continuing to discourage people from speaking about their programs, they are all good programs. Meanwhile, the staff were greeting people as they came in to help them speak. I have to say, I didn’t hear alot of people actually talking about their programs. The speakers address concerns and ask to go back and revisit the youth area, because it was rushed. And asked them to think about teen employment programs and their priorities. As well as asked them to rethink the merging of the Families and Early childhood priorities
CHILDREN AND FAMILIES
Brown moves to reconsider Children and Families Priorities. B1 to A2 and C1 to B1. The motion to reconsider passes.
Brown makes the motion to change B1 to A2 and C1 to B1, but leave C2 as a C but move it to C1.
Cnare asks if they can just get rid of C2. Staff says it is SIDS, Shaken Baby and basic training, and staff would like to see the training expanded. Cnare wonders if that should be more specific in the language? Staff says it provides flexibility as worded.
Sweet asks if this undoes what the Early Childhood Care and Education Committee wanted. Brown says they were already undone, but this is closer to what they talked about.
TESTIMONY
There is an additional speaker, and VanRooy does his best to discourage him again from talking about their programs. The speaker asks them to think about the priorities and the need to rank things. He says these are to meet the needs of the community, not to meet the needs of the committee. If there are community needs of equal weight, they should be equal priorities in the process.
Cnare asks if they should rank the 7 areas as well. The speaker says that you need a right and left. You need building capacity in the neighborhoods and you need the services and that needs to be balanced.
Cnare asks if the money should just be divided equally among the categories. He says he hasn’t looked at it but there might be 18 programs in one category and 4 in the other and its complicated.
YOUTH
Sweet asks to reconsider Youth Area and add “and workplace” in the goal statement after Communities.
Motion passes.
Brown says to strike language some language and go back to it the way it was. Brown says she wants to make high school a A1 a high priority with keeping the emphasis on middle school. There is no second.
Rodriquez says to make it say middle and high school in A1. They says that was already tried but they try it again.
Sweet asks if middle school is a higher need. Staff says that basic after school supervision is needed for middle school. But the needs of high schoolers change and you need to look at employment and leadership and identity development and some do that one their own and some need the support of programs that we run.
Parker says that middle school has the biggest impact. She says that middle school programming is more effective. By prioritizing the middle school programs, they show the higher need and she wants the priorities.
Rodriguez says they can make that decision when it comes around. She thinks they are equally weighted.
Sweet says there are 8 priorities and its just number two. He wants to keep it the way it is.
Cnare asks if there is more need at the middle school level. Staff says at high school there are more sports and clubs but not all kids are in to that and there are still needs. The city has become an integral part of creating a web of servics for middle schoolers that wasn’t there 10 years ago. They work well with school district and other funders to create that web that wasn’t there. Cnare comes to the conclusion that it is getting better.
Motion fails.
(Can I just say again, there just isn’t enough money, everything again seems to be a high need.)
Bidar-Sielaff would like it to say culturally specific “and/or” gender specific. Brown makes the motion and its seconded and passes.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, SEXUAL ASSAULT, CRISIS INTERVENTION AND SAFETY
Sweet moves to adopt it as is.
Bidar-Sielaff says that the title doesn’t reflect the entire priorities. Says that the child abuse and trauma should be elevated in the goal. She suggests “and/or” for sexual assault and domestic violence in A1. Suggests language to be added to A2 to include child abuse and trauma. She also wants the language in C2 as well.
VanRooy says that a speaker suggested just calling it crisis intervention and safety.
Brown makes a motion to in A2 add “for vulnerable children” before runaway and homeless youth.
Sweet withdraws his motion after some discussion about adopting all Bidar-Sielaff’s recommendations.
Cnare asks a question about if the vulnerable children is a third category. Is this addressing issues before they run away and become homeless, to prevent abuse and neglect. Cnare thinks it is different. She says everything in this area is after the fact, but this is prevention. She notes that prevention is the lowest priority. She doesn’t support adding this area.
Staff says the intent is the immediate direct services and immediate housing for vulnerable youth and run away and homeless youth. She says that is what A2 was about, shelter and physical safety.
Bidar-Sielaff asks about after they are abused, but may not leave the house and go to shelter. You need services before you are forced to run away or become homeless. Staff says that staff went back and forth, looking at city vs county role. Potentially much of what you are talking about is the county’s role. She urges caution in how you word that and make sure that we are not doing things the county is legislated to provide.
The motion passes.
Parker moved to change the title to drop the domestic violence and sexual assault language.
Sweet says he is going to vote against it cuz they voted already and nothing has changed.
Parker says that the items should not be prioritized. The motion fails.
Rodriguez asks Bidar-Sielaff to recommend her changes again. They discuss education vs services.
Rodriguez says she wants to add the “and/or” language to A1.
Van Rooy interrupts the discussion and says they have to move along.
Motion Passes.
ACCESS TO RESOURCES
Sweet moves to adopt. No discussion. Adopted.
(Can I just say, I feel a little ripped off, after the comments that we provided to staff, that there were no changes or even discussion of issues raised.)
NEIGHBORHOODS
Sweet moves to adopt. No discussion. Adopted.
(I’m not sure what was going on, they seemed a little punchy and rushed.)
THE MONEY
VanRooy says they should look at percentages instead of dollars. He says they have a half an hour and asks if they should they delve into it. They says yes. Asks Clingan to comment.
Clingan says this was difficult, the priorities were hard and the time disconnect in that this is 2011 funding was hard. He says that they are all here based on what they see as needs and this was difficult because people want to advocate for the areas they see as high need. He also says the needs outstrip the resources allotted. (ya think?) Hard to put childcare for the kid vs. keeping roof over a families head vs. key needs of young kids vs. someone who is a victim of domestic violence vs. neighborhood centers that are the front line against each other. To make arguments in each area is difficult. You have 7 good arguments. They met three times as staff and had no consensus. Clingan met with VanRooy and Sweet and they came up with a process and concluded that there isn’t a magic answer. The committee shouldn’t beat itself up because there isn’t a magic answer – there is not magic formula.
Clingan says they suggest they go with percentages, and through a percentage basis, they would give a floor recommended by staff and the floor equals 79% and then through a facilitated process they will allocated the other 21%. Clingan says it is not perfect and it will be difficult. He says they can reject that process.
Sweet reiterates that 21% of the pie is unallocated and they should spread it out across the categories. Sweet asks where they do that process – here or Community Services Committee.
VanRooy says they should do it here.
Clingan says there should be an agreement on process. He says that agreement on process to send to the committee might be a win for today. He says the broader committee is likely to want to be involved in the process on Wednesday night.
Parker says she looked at percentage and dollars as where they are now and she thinks that is helpful. She says we all invested alot of time in this process and doesn’t think they should just hand it over and they note she will be out of the process. Where did the 79% come from? Where did the floor come from?
VanRooy says it was a place to start.
Wendorf says that the percentages are based on current levels. Staff didn’t come up with a whole new distribution.
Brown asks where the workforce development money comes from? What is the 79%?
Clingan says that they did not have consensus, but they tried to look at the services they provide now with how they are weighted and funded and then roll in the CDBG employment and training and neighborhood center. And then weigh the workforce development and Children and Families and Crisis Intervention area has gotten larger. There was alot of work to get to the weighting, they took it as far as they could as a staff.
Brown asks 79% of what? By program area? Clingan says that Children and Families was a certain suggestion, they took 3% off each of the categories? At least that was what was in his examples.
Brown asks to see the calculations.
Parker says she wants to start with the current funding.
Cnare says that they are getting additional dollars so how would you account for the new dollars coming in.
Parker wants to start with where we are now, current funding and new funding categories and she wants to start with if we think that needs to be changed.
Brown says that some money is getting taken out of the Childcare area to go to direct contracts. She notes other changes.
VanRooy says that they took all that into consideration. (However, note that Clingan, above, says there wasn’t consensus.)
Brown says she wants to see the numbers that went into those calculations.
Cnare says that will help her understand it. Staff sort of quietly off to the said says there is no time and the numbers are not ready. No one reacts to it and they all just move on, but several people were talking at the time.
Clingan asks if they want to keep working on this or if they want to let the Community Services Committee do it. Clingan talks about the time line and time pressures.
VanRooy asks if they would like make a recommendation to do it here or at the big committee.
Cnare says the full committee should work on it. But she is stuck on how to bring in the other committees. She wants to work on it there because the staff didn’t agree and would like to see the whole committee work on it.
VanRooy asks if they want to recommend that strategy suggested by Clingan. Cnare says no.
Brown says that without the base numbers she can’t present anything to the committee. Parker agrees. Parker says that even if the process takes place Wednesday instead of today, there needs to be some numbers. It’s frustrating to talk about things in the abstract. Parker put together her own spreadsheet. She wants to know where it all came from and went to currently. Then we can have the conversation as to where we go.
VanRooy looks to staff. Clingan says its up to them. Parker and Brown says that they want to see the numbers. Sweet says that what they are saying is fair, we have dollars, 7 program areas and what we have here is 7 program areas for January 2011 and he says the challenge is to take the dollars today and fit them into the new 7 pieces. There is not agreement about if that is possible. They can take current service providers and transport them into the new categories plus CDBG minus 4Cs and other stuff. That can be changed into percentages. Is that something that could be done by Wednesday? I think staff say yes.
Sweet moves that the funding process that he just described, today’s dollars and priorities be presented Wednesday night. They want percentages and dollars and they want it before the meeting. And Wednesday night they won’t recommend a process and the full committee will determine the process and the subcommittee be disbanded.
They agree not to disband because they have to work on the funding process.
Motion passed.
Clingan asks what else they need. Sweet says agenda is packed for Wednesday. They say they won’t be discussing the Racial Task Force info. He says the committee will want to talk to priorities and may not get to the money but they will get the numbers. Staff says they will bring the updated version of the priorities to the meeting.
They stay to set a meeting, I didn’t catch what they were talking about, I was trying to post this and I had to leave to go to work and open the doors and let the volunteers in! I was only 4 minutes late for work and one of my staffers was there, thankfully!
p.s. I think this sucks. I feel like we’re being toyed with. And I feel like they are stringing us along to wear us out . . . that may be completely untrue, but it feels terrible and it is definitely eating up alot of non-profit time. Along with myself there were 6 or 7 other people there this morning waiting to see what happened.
