City shares the wealth City shares the wealth (April 30, 2004)

Local public service groups reap federal dollars

By Grace Rauh

When the Mountain View City Council doled out federal funds to nonprofits, parks and affordable housing projects at its Tuesday meeting, nearly everyone got what they asked for -- and some received a little extra.

For the past few years, the council has been forced to painstakingly divide limited Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds -- which are allocated to cities by the federal government -- among local public service groups. And there was never enough to go around.

But at this week's city council meeting, the mood was more upbeat than in past years. That's because the council found itself in the exceptional position of having more than enough federal money to supply the public service organizations that requested funding.

"This is an unusual year," said Council member Rosemary Stasek. "I think we're in a unique position where we can honor the requests."

After fulfilling the wishes of 10 public service agencies -- which requested grants ranging from $5,000 to $41,519 -- the council was left with more than $5,000 to spare. Council members voted to split the extra money between the Community Services Agency emergency assistance division and the Second Harvest Food Bank.

Council members also took steps toward creating a new park and improving an existing one; they voted to allocate funding for playground equipment renovations at Klein Park and set aside more than $100,000 for the development of a park at 62 Devonshire Ave.

Although there were sufficient funds for a new park and CDBG grants, not every group that applied for funding came away with exactly what it wanted. The council opted to spend roughly $150,000 from the city's general fund on public service programs -- nearly $20,000 less than was needed to meet each groups' requests.

After some debate, council members voted to give the Community School of Music and Arts the amount the school was allocated in 2003 -- nearly $5,000 less than they requested this year. The council divided the remaining dollars between two new nonprofit applicants, the Health Trust and Rebuilding Together.

E-mail Grace Rauh at grauh@mv-voice.com

E-mail a friend a link to this story.