ARP Committee 6/15

I would like to start off by saying I am frustrated in our ARP process. This is not the vision the Council had when we created the financial oversight committee. I feel it has been dictated by the administration and other departmental priorities and not the community. Very early on we strayed away from the emergency needs to metro wish list items. That is why from the very first meeting I pushed so hard for a survey. It is also why on many occasions I did not vote to approve funding. It is not surprising that we now find ourselves in our current situation where we are given an 80 million proposal by the administration. We have been on this path for awhile now.

We did not take a vote on any items last week. We are still waiting for the second half of our ARP funding.

The following two proposals were presented to us by the administration in conjunction with the respective departments.

1) Affordable Housing- $10M

2) Homelessness Request- $50M

It’s important to note that this proposal detail has not come before the Homelessness Planning Council. I ask at the committee for it to be presented at the next meeting.

3) Other Mayor’s Office Request

If the committee approves all of the Mayor’s office request, that would leave 14.8 million for us to distribute among community priorities. We still have a commitment to fund the remaining request for Immigrant legal services and right to council. We only funded a part of the total requests because we did not have the second part of our ARP funds. I do not know what direction the committee will go and I am not saying that these proposals are not worthy. My hope is that the committee will keep in mind the community priorities.