Parks, Recreation, and Arts Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It is 05:34. I now call this meeting of the parks recreation and arts commission to order. City clerk would you please conduct roll call?

Yes. Commissioner Baraza?

President.

Thank you. Commissioner Calia? Here. Thank you. Commissioner Dolan?

Here.

Thank you. Commissioner Duran is absent. Commissioner Kucharski is also absent. Commissioner Miller? Here. Vice Chair Ward?

Present.

And Chair McCoy?

Present. We have a quorum. Thank you. Do I have a motion to excuse the absence of commissioner Duran?

So moved.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Dolan. Thank you, Commissioner Miller. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. Do I have a motion to excuse the absence of commissioner Kercharski? I move. You commissioner Miller and commissioner Collier. All in favor say aye.

Aye. All opposed say no. We will now move we will now begin with the pledge of allegiance. Will everyone please stand. Thank you. City Clerk, are there any changes or proposed changes to tonight's agenda?

Yes, we have one change. The attachment on item 12A ID twenty six dash seven zero eight. It is the attachment for the EAAC draft grant guidelines cycle three. Should also be attached to 11A ID twenty six-seven zero six regarding discussion review of cycle three. And that is all the changes.

Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended?

So moved.

Thank you, Commissioner Dolan. Is there a second? Second. I think I heard you first. Thank you, Commissioner Miller. All in favor say aye. All opposed say no. This item is approved. We will now move on to our minutes. Are there any changes to the minutes from 04/20/2026?

There are no changes.

Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? So move. Thank you commissioner Collier is there a second?

Second.

Oh, on it today.

I think Scott Miller got that one.

Thank you Commissioner Miller. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. We will now move on to members and comments. Commissioner Barraza, do you have any comments or reports you would like to make to the submission?

Madam Chair, I just wanted to thank staff for all the hard work that has gone into seeking comments from the public. There was a meeting at the Mosqueda Center in Southeast Fresno that I really appreciate because we had a lot of attendance. And in my opinion, that's very positive because it's about seeking the input from the community. And then what we will see today is that some of that information is being incorporated into the draft guidelines that we'll be discussing. So, all of that is very positive. So, I wanted to acknowledge the hard work of Park staff in this effort. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Commissioner Miller? Thank you. Vice Chair Ward?

Yeah, I wanted to thank Jasmine Moore for inviting the members of this commission to attend the Flourish culminating event that was her Measure P funded project. And I was able to stop by for part of it with my daughter. It was great. There was live performances and sculpture and various types of visual artwork as well. So thank you for that. And then also, wanted to commend the community tennis at Roding Park. I attended that with my daughter, and they had over 200 people at their first ever beginner tennis day, and a lot of people who had never picked up a racket before. They had everything available for free. It was really well organized. Truly a lovely event.

Thank you. Commissioner Collier?

This will probably come up a little later on, but I just wanted to bring out two points. One is the amount of money that these groups are going to be getting and why we have to even go through this. The grant people won their grants fair and square. One group had to pay $1,500 to have a grant writer. And many other groups paid a lot more should have to go through this again.

I'm just curious of the reasoning behind it. I got some information from the paperwork, but it just doesn't seem fair that we have to apply again when we've already won. That's all I have to say.

Thank you. Commissioner Dolan.

No comments.

Thank you. I would like to thank the community who showed up this weekend for the Doctor. Struble event. It was a very, very successful event. Vice Chair Ward came out in support and he talked to us about community building, power solutions, and how we need to work together as a community, as a city, to really move policy and bring investments and resources in our community.

And he was well received, and now community is asking for him to come back out. So I guess I have some fundraising to do to bring this amazing young man back out to Fresno to share his gift with all of us and help us with our advocacy work. So I'm very, very excited. I don't say this too much, but I'm very proud of myself for being able to pull this off. I don't. So now we will move on to subcommittee reports. Does the EAAC subcommittee have an update and would like to provide to the commission?

We wanted to thank the staff and all the community members who have been coming out to our many meetings for their engagement and participation. I feel like Chair McCoy and I have been helping move the process forward and make things better. We have items coming up on the agenda tonight on those topics. Thank you.

We will now move on to city administration and park staff reports and comments. Does anyone from the administration have any reports or comments for the commission?

Good evening. Yes. Just wanted to let everyone know that the mayor rolled out the FY twenty seven budget last week and the budget hearings will officially start on June 8 here in Council Chambers.

Thank you. Does anyone from the park staff have any reports or comments for the commission?

Good evening chair. No reports tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. I forgot to mention that we may need a special meeting for the budget presentation on the park since the mayor has rolled out his budget. And if the EAAC grant guidelines are not adopted tonight, we will have a special meeting for that as well. So I just want to be very transparent with the public and make that announcement. We will now move on to unscheduled communication.

So I do have cards up here. And I want to make sure that the unscheduled communication doesn't have anything to do with the hearings on the agenda. If you would like to make a comment on the hearings, please reserve your cards and I will call you up when that item is called. You will have up to three minutes. As a reminder, again, is just a scheduled communication so you could comment on any workshop that we may have. The the script was kinda all over the place today. But I will go ahead and call up Samuel Padilla, please.

Everybody for My name is Sam Padilla with Consortium Bio, a nonprofit. Just want to update you on where we are with our nonprofit. Since PRAC's last meeting, Consortium Bioeth to the sport of wrestling has continued building youth excellence through social entrepreneurship by expanding community engagement, youth development, programming, financial literacy education, and wrestling based outreach throughout the Fresno and Central Valley, while creating greater visibility and opportunities for the sport of wrestling. Consortium Bai participated in Tyler Maxwell's second annual Spring Fest event held at Ironside Park in District 4. Organization members engaged directly with local families, youth, community leaders, while promoting positive youth recreation, wellness initiatives, and the sport of wrestling throughout the community.

As part of the event, our team produced a fifteen minute community feature video that aired through CMEK. The video is currently available platforms as well as YouTube. ConsortiumBai also completed a financial education course at the Women's of Entrepreneurs Center in the partnership with Craig School of Business under the guidance of Professor Parr and several CPA students. The course provided valuable foundational education related to nonprofit financial structure, budgeting, sustainability, and organizational planning. As part of the program, the organization also created a short video documenting the education experience, which is currently being shared through social media platforms, including YouTube and Instagram.

Additionally, Consortium Bio attended Central Valley Higher Education Consortium event, where members connected through the higher education representatives, elected state leaders, national local community organizations that provided valuable resources and networking opportunities. The event highlighted important discussions surrounding the future of education pathways, artificial growth opportunities that will continue supporting the foundation and the expansion of the organization. Wrestling our development activities, Cal USA Wrestling Association hosted the

No, you have one minute.

Hosted the Association Dual Championship Tournament at Saland Arena, where 16 associations from across California came here to Saland Arena to wrestle. In Central Valley, wrestlers must first compete in local qualifying dual tournaments to earn plays. So they had a tournament on top of that to qualify to compete at Saland Arena. And then we just hosted a free wrestling clinic at Justin Garza High School, a free wrestling clinic collaboration with Lamar City College, Coach Damani Buckley from the Valley Wrestling Club, and Sergeant Ruben Romero from the Army National Guard. The clinic focused on youth athletic development, mental wellness, mentorship, leadership, and community resource awareness through the platform of wrestling and athletics.

Approximately 100 community members have participated in this event with families, athletes traveling from the communities throughout the Central Valley, including Fresno, Madera, and Delano. The event also included

Thank you. Yes. Next speaker, Julie Hahn.

Testing, testing. Testing. Good evening. My name is Julie Hahn, and I have served as the treasurer of the Youth Orchestras of Fresno for the past ten years. For seventy six years, the youth orchestras have remained a vital part of Fresno's art community.

Through economic downturns and changing times, we have persevered because we believe every child in Fresno deserves access to music education. Our mission is rooted in equity and inclusivity. We accept all students regardless of their financial circumstances. We provide scholarships and financial aid every year, and we employ local music coaches, many of whom were once students in our program and returned to mentor the next generation. While we may be an established organization, we are not financially secure.

We do not qualify for professional orchestra grants, and we do not hire professional grant writers. We balance our checkbook every month to make sure we have enough to pay our expenses. Like many nonprofits, we rely on annual donations and grants simply to survive. To qualify for measure p funding, we submitted all required financial documents, met all the deadlines, and attended all the meetings. In cycle one, measure one measure p funding allowed us to expand outreach, strengthen partnerships, increase marketing, and offer free events to the public.

That investment increased student enrollment and audience attendance and brought greater stability to our organization. In cycle two, we experienced a significant reduction in funding and had to reduce free programming, coaching staff, and marketing efforts. With the uncertainty of cycle three, we face even deeper cuts. Without system sustainable funding, we may be forced to raise tuition, reduce scholarships, hire fewer coaches, scale back outreach, and potentially close programs. We support emerging organizations and believe Fresno needs both new voices as well as programs like ours, long term educational systems serving Fresno's children year after year.

We respectfully ask you to reconsider the proposed cap for established organizations, so we can continue providing accessibility and opportunity for the next generation of Fresno's youth. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Just a reminder to everyone in attendance and everyone online, if you would like to make a comment regarding the hearings, you can make a comment at that time. If you would like to make a comment in regards to cycle two, you can make a comment on item 12 b. That would be the time to make that comment. This portion is just for unscheduled communication.

So I just wanted to remind everyone. So I do have other, cards for youth orchestra, so I will call those at the appropriate time. I just didn't wanna stop her in her comments. Thank you. Do we have anyone else for unscheduled communication in the audience? Do we have anyone online?

Yes. I have Cindy P. You have three minutes for unscheduled communication.

Hi. Can you hear me?

Yes.

My name is Cindy Pembino. I live in D1. I am with Fresno Church, a ministry coordinator for Christ Helping Hands. And we have been renting tables over at Rodion Park for our monthly outreach for close to one decade, close to ten years now. And I'm very disappointed that there there was a structural fire on the south end of the arch of the Pine Grove Shelter there.

Now that shelter serves many purposes for many in our community, not just our ministry. There's family reunions there. There's birthday parties. There's people that love to go to the nearby little park that was upgraded, which is beautiful. And I just cannot fathom why I've been told for almost two years, and we haven't had it will be the second summer it's been closed. Why this is taking so long? I have been in contact with my council member and mister Aguirre. I have not got a feedback yet from mister Aguirre. I sent him a email last week. And and Miguel has told me that it's in the works, and it's in the works, and it's in the works.

And I don't know if he has any control over it or not, but I'm coming to you because it's now summer, and that shelter provides a lot of summer for our outreach and in the winter too. So I'd like to know if I can get a update or we can get that open, not just, like I said, for our church ministry, that's once a month out there for the community, but also for the families that go and for the many other uses that that shelter at Pine Grove Shelter has provided for many, many, many years. So I I thank you for your time, and I'd appreciate some feedback if possible. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. We have Nikki Real. You have three minutes.

Okay. Could you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay. I wanted to say let me see. It was maybe the last meeting or the meeting before, but I believe that it was whoever was in control of the mic that I I'm kinda out of breath. I'm kinda running because I'm trying to make it in person. But there was somebody who had made public comment and was cut off, and I still have an issue with that.

And I think it's maybe something that's there to today in the front. But I'd like to bring it up again to say, I don't know what under what authority she felt like she could just do that because public comment, even though people might not wanna hear people what they have to say or they have places to go. If you wanna serve on the board or if you wanna work in this arena, you need to respect people's rights and their ability to participate. So, yeah, that's all I'll say for now.

Thank you.

There's no one else on line. Thank you. You.

You. Johannes? We're on schedule communication. Thank you.

Thank you, board chair. My name is Johannes Reinders. I have a background in public engagement, equity, tribal affairs, and just general accessibility to make sure publics can engage. Small point of order, want to say during unscheduled comment. This is, I believe, the third meeting, including subcommittee meetings.

This is the

third meeting where I have seen the agenda specifically not published in hard copy. Just something that I reflect on as people attempt to give public comment and attempt to give it correctly under your decorum rules, where they're confused about which item they're supposed to comment on, how many items there are to comment on, what item number to write down. This may be, again, for proper accessibility and for proper engagement of yourselves to your constituents. It's something you may want to look into. As well, there's a handful of documents up there which appear to be duplicates, but are not.

And so, an agenda that clearly and accessibly outlines those items would be good for your public to engage with you correctly. And something that, as we go through this engagement process, this feedback process, is just something worth remarking on how you engage with the public. Not in perfection, but in advocacy and in intention. Thank you kindly.

Thank you. I'll make sure, because we did have copies of the agenda out. We must have ran out because you guys are we we have a full house. So we do have copies of we did have copies of the agenda out. So I'll make sure that we have enough and that they are a little bit more friendly that you will be able to follow along. I do apologize for that. You don't have anyone else? Okay. I will now close for I think I might have mixed you up over here. I'm sorry.

Let me find them. Camilla, I have yours. You can come up for unscheduled communication, and I'll find the last two.

Thank you. Thank you, Board, for allowing me this time to speak. And I just wanted to ask, the Parks and Measure P offer to promote tennis at Roading Park. We are a member of the United States Tennis Association trying to promote community public tennis. USTA is promoting community tennis with a movement of calling it Love a Park, which we used to have at the park, Adopt a Park, Bringing adults and youth to the sport of tennis at the public parks.

Rhodium Park would like to know how we can promote and build this tennis program and relationships with the parks and rec. We've tried setting up meetings, but we have not been successful at this point. So, we just want to find out how we can bring the community tennis, as Laura Ward saw last Saturday at the park. We've got a lot of people that are out there playing, old, young, everyone of all ages out there to play. We'd like to know what do we need to do to help promote this public tennis at Rhodium Park? Thank you.

Thank you. Adam.

Good evening, Commission. My name is Adam Balakian. I just want to take a few moments to talk about an event we had on May 9 at Rhoding Park Tennis Courts, Central Valley Beginner Tennis Day, where we had over a 120 people come out who are brand new to the sport of tennis. We had over 60 volunteers who volunteered their time for the sport. We had over 11 head coaches in different tennis organizations, including including various schools, coaches, and, we also had two commissioners there.

We had, Laura Ward and McKay Duran. So, just wanted to bring that up, let everybody know there's a lot of great tennis happening completely for free out at Roading Park. These are a lot of people with a lot of experience who are volunteering their time because they love the sport and they wanna teach people the sport. We had all the equipment available for free. We had all the balls. We had all the coaching. We had snacks for free as well. So, it was a really great public event and we don't stop there because we do community tennis at Rhodan Park on Tuesdays and Sundays from 06:30 to 09:30. It's completely free. We have all the equipment.

It's all ages, all skill levels. The courts have been absolutely packed recently, which has been absolutely amazing to see. And just for procedural, I wanna see if I can get the thank you letter from the Central Valley Beginner Tennis Day into the agenda as one of the items. On top of that, I wanted to say that sorry about that people really enjoyed the courts. They really thought they were very well maintained and that all the money that had gone to them from Measure P funds was well put together and well used.

I do want to bring up one other thing, that is regarding a tennis tournament that has, for the last forty years, been held at Roating Park. It's a forty year tradition, which I'm kind of going to put out there saying that it was destroyed for really no reason at all. And the reason I'm saying that is we were, the Roading Park Tennis Club board was informed last year that in order to host this tournament which they've been hosting, practically for decades, they would have to pay a daily fee of $1,500 a day. So, in total, $2,800 for two days. Well, this is a nonprofit that's a volunteer board.

Those sort of funds are not available. But, on top of that, we would have to, the board would have to charge the public so much money to participate in this open tournament that anybody could be a part of that it would be unconscionable to charge people a $100,150 dollars to, just break even on this. On top of that, the funds from the tournament have usually been donated to the honor guard as a way of giving back to the community. So, we did send an email to the parks department. We, got back a generic response saying that they could do a 15% discount, but 15% off $2,800 is still gonna result in having to charge the public an unconscionable amount to participate.

On top of that, the parks department, as far as we're aware, is not offering any tennis programming to the public. So, not only is this tournament being, basically removed for no reason, on top of that, there's not really any alternatives that's being offered by the parks to get people out playing tennis, and coached, and in tournaments.

Thank you.

Chair, can I just ask you a quick question? Sorry, I wanted to ask Commissioner. Director Aguirre, can you confirm that Parks Department does not provide any tennis programming?

That's correct. We do not have any tennis programming at Okay. This

Next speaker, Dominique.

Test, test, alright. Thank you Board members for your time. My name is Dominic Gardenaz. I'm a community member of the Parkside Roading Park Tennis Club. I wanted to follow-up more on just the condition of the area around the Quartzsite Roading Park.

For example, we are having a large issue with the maintenance of the bathrooms nearest to the park. There's been multiple instances with video proof, picture proof if necessary, that these parks are, or that these restaurants are in disarray. You know, there's a lot of unhoused activity there that makes it very unsafe for a lot of the community members to feel safe to go use the facilities there if they're accessible, if they're open, and if they're maintained. Following with that as well, we are having an issue with the payment for parking. Again, like Adam mentioned, we have a lot of community members in this club, and it is a growing club.

So having community members find out when they get there that they do have to pay for parking, some of them not coming expecting that, is it becoming a little bit of an issue, especially after hours causing some members to go park outside around the surrounding areas. Because of that, a lot of members have said they don't feel comfortable coming anymore because of the financial aspect as well as the safety aspect. So, I'm just hoping we could get a little bit more attention towards those areas, both in terms of parking and in terms of maintenance of the facilities there. Where again, this is a free community organization. Again, like Adam mentioned, free we do supplies.

We have everything provided. Again, like we've told everybody when we go, you just gotta bring yourself. You don't gotta bring Iraqi. You don't gotta bring balls. You don't gotta bring a coach. You don't have to expect a coach to be there because this is ran, community facilitated. So, just would like to put a little bit more attention to those things. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

I'm with Brody Parkinson's Club also. I should have a card up there.

Your name?

Doctor. William Contente.

Okay.

C O N T E N T E.

Thank you. And I apologize for mixing them up.

No problem, this is my first time here so I wasn't sure which box to check.

Go ahead, yeah.

Go ahead, okay, thank you. Pleasure to be here, thank you. I am a paying member of Roading Park Tennis Club. I've played since I was in sixth grade, and Coach Camilla was my coach. So I've played at Roading Park many, many, many years and I believe I've learned a lot in the last twenty four hours about Measure P and the funding. We play there a lot. Your courts are fantastic. So the money that's been issued for court surfaces, fantastic. The new lights that are there, fantastic. The security the safety my girlfriend captains a team that just went up to Northern California section I was on national team last year but that's a whole another story a lot of women don't feel safe at night There's there are unhoused.

There are animals that come along the court. There are a lot of noises, a lot of sirens, a lot of everything. You if there is a opening or a spot for a volunteer person from Roading Park Tennis Club, we would be happy to advise your Measure P allocation. We'd be happy to give input. You need somebody that's there in the club playing on a competitive team, playing at night till nine, 10:00 to give you input as to what's going on there. You have pickleball courts being built. You have one bathroom poorly lit with a lot of unhoused people in there at night. You need somebody telling you that it's not safe. We have to send people in groups. People don't want to come down there at night.

Your facilities are wonderful. You're allocating a lot of money for pickleball courts and a sport court. You have one bathroom, and you now have picnic tables over on the side. You don't have the parking. You don't have the bathroom facilities.

You don't have the security safety for the number of people that are gonna come down there to play pickleball, tennis, and if we can get a tennis tournament that doesn't cost a fortune for people to play, that would be fantastic. So please, my my message is to include a either a board member from the roading park tennis club that functions very very well or a community person like me that plays there on competitive teams I'm not on the board but I am a paying member there you could charge one fee each year for parking that would cover all the tennis team members that are going to be playing there often instead of having to pay each time we go you could have another bathroom you could also fence off the tennis pickleball area and heaven forbid you make it a profitable enterprise by having more events and weaken things as a almost like a private tennis club that's a whole another thing but safety security parking, bathrooms for the number of people that will be there. So you've done a great job with the allocation but please include somebody that's playing there for your future advisement.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. I will now close unscheduled communication, and we will now move on to discussion items. ID number 26Dash706, discussion review of the cycle three draft grant guidelines and public comments. Will someone from the parks department please begin the presentation? They're different?

Oh, I went straight to discussion items. I forgot the workshop. My bad. 10AID26Dash648. Workshop update on expanding access to arts and culture grant program. I'm trying to get to the guidelines so we can get this public feedback.

Good evening commissioners sarah gaitan program manager with the parks department and going to be giving an update on the expanded access to arts and culture grant program gonna ask please hold your questions to the end of the presentation to make sure that we hear all of the information first. So, general updates. Staff have been working on responding to Cycle two grantees and preparing the grant guidelines for cycle three in partnership with the expanded access to arts and culture subcommittee. The parks department has sought a second opinion and legal has reaffirmed that the cycle three notice of funding opportunity must be released by 06/30/2026. For Cycle two grantees, two technical assistance meetings were held for grantees that have not received any funding.

On 05/08/2026, there was meeting number one here in chambers at City Hall. And on May 13, we had meeting number two at Ted C. Wills. Both meetings were held in person with a virtual option. A total of 14 grantees attended in person and 31 attended virtually.

The meeting purpose was to provide an orientation to grantees to enable the contracting process. Grantees and fiscal sponsors were all invited via email. Here you see a graphic that was created to help Cycle Two grantees navigate the process to get them set up in the city's system. The graphic identifies 10 necessary steps to go through, to go through the entire grantee journey. During the meetings, we learned that grantees are in various stages of their process.

In some cases, projects have started or are nearing 100% completion without receiving any grant funding. Staff have begun scheduling one on one meetings to ensure the correct contract template is used based on the unique situation at of each of the organizations the city's City Attorney's Office and RISC have been consulted to advise on adjustments to agreements based on the variety of situations that we have been coming across. For grantees that receive 90% of funding but still need 10% funding, pending legal, we have a technical assistance meeting that will be held in the next few weeks. We're tentatively tracking with the last week of May. Please save all of your receipts, invoices, and backup financial documentation for your expenses.

And, please continue to track all of the data outlined in your original grant agreement with Fresno Arts Council for reporting purposes. And, this could be everything that was included in the reporting, which is the number of youth, adults, seniors served, etcetera. Cycle three is still underway. To this date, we've had several meetings with robust community engagement. The first community listening session was on April 22 at TEDSY Wills.

We had session number two on the twenty fifth at Maxiel Parks. We had session number three at Musqueda on April 28. And April 29, we had the subcommittee meeting, which was the second one, where we reviewed the ARC Handbook. On April 30, we closed the guideline comment portal that was online where we collected all of the comments for the Cycle Three Draft Guidelines. And on May 8, the Handbook Comment Portal was closed for that particular item as well.

On May 13, Guidelines Subcommittee Meeting Number three was had, and we reviewed the guidelines and the handbook and with incorporated public comments page by page. Today, on May 18, we will review with PRAC the guidelines once again with the opportunity to provide feedback and any recommendations. And as Chair mentioned, tonight we will also be scheduling a special meeting with the final opportunity to recommend the guidelines in order to meet that June 30 deadline. Added resources for agendas, minutes, attachments, and any recordings from the meetings, you can visit our Legistar website, which is linked there. Or you could also visit our Expanded Access to Arts and Culture website, is www.fresno.goveaac.

In the next thirty days, we plan on beginning the interviews for new staff. We plan on completing a technical assistance for cycle two grantees to enable the contracting process. We will be reviewing Cycle III draft guidelines and associated materials with PRAC today, once again. We plan on having the Special Meeting Request for the week of May 25 to finalize the Cycle III guidelines. We will continue to build on a grant portal site for the Cycle III grantees.

We will continue to build out the Expanded Access to Arts and Culture website that is on our page. And, we plan to finalize the Cycle III grant guidelines to bring before sitting council on June 18. For ongoing updates, the City of Fresno will provide updates during monthly PRAC meetings. PRAC meetings are held every third Monday of the month. And, we have listed here the next few meetings that will be coming up in the next few months.

We have our phone number, which is the (559) 621-2999. We have our email, expandedartsfresno dot gov. And then we also have the website there where you can see recordings, meetings, and any documents that we need the public to see. This will conclude the presentation, and I will open it up for any questions that anybody may have on this.

Thank you. Thank you, Sarah, for that presentation. Does any commissioners have any questions on this presentation? Commissioner Barraza, no. Commissioner Miller? Vice Chair Ward?

For your technical assistance meetings that you had, I think with the cycle two grantees, were they recorded? Are those being posted? Do you think that you've been able to engage with all of the cycle two grantees? Or how would they be able to access that information? I just feel like there's been not enough communication and then an overwhelming amount of communication. So I think having something that people can go back to revisit at their own pace is helpful.

Yes. So, we did record both of those meetings, and they are posted on the website under the meetings tab. Anybody can go back and listen to them. Together, we had a little over 30 attendees for the TA meetings.

Was it on the slide?

We had a total of 45 attendees for the TA assistance. We are consolidating all of the attendees to make sure that we got all of the organizations that were supposed to be included in that. If so, will be. If not, we will be reaching out to them soon.

Commissioner Collier.

Just want to thank you for providing all these opportunities for feedback and inclusion. That's a wonderful thing. I talked to Mr. Aguirre one time when we were talking about hiring a cultural arts director for the city of Fresno, and we had one, Mabel Selland. And if when you all go outside, there's a beautiful built painting out there that was done during her tenure and working with the city. So there is so much potential out there and I thank you for your efforts.

Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Kerchorski? You good? Commissioner Dolan? Sarah, I have a couple of questions.

To complete the technical assistance for cycle two grantees, you guys are going to do a meeting tentatively at the end of May. How many meetings are scheduled for that?

We have one right now, but we are still looking into how to better communicate with everybody. So we're still working on what that's going to look like.

Yeah, I don't think one meeting would be sufficient enough. I think there's gonna have to be some type of schedule built out to be able to assist all grantees from cycle two to make sure that all funding has been paid out and that we can all be on the same page when it comes to timeline and reporting and how things are gonna be wrapping up in cycle two so we can solely concentrate on cycle three. Yeah. With cycle two still hanging in limbo, it's a confusion sometimes and it's like how can we begin cycle three when we haven't even healed what happened in cycle two. So I think having more than just one meeting schedule will kind of bring some closure to that and be able to answer some questions that cycle two grantees may have.

Because I'm still getting phone calls from people who haven't received any funding or who have not received the second portion of their funding. I want to know, do they still do reporting, right, Because of what's going on with cycle two. I think that we need to be very, very transparent when it comes to this process.

That is why we are going back to the drawing board as we speak.

And as far as the build out of the grant portal site for cycle three, is there any I I haven't excuse me for saying this, but I haven't visited that site physically, and I wouldn't have access to it. But from some of the comments that we heard that it's not very friendly used. So how are we making it to where it's a more friendlier website and it's easy to upload documents and things like that.

Right. So, in previous years, Fresno Arts Council was using Submittable. And that is the portal that we have been receiving some of the feedback from. We are building out our own through our ISD department. And we are incorporating that feedback into how we're building this out.

It's still not complete. So, we are still in the testing phase and addition and all that. It will be our hopes is that it will be an all encompassing portal where application documents reporting everything will be submitted in one area and each organization can keep track of their own files as they go and we're trying to make it simple as possible and user friendly. So we're still working on it, but once we have a test ready to be viewed, we can bring it back and get some feedback.

And the next question, I have been hearing from community when they receive an when they send an email in regards to cycle two or cycle three, they're getting a generic response and not really getting a response to their questions. Do we have someone who's solely responsible to responding to those emails, or is it just spread around with staff who's assigned to the measure P port?

We have a dedicated team for that email. We are trying to respond the best way possible until we have concrete answers for them. But we are hoping that with the technical assistance that are coming up, we will be able to get everybody's questions out of the way through that.

Okay. Those are all my questions. Do we have any other questions in regards to this presentation?

Chair McCoy, can I follow just Yes? Sarah, thank you for your presentation. When is the scheduled completion of the website you're having done in house?

The portal? We don't have a set date yet. But, we are hoping to have it before the end of June.

Before the end of Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Sarah.

You're welcome.

Now we will move on to discussion items. ID number 26Dash706, discussion review of the cycle three draft guidelines and public comments. Will someone from the Parks Department please begin the presentation? Hi, Shelby.

Hi. Just give me one minute here. So I do want to note that I'm going to go through the presentation, and then in the back there are copies of every iteration so far of the draft guidelines. We're on version three now. So, after I get through the presentation, we're going to do my famous walk through of each section of the guidelines.

I may pull up a chair at some point. And, so, I'll direct you to that copy following this presentation. And, Shelby McNabb, Assistant Director of Parks Department, should have started there. Alright. So, this presentation is gonna provide an overview of the public comments that we received in a section by section review of the proposed draft guidelines.

Just as a reminder, feedback is essential to the update process, and comments and questions are welcome on all aspects of those guidelines. So, just to give you an idea, I know we've been on a tight timeline, but we really have prioritized a collaborative process, working with PRAC subcommittee, as well as the community. So, just to give you a rundown of how we got to where we are today, staff provided a discussion draft to the PRAC subcommittee on April 15. Comments were taken on each page, one by one, from the PRAC subcommittee, and then there was a public comment period where we received numerous comments that evening, as well. We also opened the portal that Sarah had mentioned so that online comments could be submitted, and then staff got to work incorporating those comments into the draft.

A revised version, incorporated each of those comments, was presented to the PRAC subcommittee last week on May 13. And, again, we went through page by page. And so, tonight, we have the third iteration in front of you. Just to give you a sense of the public comments that we received, there were three meetings. There were 83 total attendees. There were four zero one total comments at those meetings. Each meeting was recorded, and so we had a staff member go table to table. There were different topics that were reviewed at each table. We got 110 comments on the grant guidelines at those meetings. We got 80 on the fiscal sponsorship and eligibility.

Open feedback, we had a table just to share any comments that folks had in mind. There were 96 comments there. And then, the application review and scoring process received 115 comments. So, that combined with the online survey, the three listening sessions, and the two subcommittee meetings, we had a total of seven sixty comments received on the different drafts that were prepared. And, just to give you a sense of which section of the guidelines received the most comments, You can see highlighted there that eligibility, fiscal sponsorship, and the application review and scoring process received the highest number of comments.

So, comments and all draft materials are posted to the web site. The website's listed there. And on May 8, the public comments that were received were emailed to all PRAC commissioners to allow time for you all to have advanced review. This agenda item online also includes a copy of all public comments. It looks like an Excel spreadsheet.

It lists who made the comment and what the topic was about, and specifically what they had to say. So, in order to incorporate the comments and review them all, every comment, all seven sixty were reviewed. I personally went through each and every one of them. Edits were then made throughout the draft guidelines. And in looking at the prior versions, you'll see some annotation along the side using the comment feature in Word.

Clarifying language was added using track changes, and questions requiring further legal review were flagged and submitted to city attorney's office. Summaries of public feedback were also annotated through the draft so that you could see some of the questions that the PRAC subcommittee and staff needed to wrestle through to determine the best path forward as far as what to incorporate in the guidelines. And, again, all prior versions with red lines are available on the website. There are copies in the back as well. I will say, we started out the first draft was 19 pages, and after incorporating the comments and making edits that clarified, we got to 26 pages.

So, we went through very thoroughly and tried to incorporate as much as possible. The guideline sections are listed here, and we're gonna be going through each of them with some highlights. Chair McCoy, we, in prior meetings, have stopped at each page for comments. Would you like to do the same this evening for the commission to give feedback, or would you like to follow a different model?

Think stop at each page for compacts, since this is being presented to the whole commission.

Sounds good. Okay, so we have several sections to go through. You'll see them listed there on the table. I'm gonna ask the clerk to switch over to the draft guidelines. In front of you, Commission, you should have a copy that has red writing across the top and says draft updated following the May 13 PRAC subcommittee meeting.

So, I'll give you a moment to turn to that. For those who are in person, there are copies in the back as well. And those online, this item was originally attached to agenda item 12A. But, as clerk mentioned in the beginning, it should have also been attached to this item as well. So, you'll be able to find the file online there if you're unable to view the font large enough in the version that's on the screen.

Alright. So, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go over each section, giving a little bit of rationale. There's much more annotation in the prior versions because we explained kind of the basis. There are a few comments throughout here that reflect some of the decisions made at the last meeting last week. But we'll go ahead and get started. So, page number's at the bottom. I'm going to skip past page one. That is just the table of contents. And, you'll note on page two, there's some red writing there that this draft is intended for discussion purposes. It is subject to change based on your feedback tonight.

And, then final legal review will be conducted before it goes to counsel to make the eighteenth. And, as Sarah mentioned, you're able to give feedback, and you may choose to adopt with the changes that you communicate tonight, or we can look at it again at the special meeting. Okay, moving on to page three. So, this page just provides an overview and background. It speaks to Measure P briefly, and then references the Cultural Arts Plan with links throughout so that the grantees can see what were some of the priorities and goals outlined in that plan.

The vision statement for the Cultural Arts Plan is also listed there at the bottom. Are there any questions or changes recommended for page three? This one's an easy one. So, okay. Yeah. Alright. So, on page four, we also outlined the Cultural Arts Plan goals, recommendations, and strategies. When looking at a city plan, it can be helpful for folks to have an idea of where to find the information. And, since this draft set of guidelines prioritizes the goals, recommendations, and strategies found in the plan, this is really more of like an instructional page so that folks can find those very same goals, recommendations, and strategies within the plan. Are there any questions that you have on page four?

Okay, seeing none, I'll move on to page five. So, on page five, we go over the Measure P grant requirements, specifically in expenditure category number four. That outlines that 12% of the funds will be made available on an annual basis to invest in competitive grants for nonprofit organizations that support and expand access to arts and cultural programming. I will make a note, and I've stated it in prior meetings, that the key operative term there is competitive grants in nonprofit organizations. We did receive many comments wishing and requesting that the funding could go directly to artists and not necessarily nonprofits.

We've also received comments that infer that the funds are like an entitlement fund, where you would get them routinely every year. And, I just want to note that Measure P specifically enumerates that they are competitive, and that they have to go to nonprofits, as well. You'll also see in Section B, there are, there's language about working in partnership with Fresno Arts Council. And, while previously that looked like a service agreement, since that agreement has been terminated in Cycle Three, one of the things that we shared with the Sub subcommittee last week was that the Fresno Arts Council is what partnership looks like right now is them sharing a lot of the information so that artists can see the opportunities to engage for this grant program, to see when guidelines and things are being spoken about at public meetings. You'll notice on their social media that they've been sharing the resources, and we really appreciate that to highlight to their audience.

You'll see multiple solicitations. You'll see that in these grant guidelines meeting those requirements. The ordinance also includes that funding should be made for core operating and project support grants, and that you're all's responsibility is to ensure that the grant applications are reviewed in a transparent and competitive process. You'll see that Section C from the ordinance is not showing up here on this page. That's because it's mentioned in prior pages when speaking about the Culture Arts Plan because it's specific to the Culture Arts Plan.

And then, in Section D, the operating support, you'll see the language that's specific to those type of grants, which is intended to support organizational stability for organizations that reflect the cultural, geographic, and demographic diversity of the city, and also to reflect the proportion of each grantee's overall operations that serves residents within or visitors to the City Of Fresno's sphere of influence. And then, in Section E, you'll see some priorities enumerated there related to diverse public and youth engagement and equity. So, the reason I went through in such detail for Measure P is because we really deferred to what the language in the ordinance says in building the draft guidelines so that it's very clearly tied to the ordinance itself. And, as a result of that, for funding priorities for this grant program, we have indicated and highlighted that Section E there, that funding should be prioritized for programs that support and expand diverse public engagement and equity and programs that support and expand youth engagement and equity. The Cultural Arts Plan also identifies many other grant funding priorities.

Any questions on page five?

Shelby? You may not be able to answer this. But considering Measure P, or the ordinance of living document, if we ever wanted to change that wording around awards going directly to artists as opposed to nonprofits, would that have to go back to the ballot? Is that the way that would work?

I'm going to defer to legal on that one. Yes. Because it's a substantial change. It would have to go back to the voters for that approval, for Okay. That

So, not a simple matter.

No. And, I just reiterate it because you'll see throughout the comments that consistently that's been a request. It's not within our power to actually do that currently. Any other questions on page five?

I think

it's a related question. At the subcommittee meeting on May 13, you were bringing out the idea of nonprofit organizations, I think, contracting with artists and culture members instead of coming in under a fiscal sponsorship to receive awards. And I think at that time, it was just kind of very late at night and a little hard to process. But I was wondering, is that something that was thought more about after that subcommittee meeting? Or was there additional kind of thoughts or information on that that maybe this commission would be able to consider?

So for that item, what we were discussing is there's been a lot of discussion on fiscal sponsorship. But, another way to contract with, I mean, arts organization, or artists or cultural bearers may also be to include them in a nonprofit's application. For example, hiring an artist to paint a mural, that's a line item as a subcontracted item versus referring to it as a sponsorship. So I think it's achieving similar goals if that artist isn't ultimately wanting to be a nonprofit. But really, it's just a different way of presenting your budget because a lot of budgets included contracted services.

So, Angela, I can send a note over from her legal opinion. But essentially, that may be another avenue. And you'll see in the draft scoring rubric that there were additional points added for those who were hiring cultural bearers or local artists. But, I just think that there's been a lot of emphasis on fiscal sponsorship, but another way to do that is to incorporate them as part of your proposal as, you know, a contracted service just like you would do in any other grant. Any concerns from a legal perspective that off the bat? I would have to look at it to be able to advise.

Okay. Yeah.

And how soon will we be advised if that's, once you look at it, if that's something that we can explore?

Well, artist fees are listed as an eligible expense in the draft. So that's essentially how you would include it in your budget. But we can submit the RLS. Yeah, we'll submit the RLS tomorrow.

Okay, thank you. Yes.

The part about having the artist get that art grants themselves, The Arts Council, throughout the years, was a grant maker and used to have individual artists at one time. And why they were not part of this new renewal thing, I don't know. But it's something to look at. Thank you.

Yeah. And just to be clear on my response to Commissioner Ward related to what you just stated. So, I'm not presuming that we would contract directly with ARTIS. It still would have to go through the competitive nonprofit application. But thank you for your comment.

And just to be clear, you're not proposing to change the language either, correct? Because it sounds like if we artist would be able to do this. We're just trying to figure out a way to include them to where they could still receive funding as a subcontractor, correct?

That's correct. So it would be well outside of my scope to try to change the language and measure P. I'm just reflecting what the community stated.

Exactly, yeah.

I am but a messenger on that one. Okay, any other questions on page five? Okay, so we'll submit that RLS. And moving on to page six. So, on page six, we outline the available funding and funding allocations.

And, you'll see that this section has undergone a number of edits in the prior versions. One thing that we have listed here is that there's a total of 6,400,000 and some change there available for cycle three grants. There was a lot of community feedback related to getting funding out to as many organizations as possible. And in that interest, we have indicated that applicants could submit either for general operating support or project support, but not both. That's done to support more broad access.

And it would not have an impact, though, on fiscal sponsors who may submit an application for themselves and on behalf of their organizations. So, setting that track, whether you could apply for either general operating support or project support, wouldn't impact the fiscal sponsors for those sponsored orgs. We are proposing to release this in multiple solicitations consistent with Measure P so that there would be at least one solicitation for project support grants and then one solicitation for general operating support grants. Now, this section had a lot of discussion, and you'll see in the draft, unfortunately, the tables are not redlined. But, following our subcommittee meeting last week, we put together some options about partial funding awards.

So, what we're proposing, in past cycles, folks received anywhere between 30%, 60%, 90% of their requests. The initial draft suggested that perhaps the grantees should receive 100% of their requests. Community comments then indicated that folks wanted to spread money around as far as possible, and perhaps we should consider awarding 75%, 80% of the requests instead of 100%. And then, the subcommittee and I worked through what could that look like if we were going to award less than 100%. So, are options here that I thought would be a good starting place for the commission to discuss to try to determine the best path forward.

If partial awards were gonna be made, that could be done perhaps based on the application score percentile. So, option one indicates that if you were within that top five percentile, the 95% to 100 in terms of your scoring, you could get 100%. 90 to 94.99 would get 90%. And you can see down the table there, that's option one. Option two gives a little bit more of a nuanced spread.

So, 95% to 100 would be 100% awarded. 90 to 94 would be 95%, and so on down the table. And then, flipping to the next page, and I'll pause there after this portion. On page seven, option three is just another way to try to split the funds percentage wise based on the score. So I know I'll give you a minute to take a look at that. And then if there are questions, recommendations, or other options that you all would like to discuss.

The maximum funding that someone can get is $150,000 total?

So yes, that's outlined later in the guidelines. But $150,000 is what we're recommending.

Okay. Because there may be some room for discussion there on the amount that people are getting, something to consider.

Yes, absolutely. We'll definitely get to that section very soon. Does anyone have an option preference? I like option one.

I like two. You have a preference?

I actually have questions on page seven, so I'm gonna be waiting. Can I ask you a question already?

We're on page six.

Is that okay? Shelby?

On six, do you have an option?

Oh, in the options?

Because we're not on seven yet, sorry.

I was actually going to ask if staff was making a recommendation, because I'm a little bit confused with the many versions we have of this draft. I mentioned last year that we should label them option, I'm talking about now the drafts, not the funding options. That it would be useful to have it labeled as exhibit A, exhibit B, exhibit C. I guess the other way is because you have one draft that incorporates some of the public comments. Isn't that correct?

So, the draft that we're reviewing, if it says draft up at the top, updated following the May 13, this is the draft that has incorporated is that the draft you have in front of you at the top in red? Yeah, okay. So, this version reflects all of those red lines. There's copies in the back of the prior versions, versions one and two. And we started out originally at 19 pages, and then we went up from there once those red lines were included.

So what you're seeing in front of you doesn't have a lot of red lines. It has a couple comment bubbles. But this is basically the finalized version that we're reviewing in detail today that we feel is representative of the comments that have been received and the work that the subcommittee has done. But there are a few decisions that still need to be made in collaboration with PRAC. And so before we skip to page six, we're just trying to see engage where the support is for how funding might be awarded as a percentage of the total request.

I actually like option three.

You like option three. Okay. Commissioner Miller. Option three. Vice Chair award.

I prefer option two. That is because two and three kind of anticipate funding scores that are above 70% instead of an 80%. But from what I've seen in prior cycles, there wasn't anybody who scored actually 100%. And so I didn't think option three would result in anyone getting 100% funding.

Commissioner Dolan, you had a question?

Yeah, I just, Shelby, the reason for these three options is to try to present us with ways to maximize either the dollar amount or the number of people who are being awarded? I'm not sure what these three options are

Yeah. So originally, staff had recommended that you get awarded 100% down the line. And then when funding runs out, the last person score wise would get a percentage of their award. However, in working with the PRAC subcommittee and going out for public comment, there was an interest in trying to see that as many people or as many organizations as possible get at least a portion of what they're requesting. There was consensus that 30% is too low.

Will say that. There's rare consensus in the public comment or even in discussion, but that one was pretty clear. So, this is our attempt to try to spread the money further. However, there is also feedback that it becomes difficult to deliver on your award if it's paired down too much.

Correct.

There were some comments about maybe funding 100% of projects versus operating could be percentage, since that's a percentage of your operating costs. But, we really wanted to just present it to you all, and so far it sounds like there's mixed opinion. Yeah. But, we do need to decide. So

So, sorry. I just want to follow-up on that. So would you say if we I don't know who just made this comment. Maybe it was Vice Chair. But I agree. Like, it's very rare that somebody's going to get 100% award or score on their application. So therefore, 100% award. So option three seems a bit aspirational, to say the least. Between one and two, then, do I understand that option two would spread the money further? And option one would maximize the amount of delivery? Does that make sense?

Right. So you're faced with an option of provide more people with more of what they or provide grantees with close to what they asked for. Or have more grantees with a little bit less of what they asked for, but in no cases, other than when the funding runs to the very bottom, would anybody get less than the 75%. Percent?

Okay. In that case, I think I would lean towards option two.

And just to be clear, option two is kind of like what we did in prior cycles, correct? Because option cycle one had the most money because we were waiting for everything to get put in place before we started receiving. So it was a lot more funding available, but it seems like the option two was the way that they follow things.

In prior cycles, the Arts Council awarded awards at, like, 30% Right. Okay. 60%. Yeah. And cycle one

like a tier step. That's what I mean. Right?

In cycle one, there was a bit larger portion of what was awarded because there was double the amount of money. Okay. So, right now, based on your all's feedback, option one only has one little check mark here. Option two has three, and option three has two. So, option two so far has the most support. Do you all want to go with option two?

I would like to.

Don't like I like

need to have a discussion about it, but

I don't like option two because more people get funding at 100%. Whereas the third option, you really have to score very high. And, it's not likely that a lot of people will score 100%. Therefore, you know, the folks that will end up, actually, most people would end up getting funded at 95% under the real scenario. But, anyway, option three happens to be my preferred option, but we'll see what interest there is on that.

Yeah, so right now, option two is in the lead, with three of you supporting it. Did anyone not weigh in here?

Commissioner Kalia? Can you turn your mic on, please? Thank you.

Torn between Looks better.

Commissioner Karcharski?

Yeah I picked option one just because I thought those that didn't get a high score could maybe get a chance to get a nice portion of funding. But I can go with option two, too. I don't see a big difference. Mean, we've to cut it one way or the other. So I could go either way, really. But I picked option one because of that, mostly.

But you said you wouldn't mind going with option two? Because you're the tiebreaker now. Unless anyone else wants to change their I'm looking at two.

Commissioner Colley, do you mind repeating what option you select? Think your mic cut out. Was it

two or three? Three? Three.

Okay. Thank you.

So, I that

just want to make sure that it's clear that if an applicant scores below 75% will not get any funding. Is that clear? Is that am I correct in that interpretation?

You know what? That is a really good question. That is currently how it's written. But if you'd like for us to consider changing it so that it's anything below 74% would get 75%. Because let's just say hypothetically, as you asked that, it came to my mind that if many people or many organizations don't get at least 75%, there might be money left. So we're probably going to want to add some language that would allow us to then say that if you score below that mark, you would also get 75%, just because we're not grading on a curve.

So, does that mean so, where is the threshold of passing?

Well, right now, as written, that's 70%. But I would like to ask for some flexibility, because if a big portion of grants come in and they get 69%, then we can't award them any funding. And I'd like to be able to award

That's why I picked option one, because it looks like it says, if it's below 80%, you could get 75%. So if somebody scored 64, but they were a good score review in your batch, they could still get 75% of the funding. That was the reason why I picked option one.

I would like to add language to option two because to me, option one seems like there will only be a small pool of grantees or applicants to receive option two will be able to award more. So I would like to add language to option two that if it's 60% and up

Can we just modify

less than 70? Yes.

I'm sorry. Yeah, was just going to say, I think, what you were saying, Shelby. Can we just modify option two so that it's less than 70 to 74.9? We're fine with that. Right. That would give you all the flexibility you would

want. I Yeah. We want to get money out. We don't want to

Right. Exactly.

Arbitrarily have money left over. Okay. So we'll make that edit. And we'll proceed with option two if you all are

The majority one?

Yeah. So, all right.

Shelby in that option two with the changes we just heard you still have the appeal process correct anyone who's below that that could come to the commission for

Yes so the appeals are later in the guidelines so we'll go over that rule. Yep. Okay so We're not currently

We're not at public comment yet and this is just a discussion item. So at at one of our hearings, you'll be able to make at the last ID number 26Dash646, you'll be able to make a comment there. Like you'll be able to make a comment there at that time. You can continue.

Thank you. You, chair McCoy. Okay. So now we're gonna go to page seven. We're making good time. Thank you all for your feedback. Okay. So you'll notice there under, I'm gonna strike out option three, and I'm striking out option one on the prior page because we're gonna go with option two. There is a comment about partial awards of less than that 75% may be made when funding is exhausted. And that just means that as we move down the line and money gets to the tail end, we would offer that next grantee score wise.

If there's 60% of what they asked for leftover, we'd still offer that just to get the money out if they were able to do so. And if they said they couldn't, then we'd go next down the line just to make sure that funds are available. We got a lot of feedback about how to split the overall pot between project support and general operating support. And, again, that was one of the areas where there was pretty decent consensus on splitting it fiftyfifty. So, that's what we incorporated here.

So, approximately 50% of the funding would be set aside for project support grants. And the feedback we received about minimum funding request was incorporated as well of $1,000 would be the minimum. In prior cycles, I think there were awards as low as in the $90 range. So, we wanted to at least establish a minimum. And then, for project support, the maximum funding request would be between $50,000 to $150,000 based on the organization's annual total revenue for 2025.

Based on comments that we got at the subcommittee meeting last week, we did incorporate language here that the tax year 2024 would be accepted if '25 has not yet been filed. And if an emerging nonprofit applicant or fiscally sponsored applicant does not yet have tax filings for the calendar year, they would be eligible to apply for no more than 75,000. So, the project support maximum request table is pictured there, and it splits out the maximum funding that could be requested based on that organization's size. We did get a lot of public comments that it can be challenging to compete with organizations that might have an annual revenue of greater than 1,000,000. And there were, when looking up the size of nonprofits, you'll see in prior versions that there is around 13 art and culture nonprofits that have a budget of that size within the city, out of over 200 that were listed using ProPublica.

I will stop at project support because there's a little bit more information on general operating support for the next section to see what feedback or questions you all have related to what's proposed in front of you for project

support. I'm going start with Commissioner Barrazza. Okay. Thank you, Madam

A couple of things. The table you have that's called project support maximum request table, where you have community groups or neighborhood groups that use the services of a fiscal agent, will that amount that that group applies for be combined with the larger organization, the fiscal agent, in arriving as to how much they are able to apply for?

So the thought here is, let's say that that group, maybe in the past, they've managed less than the amount that you would even need to file taxes. We would be basing the amount on that small group and not the fiscal sponsor. So if your fiscal sponsor has a budget greater than 1,000,000 and could get 150,000, that would not be the case for that fiscally sponsored group. They would be eligible for the 75,000.

Let me give you an example. If somebody qualifies for a maximum amount of 100,000, but they also are having three other agencies or groups that don't have nonprofit status. Can they add that to the 100, or they have to actually apply for less in order to assist as a fiscal agent to another group?

So, we speak to that in the fiscal sponsorship section of the guidelines. But fiscally sponsored wouldn't take away from what that organization itself could apply for. So they could apply for their $100,000 And then if they're fiscally sponsoring other groups, they could apply for each of the amounts for those groups. But it wouldn't take away from what they could apply for as an organization.

So it doesn't hurt?

It shouldn't hurt. No. Based on how it's currently written, it wouldn't And

then the second part of the question is, how high or how large can the community group that is not a nonprofit organization, how high can they apply for? What's the maximum? That a community group has an art project, but they are getting a fiscal agent, what's the maximum they can apply for?

Does that community group, is that informally organized or are they, like a fledgling nonprofit?

Do they have They don't have a status.

They have any past revenue. Do any they budget from any past?

So what is the maximum amount?

It would be 75,000 unless they had a budget from the past that they could show to show proof that they'd be eligible for more.

I'm sorry. I'm not understanding you.

If you're what you're speaking to is like a neighborhood group that comes together. They're just informally organized, they're looking for a fiscal sponsor to be able to apply for funding. 75,000.

And I'm assuming the group has an eligible project that qualifies. And that's the purpose of the fiscal agent, to make them eligible, too. But the only question is, how much money can they apply for?

$75,000

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Miller.

Vice Chair Ward. Oh, I just noticed on that page, so the section under projects support, the second paragraph, because at the May 13 meeting, we raised, I think, it says the maximum funding request is between, which should now say $75,000 I think, instead of 50,000

Thank you. Yes, we didn't make that edit. I'll correct that, because prior versions had a floor of the 50,000. So, thank you. And, your mic is kinda quiet too. I don't know, clerk, if we can adjust the Okay. I just want to make sure people online can hear.

Absolutely. Commissioner Kahlia.

I was just wondering how we arrived at the 150,000 max for the $1,000,000 the $125,000 max, how did we determine these numbers?

I'm glad you asked. So staff reviewed the public comments that were received. And within the comments received, there were some comments that it's difficult to compete with organizations that have more than $1,000,000 per year. There were some suggestions that were given of awarding, especially when it comes to operating at least, between $100,000 to $500,000 some range there. Staff then researched some comparable programs, primarily in general operating support.

So, I'm just briefly skipping ahead. But the California State Arts Council has an operating grant where they cap the annual amount at $30,000 and they also limit it to organizations with less than $1,500,000 per year or less than 5,000,000, depending on the type of organization. We looked at what other maybe sister cities might be doing with similar programs. So, we looked at San Diego, and they also have a range and a cap. They do go up to $400,000 but that's for organizations that are $10,000,000 or more per year.

So, they have a little bit of a different range. And so, staff then looked at ProPublica and pulled all of the nonprofits, which are currently identified as arts and cultural organizations, as well as, I think, humanities listed in there as well, and tried to see what the annual revenue for organizations in Fresno is. And, as previously mentioned, I believe it was around 13 different organizations that was over 1,000,000, And the vast majority of them are organizations of $100,000 or less in revenue a year. So, we did research and started out with kind of grouping of all that information to propose to the subcommittee. And then we worked with the subcommittee to discuss that and heard public comments.

And so this is our best recommendation, giving all that information.

Thank you.

Commissioner Kerchosky. You did? Commissioner Dolan.

Yes. Shelby, I might be jumping ahead just a little bit. But to clarify, organizations can apply for either program support or operating support, but not both. Is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay. Just want to make sure. Thank you.

Are there any other questions related to the project support section? Or anything else you all would like to see updated? I did log Commissioner Ward's good catch there with the 50,000 should say 75.

Based on comments that we heard at this subcommittee, is there any wiggle room for us to be able to raise each maximum funding request just a little bit?

We can certainly entertain that.

On? Sure.

Ma'am, I'm going to ask you to please refrain from your comments until the comments section on the agenda. Thank you.

So, part of the reason it's set where it is, is there was a discussion about trying to ensure that funds go out very broadly to reach as many organizations as possible. Obviously, it's a competitive process. But this was done in the interest of trying to achieve that goal. But certainly, Pratt could recommend different maximum funding requests, and I can make those edits if you have something else in mind.

Okay. I was just asking. I I I would like to make a it's so hard because some of these

I know.

Orgs depend on this funding. Are we able to add the maximum request to 200,000 and then start moving down? Are we able to do that?

I can make that edit. Would you like

to have a discussion?

If do that, though, aren't we just limiting the number of awards we can give?

I don't know.

I mean, it seems like that's the trade off that I think this is what city staff has been

working on. The award of $200,000 or less at $75,000 right? Right. Adding, what, $25,000 to $50,000 Because if you look at past cycles, orgs who had a budget of $1,000,000 or more were able to get, like, 400,000 So I don't think that we will really hurt it. And we still funded a lot of organizations in both cycles, especially cycle one because we had more money. But in cycle two, we still funded a good portion of So I don't know if that will hurt the process. I will go out to park staff for some guidance on that one.

Do we know number of awards that would go out under this, as opposed to a raised ceiling?

Well, when you look at how scoring processes work, if they can ask for more, then less there's less available if the ones who ask for more score well. Right. So, is certainly trade offs in every single section. I'll have you know I wrestled with each and every page, every sentence. I'm sure. There's perfect process. I will say that several orgs did get that that amount, but then other orgs, you know, got as little as 30% of their requests previously. And so we can we can make edits, but there there's trade offs.

Alright, well I don't want to not fund as many people as we can, so I would just leave it there. I'd like to see a little bit more go to each grantee. But I don't want to hurt anyone in the process of not receiving funding because we're moving the funding up.

I wish

we had more funding.

Yeah. Chair, I think that perhaps we could leave it where it is indicated in this report.

Yes.

And evaluate after this round again. I mean, don't think this is the last time we're going to No. Be visiting I don't think

so either.

Look to refine.

I agree.

Okay. So, I'm going to if there's no other questions or comments on that section, we will go into general operating support. And, as mentioned, that's on page seven there at the bottom for those who are following along. So, 50% of the funding is allocated to that as well. Minimum request is also the same.

And then, I see my same mistake there of the $50,000 That should say the maximum funding request is between 75,000 So, we'll make that correction to 150,000 based on the organization's total revenue and proportionate share requirements. So, I'm gonna go into page seven to explain that a little bit more. Sorry, page eight. Okay. So, on page eight, you'll see general operating support.

The Measure P ordinance is once again cited because it states that the operating support grant funding must reflect the proportion of each grantee's overall operations that serve residents within or visitors to the City Of Fresno's sphere of influence. And I'll just make a quick note. The city does have a definition for the sphere of influence. It's listed in the definitions section of these guidelines. There's a map so you can see what that means because I know it's kind of a interesting term.

So, staff tried to break this down and give some examples because that can be a lot to take in. But a number one example we give there is that if an organization's overall operations only serve residents within or visitors to Fresno's sphere of influence, then the applicant may seek up to the maximum funding request in the table below. If a percentage of the overall operations of an organization includes operations outside of the sphere of influence, then the maximum funding request for the general operating support cannot exceed a proportionate share of the overall operations that serve residents within or visitors to the City Of Fresno's sphere of influence. And, I list there the proportionate share calculation. So, you would take your total operating budget minus operating budget allocated to operations that are outside the Fresno sphere of influence.

And, that will give you a sense of your maximum request. So, there might be organizations, let's say, just for example, that have a program and 50% of their operation goes to areas outside of Fresno County, even. So, we then would have this calculation so that Measure P's operating support is not funding operations that are not serving residents or visitors to Fresno itself. So, the example that's provided there, and just to say, when applicants apply, we'll have a calculator that does this for them, because I know math can, especially in this context, but we'll have that set up. If an organization has an annual total operating budget of $100,000 and 45,000 of that budget is used for implementing programs outside of Fresno's sphere of influence, so they're traveling to the coast, perhaps, to do performances, I don't know, then you would subtract that 45,000 of your operations that isn't serving Fresno or visitors to Fresno.

And your maximum funding request would be 55,000. So, even though the table shows that your organization might be eligible for $75,000 or $100,000 or $75,000 sorry, you actually could only ask for 55,000 because the Measure P funds would not be funding your operations that are not here. So, the example goes on, but hopefully that helps the Commission to kinda see what the intent of that is. And then, we did get some public comments related to the table. There was a comment that requested that this be framed as annual expenses versus revenue.

We pulled this current language based on tax form language, so we'd like to stick with some kind of consistent way for folks to look that up. So, that change was not incorporated. At the subcommittee meeting, attendees representing organizations with budgets at or near this tier, that top tier, indicated that 150,000 for general operating support was too low. So, we did hear public comments that would like to see that higher. But, we also saw or heard public comments that would like access to the funds and as many funds as could be made.

So, we have this table mirroring the prior table for consistency, but I'll turn it back to you all in PRAC and see if there's any questions that you have regarding the language on page eight or any edits you'd like to see.

Commissioner Barrazza?

The something that is kind of going through my mind is well, first of all, a question. In previous years, I know we had a lot more requests for funding than what was actually awarded. Can you give me a sense of how much more money was requested that we were not able to fund?

I don't have that off the top of my head, and I don't want to do you the disservice of giving you wrong information. Sarah, maybe if you wouldn't mind looking up on the past PRAC recommendation for award, how much

And what she's looking for that, the reason why I'm asking that question, one of the I don't know if how we did it last time. For folks that applied for Project Support Grants, could they have applied also for general operating support grants? I know that's a question we're going to have to deal with. Do we allow applicants to apply for both, or should we ask them to decide between the two?

So, in prior cycles, there was the emerging versus established designation, and there were some rules related to emerging organizations and what they could apply for versus established organizations. And, the dividing line between that was $50,000 So, if you were emerging and the $50,000 mark below, your organization was below that, you could apply, in some cases, for both. We took the public feedback to create more of a tier of how much you could apply for based on organization size, because that $50,000 mark, there's a big difference between a $60,000 organization and a $4,000,000 organization. So, we incorporated public comment to have more of this tiered approach in making the awards. But essentially, you would either apply for operating or for project, regardless of your size.

In past cycles, emerging may not have been eligible for operating support, but now they could apply under this round. So, Sarah's update for your prior question, there were 195 organizations that submitted eligible applications for review. They asked for $16,100,000 134 applications were selected to receive funding. And, that meant that 68% of total eligible applications were gonna get funding. However, I will note, it wasn't 100% of what they asked for. And, in many cases, people got 30%.

So, we had a lot more requests than we were able to fund?

Yeah. And, that's common for almost every grant program. Unfortunately, there's just a lot a lot more demand. So, our sense of setting these maximum requests was to make sure that funding can go as broadly without going as low as the 30% to where people can't actually deliver what they had aspired to.

So, where in the guidelines do we address that? Is that coming up or

Address what specifically?

Whether the process will allow folks to apply for both categories, or whether they will, or whether we limited them to only one of the two.

So that's on page six, up at the top, number of applications. It, page six. Six? Six. So, under the section number of applications, it indicates that you could apply for general operating or

So, right now it says that you would allow both.

No. One or the other.

The other?

Okay. Thank you.

Mhmm. No

very much. Sure. That addresses my point. Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you. Commissioner Miller? Vice Chair Ward.

No comments. Thank you.

Commissioner Collier. Comment. Commissioner Kerchorski. Commissioner Dolan. Shelby, are you

confident that this calculation is going to be easy and straightforward about the percentage of your service that's rendered to the area of influence versus outside of it?

So, easy and straightforward are subject to interpretation. But, our plan is we've included an example here. We talked about it during the subcommittee meeting and how, for larger organizations that have a small percentage, it may not really have an impact. But for smaller organizations, it may have more of an impact. We talked at the subcommittee about having it be part of kind of an attestation from the nonprofit.

So, like what percent of your budget right now is serving those outside areas? And then we plan to do technical assistance meetings. The other thing we plan to do is to do a survey tool so that you would plug in the numbers, and it would calculate it for you. So, I don't think that it's super easy to understand. I will say that it does take a level of practice to determine the percentage of your org. But one of the things that's stated in here, if you don't have any work that's kind of going outside the area, then it's not even something that you need Sure. To worry

Yeah. I guess I would say it's probably the opposite. It's easy to understand, but hard to make that break out, necessarily. And just in my own experience with our organization. Where we're trying to run these kinds of reports all the time. It's not necessarily so easy to parse. But

No, I agree.

If we come an up agreed upon

A method.

Yeah. I think it would be okay. But I think that the devil may lie on that detail, actually, if we're not careful.

Yes. And so, we will highlight that in the technical assistance on how best to determine that.

Yeah. And then come up with a consistent way of measuring it so everybody can Okay.

Leveling. Leveling. Yeah. And we do that routinely with our grants, as well. There's different eligibility criteria.

You.

Any other questions or comments on page eight?

Okay.

So then, going into the timeline on page nine, the first draft started out with a shorter table. It didn't have as many steps in the process, but we did get community feedback that they would like to see each of the different steps and the general timeline for those to occur. So, this table has expanded from the first iteration to include many of the other steps. And I do note in bold and let it be on the record that adjustments may be necessary. So, we've put our best dates forward here, but there may be some adjustments that are necessary, but that will be communicated in a transparent and clear fashion on the website with PRAC and so forth.

One of the key dates there is releasing the Notice of Funding Opportunity on June 30. That has not we've gotten a lot of feedback about needing more time. However, that's based on a legal opinion that we need to make the funds available by June 30, so we're on track to do that. We are hoping to have the grant guidelines adopted on June 25 at the latest by city council, but we do plan to take the item on the eighteenth. And what we're planning currently is to have applicant technical assistance workshops.

We also received feedback that hosting or making it possible for fiscal sponsors to meet interested parties who would like to be fiscal sponsored could be helpful. And so, we're indicating that we would have kind of a meet and greet session for folks to mingle and meet one another. We're gonna get into more detail on the scoring process, but you'll see several milestones that include what is called the ARC Scoring Member Application. ARC is Application Review Committee, and we'll go into much more detail on that shortly. You'll see different appeal dates that are included in the timeline.

That's based on scheduled PRAC meetings that are already on the calendar. So, folks, if they want to appeal, whether they've been included in the scoring committee, if they want to appeal other things, The dates are already here for them to see when that could occur in front of this body. And then, we originally had an earlier deadline for grant applications, but received a number of comments asking for more time to apply, because it can obviously be a lot of work. And so September 30 is the deadline that we're currently tracking. So the Notice of Funding Opportunity would go out on June 30 and then be due by September 30, although there is important item that I skipped here.

The eligibility screening form would be due by August 15. At that time, you wouldn't need to have any scope identified yet, but we would just be screening to make sure that you're an eligible nonprofit based on the eligibility criteria within so that you can be issued a link to then apply. Folks who are interested in being part of the scoring process would apply. And you'll see appeals for those folks if they weren't selected. We also have training that is included for the scoring body.

We'll go over that in more detail shortly as well. Right now, we're forecasting the preliminary scoring period beginning in November, with scoring period ending with scores preliminarily due in December. Public scoring meetings are also incorporated into this process to increase the transparency based on public comments. So we'll go over that. And then, the intent to award would be estimated in January 27, and then come before you all. The dates are not selected for PRAC or for counsel yet because those calendars are yet to be adopted. So, that's what we're currently tracking. Before I get into the rest of the sections of these guidelines, are there any questions on the calendar?

Commissioner Baraza? Yeah. Go ahead. Commissioner Miller? Vice Chair Ward?

I think we heard some community feedback around shortening the length of time that it takes to complete the process once the applications have been submitted. I'm wondering if, for instance, there's no ARC scoring members that appeal, would you be able to move up how quickly they're able to proceed with the training reviewing?

I think the comment that we got would be related to page 10, that thirteen months. And I did add some clarifying language there because it isn't that it takes us thirteen months to contract with you. It's that that's the grant delivery period. So we will work as quickly as possible to make the awards. But even this schedule is pretty quick based on the number of applications we get.

So, remember that comment, and I thought it was related to how long the city contracting process can take. However, with many of the Cycle two grantees at least going through the process, getting set up as a vendor, and following those steps that Sarah went, things do move faster once you're in the system, and you have a little bit of experience under your belt. So, we will move as quickly as possible, but we do also want to balance that opportunity to appeal, because we got a lot of comments about that as well.

Thank you. Commissioner Collier?

One of the complaints that we got a lot of from artists were that I didn't know when the technical meeting workshop was, where was this held. We didn't get notified of this. And what are we going to do? What measures are we going to take to make sure that all the artists are in the loop? There was one comment about, which I thought was very clever, having a site that you can just tap into anything in the arts in Fresno.

The only person that is kind of a one man show is Mr. Monroe. He keeps track of all the art events that are going on. And as long as we can find and get the information out that's here to all the artists and groups, that's the kicker.

Yeah, so we I have some outreach methods listed on here related to at least the scoring committee. But, generally, when we have public meetings, we are informing you all. We send it out to an email list of over 14,000. Some of our partners, like Fresno Arts Council, shares with their networks in their newsletters and things. We post it on our website, on social media.

We can post flyers at our community centers, and so we have a number of outreach efforts that we'll make, but if anyone's watching or in the audience now, if you don't currently get any emails from us, then send your email address over to the expandedartsfresno dot gov so we can add you to the email list. We also record everything, so we realize that everyone has different schedules. And so, things are recorded so you could view at your own leisure if you miss it. And we'll also post the materials, the PowerPoints, and so forth, so that folks who couldn't make it or didn't hear about it, even though we, you know, make a lot of efforts, could access it there. Thank you.

Commissioner Kurcharski?

Yeah, I just have a quick question. What does ARC stand for, ARC?

Application Review Committee.

Oh, I don't know if that's written anywhere in here.

It is later in the guidelines. Oh, Okay. But yeah, it should have been introduced when I used the acronym.

Yeah, I was so confused. Was like,

what is

You got

it. Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Dolan, nothing? Okay, Shelby.

All right. We'll get the show on the road. All right. So page 11, eligible applicants. Okay.

So we cite language from, it's similar to prior guidelines, but we cite the reference of five zero one(three), where to look that up in IRS, so you do have to be a nonprofit organization. We have also listed being in good standing with the different, I guess, regulatory bodies, the IRS, the Franchise Tax Board, and the Secretary of State, as well as the City of Fresno. Each of those blue, underlined sections are hyperlinked so that an organization could look up and see if they're in good standing, and the bullets describe for them what does it mean to be in good standing. We indicate that a primary place of business is physically located within the City Of Fresno limits, so having a PO box does not count as being located, that you serve City Of Fresno residents or visitors. And there was some feedback here.

We debated having eligibility be impacted by lack of prior reporting. Cycle two, obviously there's overlap here, so we removed that language. But we did indicate that if organizations have not completed reporting for Cycle one, they would need to submit a written justification and or corrective action plan to resolve anything so that they would be considered eligible for cycle three, and that we would provide a template to do so. So, we do want to have that in there so that organizations are responsible for their reporting, but flexibly written enough to respond if there wasn't a reason that prohibited them from reporting. So, additionally, in accordance with Measure P, applicants seeking funding for general operating support, because there is different language in the ordinance that indicates that those must be an arts or cultural organization.

And, the way that we're proposing to determine that is based on the NTE codes assigned by the IRS Organizational Articles of Incorporation, which was added to give a little more flexibility. So, if the organization includes that in their Articles of Incorporation or another state or federal designation, we provided a link for the organization is not sure where to find theirs. And there are some questions into legal about another section, the ineligible section. But essentially, nonprofits are eligible, and there's a little bit more specificity for the operating support based on what Measure P states. There's also the eligibility screening form listed at the bottom.

And our intent, again, is just to make that like a checklist format so you could see whether your organization is eligible or not based on the guidelines. Are there any questions or clarifying statements for page 11?

Commissioner Baraza? No. Commissioner Miller, Vice Chair Ward? No. Thank you. Commissioner Collier.

Not at this time. Thank you.

Commissioner Karchalski. No comment. Thank you.

No comments.

Commissioner Dolan, thank you. You can proceed on, Shelby.

All right, so page 12, eligible expenses. This mirrors prior years, but there's been some additional clarification and additions. Eligible expenses could be direct costs for personnel, supplies, services, permits, artist fees, kind of like what we were discussing briefly before, which was included in the past. License fees for copyrighted material, marketing, contractors, rentals, or equipment necessary to complete the proposed scope of work. We also give some examples of what a core operating expense could be considered as on number two there.

And then, core operating expenses for project support grants. So, the operating grants, but the project support grants would be capped at 10% of the total project cost. However, we did get a lot of feedback about insurance expenses being pretty high in the insurance market. And so, we opted to say that insurance expenses directly associated with the coverage required by the City of Fresno grant agreement will be considered direct expense required for the project and will not count toward that 10% cap. So, that gives a little more flexibility to organizations to ensure that they have the appropriate coverage for their project.

Expenses for food and non alcoholic beverages were also included. Prior cycle did not allow them. But we found that they may be an important part of cultural programming, and listed that they may be allowable if shown to be reasonable and necessary to expanding access to arts and culture. And reasonable and necessary is listed in the definition section to give examples of what that may mean. Something new compared to prior cycles is construction and facility improvements.

So, expenses associated with updating those facilities for the purposes of expanding Access Arts and Culture is included. The Cultural Arts Plan speaks in several sections as that being a priority for the community, and so we incorporated that language. And then, costs associated with providing technical assistance for emerging organizations to establish an arts or cultural nonprofit are included as well. Did have a public comment related to whether or not funding for legal services would be considered eligible, and so that'll be sent over to the city attorney's office as well. We indicate equipment exceeding $5,000 in purchase price would require three quotes prior to the purchase, not at the time of application, and would be needed to be listed separately.

Travel expenses would be subject to IRS standard mileage reimbursement rates and federal rates for lodging and food. Fiscal sponsor fees would be eligible, and those would be capped at 10% of the overall grant budget. Projects in schools during school hours, those were previously not eligible in cycle two. So, those were added back as being eligible in cycle three based on public comment. As well as number 11, are projects on university campuses that are open to the general public are now considered eligible but were not in prior cycles. Are there any questions relating to what is considered eligible or any clarifications needed?

Commissioner Baraza? I don't have any questions. Commissioner Miller? Vice Chair Ward?

None, thank you.

Commissioner Kalia? Commissioner Kocharski? No comment. Commissioner Dolan?

I do have a question. In item seven here, Shelby, you talk about needing three quotes for an equipment purchase. Are you required to take the low bid? Because if you're not, I'm not sure what the purpose of getting three quotes is.

We did not include that requirement. But adding that clarifying language would be useful. So we can add that.

Thank you.

You can proceed. All right.

Page 13, ineligible applicants. So you'll see there are number one, nonprofit organizations that are religious, political, or private foundations. This is language that was included in cycle two. However, there are many comments received requesting definitions of what political organizations means, clarity regarding religious organization eligibility. So we have submitted a request for legal advisement to further clarify that.

I don't know, Angela, if you would like to weigh in on that one. I'll have to take a look at this one. This was one I have not had the opportunity I think this is the one Christy had also provided some preliminary information. So we should have an update on this one shortly about the eligibility for the five zero one(three) nonprofits. The other things that are listed there, I think number one is really the one that's pending additional information.

But number two, for profit and sole proprietorships, that's just based on what the ordinance says about nonprofits being eligible. Organizations that don't serve the public or provide public programming, K-twelve schools, obviously if they're not the five zero one(three) nonprofit. And then organizations whose primary mission is to raise funds or do regranting. Government agencies, which is, we're not the 501c3 anyway, so that's just listed there for good measure. And then, just broadly speaking, any organization considered ineligible by Measure P.

So, other examples of ineligible expenses would include activities or programs or operations outside of the City of Fresno's sphere of influence. Expenses that don't reasonably expand access to arts and culture. For example, let's say you had a scope of work to do art with children, but you have expenses for, I don't know, an airplane. Unless you're doing art on the airplane, I don't know. But if it doesn't reasonably expand access, your budget's going be important there so that it ties.

Alcohol or other controlled substances, so that would not be eligible under this grant. Funds shall not be developed or used to develop facilities on former landfills or waste refuge facilities. That's actually language in Measure P, so that's pointed out there as well. Again, any expenses not eligible under Measure P. Cash prizes, scholarships, political advocacy or lobbying, fundraising, projects with religious or evangelical purposes, cost of goods for resell.

And I want to really state this very clearly here on number 11. No costs shall be incurred prior to the execution of the grant agreement. So I think we're facing some challenges in prior cycles because costs are incurred and bills are due, right? But I want to be very clear in cycle three, please do not have costs prior to your grant agreement. It makes it very challenging.

So fiscal sponsorship, at the bottom of the page there, we go into Measure P, Requiring Investment in Competitive Grants for Nonprofits, and highlight that fiscal sponsorship is really a short term solution to reduce barriers to accessing the funding, while the artists or the cultural barriers work toward building capacity. So, we are requiring at least two years of consecutive experience in nonprofit operations, must be in good standing, which was stated earlier, for eligibility, and have experience in financial management. Going into the next page, we outline some examples of fiscal sponsor responsibilities. And I'll just finish through this page before I go out to your questions. But, previously, on this section, we included a cap on the number of organizations that could be fiscally sponsored.

But in this draft, that cap was deleted based on the public comments received. So, there isn't currently a cap, but we do clearly identify the responsibilities associated with it. And fiscal sponsorship is a big responsibility, as your organization is ultimately contracted for the grant and responsible for all of the terms and conditions therein. Are there any questions on pages 13 or 14? Commissioner Baraza?

Yes. In regard to the function of fiscal sponsorship, how many of the larger organizations play their role?

How many fiscal sponsors are there or how many of the organizations making more than 1,000,000?

How many do they do they play the role of fiscal agents? There are some that I I know the historical society does, because I happen to know some organizations that have benefited from it. But I just wonder if you could give me a percentage. 30%, 10%, 50%?

We can pull that up for you. Sarah, can you pull up the cycle two spreadsheet that we have with the fiscal sponsors?

So, that would be the And the reason I make that point, because we need more fiscal agents. Because we're gonna get to the discussion, and I don't know if it's the next page, where we are exploring limiting the number of organizations they help. Because I think we saw that sometimes fiscal agents overextend themselves, and they get quite a few more organizations that they can really keep a close eye on. And so, we're gonna get to that point, and I don't know where it is in the in the text.

It was removed, Commissioner Brazza. We originally proposed a cap of five.

Right. And I like that. I I saw the number.

And that that language was removed based on public comment. But we can certainly discuss

Yeah. No, I like it. That's a good thing. But I'm also interested in making sure that we have a list of fiscal agents that are willing to play that role because I hear from members of the community and they tell me, where can I get a fiscal agent? And I said, well, I think we should have, we must have a list. So, do we have a list? And if we don't, could we have a list?

So, we don't have a, we have a list of fiscal sponsors from cycle two, but I think it may be outside of our scope to recommend fiscal sponsors. As we get into agreements and kind of see how things are managed, we have a better sense of capacity. But what we did include in the timeline is to open up a forum for interested people or artists who would like to meet with different potential sponsors. So that's something that we would facilitate space. But as far as recommending fiscal sponsors, as the entity that's overseeing the competitive process, I don't know that that would be appropriate.

No, I think what we're talking about is informing the community informing the community of what's available. Who is available? Because you could have a lot of organizations that don't want to be fiscal agents because of their responsibility. Especially now, you actually have a definition of what exactly they have to be doing. And, obviously, they tend to be more cautious now because what if the money gets lost?

Anyway, I would like to see a list, maybe of the ones that you already have on record, that they have performed their role. Somehow, we need more help and more information on that.

So, to answer your prior question, there were 21 fiscal sponsors sponsoring 60 different projects.

And that's public information, right?

That's all public. So I would say that if someone wanted to look into that, all of the past cycle awardees and the spreadsheet of who the awards are being made to is available on the Legislature, the City of Fresno website. We can probably post past cycle awardee lists on our website, but that's about as far as I think I would be comfortable going because, again, we are, as public servants, supposed to facilitate a competitive process. And so, by listing potential sponsors, to me, that might be a bridge too far with endorsing them. So, we can provide the public information, and provide a space for interested parties to meet.

But as far as like listing and or recommending them, I don't know that that's our role.

And I noticed it says here that having a fiscal agent should be a short lived process. Are we doing something to help community groups that are not incorporated or they're not nonprofits so they become nonprofits, they become bona fide cultural art organizations. Is that something you're doing?

So, what we included in the guidelines is that those costs to help the emerging groups become nonprofits would be eligible. The ordinance is very clear about funding competitive grants to nonprofits, and so we did include as eligible those costs to help some of those smaller groups become nonprofits. We did get a lot of feedback that maybe, you know, those groups don't want to be nonprofits, But, again, I will state clearly the ordinance as written requires it. So tapping into these funds without a fiscal sponsor requires that nonprofit establishment. By making it eligible, we hope that that would encourage that development By prioritizing the scoring to give more points to hiring local artists and cultural bearers, that also helps to create more access.

But beyond that, Parks is not actively engaged in in helping organizations form nonprofits because, again, that's kind of outside of our Scope. Our scope, but the grant would allow funding for that.

Do you think that 10% you're paying the fiscal agents is adequate?

Well, it is a cap and it depends on the scope of their responsibilities. I would say that there's a variety of percentages that are used in different grant programs, And this is what's currently recommended.

I was just wondering because you're expanding the role of the fiscal agents and we're paying them the same as we paid last year. My observation. Thank you Madam Chair.

Commissioner Miller? I expressed during the subcommittee and plenty of other times that I don't like the cap on fiscal sponsorship because that's going to leave a lot of people out who are already doing the work but currently don't have their 501c3 status. Again, not calling this organization out, but I want to give them their flowers. Dulce up front is one of the fiscal sponsors who are actually helping the applicants that they are fiscal sponsors for to be able to obtain their own five zero one(three) status so they won't need a fiscal sponsorship anymore. And that's something that I think that they're setting the stage for other fiscal sponsors to do when they're sponsoring other community groups or people who do not have a five zero one(three).

So by us putting a cap on the fiscal sponsorship is actually going to hurt the community more, in my opinion, the art community. Because a lot of people have been doing this for a long time without a five zero one(three) status. So now, to put a cap on the fiscal sponsorship, you may never know that some of the community based organizations that or artists, or community groups who do not have a five zero one(three) right now, they may be in the process of just now getting it. And they've had it for a year, right? And so they still need a fiscal sponsor. They wouldn't They wouldn't after a year?

No. The two years?

I thought

it had to be established for two years. So maybe that's my misformed information. So I still don't like the cap.

It's removed.

Yes.

Thank you. I want to echo Chair McCloy's comments in support of removing the cap and keeping the cap for fiscal sponsors out. I did want to clarify the way that the ordinance is being interpreted. Are the organizations that are eligible to service fiscal sponsors, are these art and culture nonprofits that would have been eligible for a direct application for their own organization? Or is it broader than that?

So that is part of the legal opinion requested. You'll notice in the ordinance that it speaks to kind of more specificity, the arts and cultural organizations for operating support. For project support, it doesn't state that explicitly. So that's part of the request into legal, having several of the city attorney's office review it so that we can get you an answer.

Thank you. Commissioner Collier? No comment. Commissioner Kerchorski?

No comment.

Commissioner Dolan?

Shelby, are there any restrictions on fiscal sponsors also applying for grants?

No.

Okay. So it doesn't preclude them. And where do we stipulate the administrative fee? The 10%, 12%, whatever it is.

The 10% is stated, let me find it in the document.

Shelby, do you want me to

Yeah, if you found it first.

So on page 12 in section seven, the eligible expenses, it is the last sentence of subsection And

if we need to reiterate that in another section

No, I could it's fine. Was looking for it under fiscal sponsorship. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Ward.

You may proceed on, Shelby.

Where did I leave off? See. Page 15. I know. But then we have the handbook. We might take a break before the next handbook. Yes. Okay. Okay, so page 15, application questions. We give a high level list of what will be included in the questions.

I know that we've gotten comments that individuals would like to see the actual questions we'll be asking, But we've held off on including those until we had the guidelines finalized, because they'll have to ask questions related to the guidelines. But in general, we will be asking for contact information, organization's experience, scope of work, budget, alignment with cultural arts plan, Measure P, and different desired outcomes, and evaluation plans. So similar to prior rounds, but we did get feedback not to repeat questions so that you're copy and pasting the same thing. So we'd like to make it streamlined as possible, asking only the pertinent information. And Brevity can help really clarify answers, so not having it be too cumbersome.

We do have a section here on translation services. We can make the guidelines available in multiple languages. And then, if an application is submitted in a different language, we would use a third party translating firm to translate that so that scores can review it. Owner permissions and preliminary approval. So, if there's a project that wants to, say, install a mural on a property that they don't own, we would just ask that the applicant include like a letter that approves it in concept.

Not necessarily the permits or anything yet because those do have costs associated with them, but if you're partnering with a business and they give you a letter, that would suffice to show that at least on the concept level they approve and permits would be likely thereafter. Maintenance plan. So, if any of the projects are placed and permanently installed in public or private space, a maintenance plan will be required, which is consistent with the prior grant guidelines. The artist commitment, so we updated this section just to clarify that if you name an artist specifically, like if I said Taylor Swift was gonna be coming to Fresno, then I would need to have an artist commitment from them before naming them specifically. If you don't have an artist selected yet, then you would just say, like, artist to be identified, but we just wanna prevent someone using someone else's name who maybe didn't consent to that.

Artists, sorry, use of artificial intelligence in the application process. So, we just wanted to recognize that while it's a useful tool, please look closely at the rubrics and use your own words to describe what you plan to do in your application. I think, you know, AI is used and can be very helpful, but it also can say a lot of words without saying a whole lot. So, we would ask that people keep that in mind.

Ma'am, can I ask you to refrain from making comments until the item on the agenda allows you to, please? That's the last time I'm gonna ask you that. Thank you.

Okay. Any questions on page 15 or any edits you'd like to see? No? Alright. Page 16, the application review and scoring process.

So, I'm gonna go over it at a high level through these guidelines, and then we have another item later tonight to go through the handbook, but that handbook is much shorter than this, so stay strong. We'll have a break soon. All right, so we got a lot of feedback about the application review process. Although the guidelines or the handbook was not released until shortly after we released the draft guidelines, we did get, as you saw earlier in the presentation, over 100 comments as part of our listening sessions to help inform this section and the handbook. So, what we're proposing is that the Application Review Committee, or the ARC, would be comprised of approximately 30 members, And PARCCS shall not be a scoring member of the ARC.

So, PARCCS is facilitating, but is not scoring. We got a lot of feedback about representation that should be included on that committee. And we broadly have listed that here on page 16. So, members with experience in arts, which may look like formal education or may look like lived experience based on artistic practice, working artists may be included, it wouldn't necessarily have to be a degree. Members with experience as cultural practitioners or cultural bearers that reflect the demographic diversity in Fresno.

Members with experience in arts or cultural education or higher education, such as professors or technical instructors. So maybe not a four year professor, but other art instructors or culture instructors. And then, members reflecting a wide range of generational perspectives. That should be its own bullet, so I'll move that down. But, we want to include representation from youth and seniors, just for that wide range of perspectives.

Members with experience in accessibility, which might include experience working with individuals who are disabled or lived experience with a disability, or even familiarity with facility or program improvements that can increase accessibility to expand access. We saw that a lot in the Cultural Arts Plan as being a priority from the community comments in that plan. We also included members residing in diverse neighborhoods throughout the city, including, but not limited to, high esteemed neighborhoods. So, we wanted to have a broad representative group. And then, something that was discussed at length, members residing outside of the city of Fresno, but within the county of Fresno to support conflict recusal processes.

So, originally, we proposed to have two members from outside the city in case of conflict recusal. And, there was a lot of feedback about not wanting perspectives from outside the city, although some suggestions included, including Fresno County feedback. So, not within the city proper, but within the county. So, we included that language there. And then, members with experience in nonprofit management, nonprofit formation, financial literacy, etcetera. So, really just a broad range of perspectives to have a really reflective committee. I'll pause there for any comments or questions.

Commissioner Baraza?

No questions. Ahead.

Commissioner Miller? Vice Chair Ward?

None. Thank you.

Commissioner Calia?

What was I going to say? I lost my train of thought. Work that you're doing what were you just talking about? What were you just talking about?

The scoring committee being diverse in Fresno County.

Yeah, that's it, diverse Fresno County. There was some discussion and back and forth regarding having outsiders come from outside area and bring their expertise in. And there were some people that were like, no, no way. This is our community. We know our community, and we know our needs. So that's kind of a mixed bag right there to draw from. I don't know how we're going to do it, but

Well, we've proposed our recommendation. So we're doing it with your all's collaboration input. So if there's any are there any changes you'd like to see?

For myself, the thought of having outside experts come in is a good thought. But I think it needs to be organic and essentially from our own community because they know our people. They know our culture. The outside experts, they have something to offer but I think it's limited. Anyway. Thank you. Thank you.

Commissioner Kercharski? No comment. Thanks. Commissioner Dolan.

This looks great. But, as I recall from the last round, it was hard to get participation of qualified reviewers. It was hard to get people show, you know, attendances. I mean, it's a big ask. I think, what did we say, over 160 applications last go round? Yeah. You're asking for 30 people. How do you anticipate recruiting these people? How do you anticipate setting minimum standards of participation?

Yeah, I'm going go over that in the next

Is that

coming up? Yeah, we plan to So, pay we'll see. Visit your feedback. But on page 16, are we okay to leave the language Yeah, as And move forward? Okay. Good, all right. So page 17, so outreach efforts, Could very good

I ask you a quick question? Sure. The question pertains to the role of the subcommittee as it pertains to the application review process. As you know, last year, there was a lot of controversy. And I don't know.

And I realize that the commission also plays a role of an appeal body. And that might be the reason why you may get may be able to get too involved. But I think it might be useful for the subcommittee to be an observer without being a rating panel member. Because there were some allegations that were being made that we don't have a way of knowing whether they were true or not. And I just wanted and both our former chair of that committee and our current chair probably may have some ideas of how do we enhance that process, and is there room for some role for the subcommittee to be engaged in that process?

So, Commissioner Brazza, we have that question flagged in the handbook of scoring, and specifically whether the commission could help with maybe interviewing and overseeing who goes on the ARC, on the committee that's doing the scoring. So that's still pending a legal opinion because you also are the body that hears appeals. But we were pending that opinion. So that question has been raised.

And that was something that was proposed during our subcommittee meeting, so we're just waiting to hear back. Okay.

Yeah, and you'll see it flagged in the copy of the handbook as we go over that in the next item.

All right, you can proceed on.

Okay. On page 17 then, outreach efforts. So, we've listed the efforts that we would use to try to attract a diverse panel. Obviously, emails, media releases, printed flyers at our community centers citywide, promotion and canvassing at Art Hop, but also other large events occurring citywide so that we could attract folks from not just downtown, but other areas as well. We're proposing social media outreach to park program participants.

So we have a large and active senior program. We also have a lot of movie night attendees, so kind of going out and seeing if anyone might be interested in applying. We would propose to share flyers with nonprofits, elected officials, the city of Fresno Office of Community Affairs, and then via Peach Jar, which is a system that Fresno Unified uses to send home flyers to parents citywide. We would share flyers with all of you, and then distribute them to local universities via email, but also posted on message boards where students might be likely to see them. So, we're planning a broad range of outreach efforts.

And then, to guide the work of the committee in a competitive and transparent process, the Application Review Handbook is listed here. And so, we're gonna go over that as a separate item later tonight. But essentially, that handbook is part of the grant guidelines. So, once you approve this, that kind of goes with. Training and compensation.

So, we did get a lot of feedback from the community that those who participated in scoring, it seemed like scores might have dropped off, or they're like, they had other commitments. And so, it was challenging to make sure that they would complete the assignment. So, what we're proposing is that the members would receive compensation totaling $500 for the time that they spend training, reviewing, and scoring grant applications. And then, we've listed there the training that would be required for all of the members. So, they'd have to go over conflict of interest disclosures, unconscious or implicit bias, ethics and public service, an orientation on fair and impartial grant application review, a review of the rubrics with examples and hands on practice to build the comfort with the review process for those who might be new to it, and then training on the handbook, which, again, we'll go over later.

But in compensating people for their time, we're anticipating at least a forty hour commitment over several weeks. So, that may reduce some of the barriers and may encourage them to engage and participate. And then, for conflict of interest disclosures, as part of this process, the ARC members, the PRAC members, and City of Fresno staff would be required to complete conflict of interest disclosures and really remain engaged throughout because at the time of application, they may say, well, I don't have any conflicts. And then, when they're assigned the proposals to review, they might be like, I had no idea my cousin is in this proposal. So, it would be a really active conflict review and recusal process that's outlined in the handbook with tools built in so that we can respond and reassign things as needed to avoid any potential conflict of interest, real or perceived.

Any questions or changes on page 17?

Commissioner Barraza, any questions?

I noticed that on page I'm sorry, two. It relates to criteria using for project support, there's a category called organizational stability. And where it defines it, it talks about how the applicant organization reflects the cultural, geographic, or demographic diversity of Fresno. Why does that appear in one category and not in the other?