CC Min 1998-05-11 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

organization where you are selling your real property in order to keep your organization going, and you are losing your membership in terms of the people you are serving, and you feel that, as they say in a letter I read from the Board, that they feel that people are not coming to them in their community for a wide variety of reasons.... because of race barriers, language barriers, a lot of things that I think should have been in the forefront of what they were addressing as a community organization - It seemed to us that their viability as an organization has diminished to the point where you could be in a position of saying you are putting good money after bad." Mrs. Keely said that the HHCC felt that the population of Fair Oaks Neighborhood deserved a community center that works for all of them. She said, "In no way are we trying to say that the people involved in this one don't care or are not trying. We believe that they are. It seems to us that what they are accomplishing isn't doing the job for the people they are supposed to be serving. We would like to see something that would work in its place. We aren't comfortable putting this money to keep bolstering something that doesn't appear to be working." Mrs. Keely said the HHCC members also had had the impression, from TEWCI's budget figures, that they did have $30,000 in reserves. Lorianna Kastrop, member of the HHCC, said she had kept a keen financial eye on the submitted budgets, and she had often questioned the requesting agencies on their budget figures. Mrs. Kastrop said she had asked TEWCI specifically how they were financially viable, and TEWCI had been unable to answer. She added that the HHCC didn't believe that any agency had an entitlement based on previous HSF A grants. Mrs. Kastrop said the HHCC "evaluated each application, each year in light of the goals of the City for the current population and what is going on in the community. And we try not to consider each agency as having an entitlement from the previous year. We don't consider ourselves 'to cut' funding to an agency if the following year there are perhaps more applications or as in CDBG the funding falls." Mrs. Kastrop said the grants "are not necessarily a reflection on an agency if the funding goes up or down. It is not an entitlement process." In response to Vice Mayor Ruskin's questions regarding how fewer funds for this service would enable a transition to a better method of service, Mrs. Kastrop said, "That was discussed at length during funding deliberations which TEWCI did not choose to attend even though it was held at the Fair Oaks Community Center. We spent.... a great deal of time addressing this particular agency, and we did deliberate rather extensively. Part of our conversation was, what we could envision for the Fair Oaks Community Center and the future of TEWCI and one idea brought up but not heard by them, was that a collaboration with another social service agency which might come forward given that TEWCI is having difficulties, and perhaps bring fresh ideas to the Center." In response to Council Member Ira's questions regarding ownership, Parks, Recreation and Community Services Superintendent Centeno, former Fair Oaks Community Center Coordinator, said, "In terms of ownership of the building, specifically the contract we had with the TEWCI organization, turns the title of the Senior Center over to the City of Redwood City, and then it accommodates TEWCI as an organization that is able to use the space.... I was first approached by Sally Salinas, Director of Target at that time. They had REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTE BOOK NO. 56 MAY II, 1998 MINUTES Page No. 464 PAGE 15