When Ron Krom, director of the St. Vincent dePaul Place and the Amazing Grace Food Pantry, stood to address the Common Council Monday he admitted he was stunned. After a dozen years of steady funding through the Federal Block grants (known as CDBG - Community Development Block Grants), he discovered that the committee considering the grants had left his organizations off the list.
"In this year when we're experiencing more need, than ever, we're not being funded," Krom told the Council. "We have more need, more people coming for meals and food, more food to get out, and we're getting cut out."
It turns out that Krom was not the only important and well-used program to be left out.
When queried as to why the funding was not in place, Michiel Wackers of the Planning, Conservation and Development Department explained that $100,000 of the funding, which formerly went to community organizations, was being diverted to the Planning Department for code enforcement, and would pay for the salaries of enforcement officers.
After hearing an amendment proposed by Council member Grady Faulkner, trimming the proposed grants to some organizations, and providing money for Amazing Grace, Council member Gerry Daley proposed that the list be sent back to committee for re-consideration, including planning for $110,000 in stimulus funds promised in a second round of grants to the city.
EDITORIAL COMMENTARY: In another strange food security irony, if the CDGB grant list had passed, there would be less money in town to feed the hungry, but more money to enforce violations of the code, as in the case of the alleged Food Not Bombs violation. Council member James Streeto quipped that the CDGB list should include "a kitchen for Food Not Bombs" to help prevent any future controversy.
The Council also spent an hour debating whether it could hire an attorney to advise it in legal matters concerning union concessions to the city, and the refusal of the Board of Education to be governed by the concessions. In short, the Board of Education hired an attorney to fight the city's request to furlough city-paid employees on the Board of Education staff. The Council wanted to hire another outside lawyer to guide them in their budget deliberations as regards the letter sent by the Board of Education lawyer. The Republican Council members claimd they were not advised about the hiring of a lawyer to represent the Council. In the end, the mayor, the city attorney and the Council members agreed that hiring an outside attorney would be advisable if the attorney represented the interests of the City of Middletown, and not merely the interests of the Common Council.
The Council was informed that city funds were available to pay the approximate $7500 fee for the outside attorney. Upon learning this, Democratic Council members withdrew a resolution requesting the money to hire the attorney.
Most items on the agenda were of the "nuts and bolts" nature, including resolutions to allow the mayor to apply for a LoCIP (Local Capital Improvement) grant for $35,000 to repair the Riverview Center Parking Garage, and resolutions to approve fees for Childrens Arts programs and to approve hours of operation at city parks. The council also passed city support for the Not Your Typical 5K road race, though funding was capped at $5,000 at the suggestion of Council member Ron Klattenberg, which is half of what was originally sought. Motorcycle Mania also received the support of the Council at it's original funding number of $10,000.
Two resolutions submitted by Republican Council member David Bauer, one to create an IT (information technology) oversight committee, and one to create a Commission on Physical Plant were voted down along party lines, and roundly denounced by his Democratic colleagues.
Council member Ron Klattenberg noted that the resolution to create the commissions were without specific goals, and that the duties of the proposed commissions could be handled by already-created bodies. Council member Daley called the proposed commissions "superfluous."
Bauer defended his proposals as being a needed remedy for a fragmented and costly IT environment in the city with the city, and the Board of Ed supporting separate and different systems. As for the Physical Plant Commission he noted that it would help improve government transparency.
Klattenberg countered that Bauer was avoiding addressing the real problem - a Board of Education which refused to cooperate with the city through consolidation.
"If you see a problem that needs fixing, create a task force and fix it," Klattenberg suggested. "Just do it."
No comments:
Post a Comment