ARP Committee Meeting 10/12
We took some action on a couple of items last week.
1) Workforce Development Urban League and Nashville State $7,890,153
This is the second time they come before us. We did have some outstanding questions regarding the program and the amount of money. They came back to us with a revised proposal. We have not put any money into workforce development in regards to ARP Funds. A couple of months ago I met with a Venezuelan refugee who was classically trained in guitar. He struggled to find a job in his profession. When I met with him, he had just started a job at a warehouse for a trillion dollar company. His story is not unique. How many people do we know that were lawyers, doctors, etc in their country that are not able to practice in the states. We as a city have to do a better job at creating a pipeline for people to pivot and find careers they are interested in.
The item passed with one no and two abstentions due to conflicts of interest.
2) Participatory Budgeting- 10M
This is the second time former Councilmember Bedne comes before us from the Mayor’s office. There were a couple of us who had some concerns in regards to the scope of the project. The ARPA BP map would be used to decide how much funds would go into specific areas. They would use the social vulnerability data to determine how much money areas would get.
o.75-1.00: 4 Million
0.50-0.75: 2.8 Million
0.25- 0.50: 1.5 Million
0.00-0.25: 1 Million
6% of the funds would be used to run the program
The way it is currently presented, the whole county would be voting for projects across the city. I know that it has been done this way in other cities but it is just hard for me to not imagine that places like Greenhills wouldn’t have a better opportunity at lobbying for projects in their area across the city. They have more resources at their disposal compared to my area. We would also have the added layer of trying to get the word out to all of our immigrant communities which means added time translating and doing outreach. I really do think sectioning this off in smaller quadrants would make this more equitable.
The item passed with the understanding that there would be a special called meeting with council members to work on the details.
3) TIRRC AND Legal Aid Society 13%/ Year 3
TIRCC and JFON: 272,00
Legal Aid and partners: $399,149
If you remember a couple of meetings ago these organizations were in front of us regarding funding for immigration legal services and right to council respectively. At that time we did not have the other half of our ARP funding in hand. We went ahead and funded part of the ask with the understanding that we would fund the remaining amounts once funds were in. We took up the two proposals separately. They passed with only two abstentions on right to council due to a conflict of interest.
We did not discuss year 3 for TIRRC. We said we would look at it after listening to some more proposals. Personally I believe it would be a mistake not to fund year 3. We will not see funding of this caliber again. It would be a mistake to not setup this program as successfully as possible with hopes of future funding from other sources.
Future Agendas
The following is a draft of future agendas and requested amounts.
