Hayward Youth Commission - Regular Meeting

Yeah. This is.

Hi. Are you here for?

We're gonna call the meeting to order at 07:01. Okay. Yep. We're gonna deal with your. Okay. Okay. Thank you. To everyone.

Do I have a volunteer to lead the pledge of allegiance? Thank you.

Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag

of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And one second. I'm just gonna get our presentation. Apologies, folks. We're just gonna share the slides real quick. Let me yeah.

Okay. I realized we have the words to the pledge up there because I always panic, but I'm gonna forget. So let us get the slides showing, and that'll have our agenda. Okay. Alright.

So we're gonna go ahead and as we're getting us to the right slide, I have our teleconference notifications and considerations. So as a reminder, the go next slide, please. For Just Cause, a commissioner can participate remotely after giving notice. We have one commissioner participating via Just Cause. Commissioner Mansion is with us. Can you hear us, commissioner? Yes. Great. And we can hear you. And we also have one commissioner who had an emergency and is currently trying to join, via the emergency provisions.

And under these regulations, we do need to actually this is our first time, commissioners, that we've actually had to use the emergency provision, so we're gonna do this together. Commissioner Khansuf had a family emergency and was flying back and was delayed, so was not able to join us in person. So we do have to take action on any requests for an emergency provision. So there needs to be a motion from a commissioner to allow her participation and then a second and a roll call vote. I believe she still hasn't called in. As soon as she does, we'll promote her, but I think we can probably act on it now in the assumption that she'll show up.

Motion to allow.

That was commissioner De Leon with a motion. Second. A second from commissioner Wheeler. And then when Evelyn's ready, we'll do a roll call vote.

Making progress. Good

evening, everybody. Good evening. Commissioner Moore. Oh, cool. Oh, you're here. Oh,

sorry, Evelyn. We're doing a vote on the emergency provision. Yeah. You're good. We've never had to do this one. So you just go down the list. Romeo.

K. So commissioner Moore? Yes. Commissioner Mashin?

Yes.

Commissioner Anguilla?

Yes. Commissioner Brauer? Yes. Mister Dow?

Yes.

Mister De Leon? Yes. Commissioner Gan? Yes. Commissioner Herkastu?

She is not here yet.

Commissioner Tamora? Yes. Mister Singh? Yes. Mister Wheeler? Yes. And commissioner Wong? Yes. Thank you, everybody.

Okay. So when she does phone in, we'll be able to promote her to a panelist. Thank you, everybody, for doing that. And now we'll before we jump into roll call, I want to acknowledge we've got two new faces in

the room

tonight. We have a new council liaison, so I'd like to welcome council member Ray Bonilla Junior. He's our new liaison. So thank you. Welcome.

Good evening.

Did have

to say anything?

I'm gonna pick a spot.

Certainly a pleasure to be with the community services commission. I had the pleasure of serving on this commission for a while back in the day. I think I was on the commission for, like, six or seven years with commissioner Moore. So it's just so good to be your guys' liaison, and I'm so supportive of the work that you guys do. And I just look forward to doing whatever I can do to continue to support the great work of this commission and be your liaison to the broader city council.

Thank you. Yes.

It's all good

to be here.

And I would also like to welcome, city of Hayward's new city manager, doctor Anna Alvarez,

who's with us tonight. Welcome, doctor Alvarez.

Oh, thank you so much. I just wanted to come by and say hello to all of you. I'm making my way through the different commissions and city council committees, and I'm very excited as I'm learning all the good work that that people do to make Hayward a a great community to live, work, and play. And much of it really I come from community services in many ways. And at the heart of the community is really our library and the work that we do through the community services commission, housing, all the different elements. And I wanted to see you personally, and I wanted to extend myself to all of you. Please call me. I'm looking forward to having meetings, one on one meetings so I can understand your perspectives,

Yeah.

Get home safely. Oh, thank you.

Okay. And now, Evelyn, you'd like to do roll call?

I will do roll. Commissioner Moore. Present. Commissioner Matson.

Present.

Commissioner Angulo. Present. Commissioner Burrard.

Present.

Commissioner Dow.

Present.

Commissioner Dale. Present. Commissioner Ben.

Present.

Commissioner Kasu. Commissioner Kabura? Present. Commissioner Saint?

Present.

Commissioner Wheeler? Present. And commissioner Wong?

Present.

Thank you, everybody. Alright. Let me share with you some

thoughts on the public comments. There will be opportunities for public comment on items on the agenda as we get to each item. If you have a comment on something that is not on the agenda, now is the time to make those comments. Please note that virtual public comment has been reinstated. For those attending in person, please commit, complete a comment card and give them to miss Olivera.

You will have three minutes to make your comment. Speakers shall not use threatening, profane, or abusive language, which disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of a commission meeting. The city is committed to maintaining a workplace free of unlawful harassment and is mindful that city staff regularly attend commission meetings. Discriminatory statements or conduct that is hostile, intimidating, oppressive, or abusive are per se disruptive to a meeting and will not be tolerated. As a reminder to commenters and to my fellow commissioners, commissioners are not permitted to respond directly or to engage with public commenters under the Brown Act.

Alright. So then at this point, we open it up to public comments that is not about something on the agenda. Does anybody have public comment about something not on the agenda tonight? Okay. I do have one public comment, if that's alright, through the chair?

Yes. I do, before we get to the end of the meeting, want to take a moment to recognize our former chair who resigned from the CSC because he had bigger and brighter things to do and is now a trustee for the Hayward Unified School District Board. And so I want to acknowledge the service of Austin Bepnacrio with the certificate that I've been waiting to give him since November 20. Thank you, Austin, for your service, your courage, and your commitment to the community. It is demonstrated by the fact that he's here tonight not to just receive the certificate. Would you like to make any comments?

I would love to make a

public comment for items on the agenda. Thank you, doctor. You, Emily. Thank you, miss Evelyn. Thank you, Carol.

Thank you, Linda, and, you know, the rest of the commission. Serving on the CSC was, one of those moments that I'm most proud of, specifically to to work alongside some awesome folks who understand that government frequently fails. I often say it's it's the number one thing that government at seeds are doing is is failing our students and failing our residents. Today, and I know we'll be without venturing too much into agenda item, we'll be weighing in on some really important decisions that have a real impact on, issues that are near and dear to my heart and to each of your heart. I know, over the course of the couple years I was on the commission, I had the opportunity to learn about the backgrounds that you all bring and the different challenges that you've overcome throughout your life.

It matters. And if budgets are are truly a reflection of our values, then I would argue that this commission, regardless of of what council says and with respect to council or the staff, this commission has an obligation to fight for the values of our community, to focus on housing, and to focus on public safety, to focus on how we reduce the carbon footprint, create roadways that are accessible to our schools, provide those supports in and out of our classrooms. That is the role of this commission, because that is the need and the values of this community. So I wanna thank you so much. Words of advice. Listen to Linda.

Mhmm. Think

that serving specifically aside here more was just incredible to to be able to see the background that she brings as the commission's longest serving member. Her background in procurement for,

you know,

the county of Alameda was something that I found really beneficial. And so, thank you all.

Yep. Okay. Okay.

We're gonna ask for approval of the summary notes from the November 20 meeting. Are there any revisions? First of all, did everybody read them? Are there any revisions? Okay. We need a first and a second.

I'll motion to approve the minutes. Second.

Alright. Is that Commissioner Willard? Yes. Yes. Commissioner Moore? Yes. Commissioner Maxon? Yes. Commissioner Anguilla?

Yes.

Mister Broward?

Yes.

Mister Dow? Yes. Mister De Leon? Yes. Mister Gun? Yes. Mister Kasup? Commissioner Lawrence? Yes. Mister Singh?

Yes.

Commissioner Wheeler? Yes. And commissioner Wong?

Yes.

Thank you.

Alright. So now we've moved into the discussion portion of the agenda. We have one just FYI informational item, which is that the public comment period for comments on the fiscal year twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six funding recommendations is now open as of today, and it will run through, our next community services commission meeting at the end of that meeting. So for folks who are listening online and folks in the room, anyone who watches the recording, you have, until the nineteenth to make comment on this discussion. There will be opportunities for additional public comment when we open the comment period, for the CDBG, consolidated plan, and you can make additional comments then.

So this is not the only opportunity to make comments on the recommendations this evening. And at this point, I'm gonna turn things over to my colleague, Emily Huang, who is going to give a presentation on the application review committee's preliminary draft funding recommendations. Before Emily gets started, I wanna be really clear that tonight's item is just a discussion item. There is no action being taken tonight by the Community Services Commission. This is where application review committee members will report back to their colleagues on their recommendations, and then the CSC will vote on those recommendations to counsel for funding at the March 19 meeting.

And with that, take it away. Oh, and just so you know the process here, Emily will do the presentation. We will do public comment after that. So if you haven't submitted a comment card, please do so. We'll have two minutes for each comment, and then we'll open it up to questions and discussion from the CSC. Now I'm done. And now it's Evelicia. Thank you. Open this. Yes. Got it.

Good evening.

My name is Emily Huang. I am a management analyst with community services division. I've had the privilege to lead the community agency funding process, and this is my second year. I get to present in front of you all, so thank you for having me. And I've been able to have the joy of also working with agencies and providing technical assistance to them throughout this process.

Today, we will be, just to give an overview of what we're gonna be talking about is that we'll I will review the community agency funding process. We also call it CAF. The ARC chairs will then present the preliminary draft funding recommendations for this upcoming fiscal year, which is also listed and shown in attachment two of your agenda packets. And then I will also provide a brief analysis of the preliminary recommendations before questions and public comment. So to provide an overview of the timeline of the community agency agency funding process, this isn't new to a lot of you.

But every year, we have this highly competitive funding process for two buckets of funding. The first is community development block grant funding, which is allocated from federal dollars, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. And then we also have a small pot of fund for general fund program funding, which is, allocated from the city's general fund. On this or on September 27, we published our NOFA or notice of funding availability on the city's website. We emailed it to our interested parties list and also to our current funded agencies.

And this is essentially to notify those of this funding opportunity and also of the upcoming mandatory bidders conference that we host every year. The bidders conference occurred virtually on October 28, where Stack provided an overview of how we go into contracting should you get an award as an agency, our minimum contract standards. And we also take that time to address common commonly asked questions where we have specific slides that talk about fiscal sponsorship, fiscal audit, and reporting requirements. This year, we switched it up a little where we eliminated some repetitive slides, and we streamlined some sections to make it easier on the applicants. And we also brought in technical support from Citi Data Services.

They are our technical arm that supports agencies on the application back end if they experience any technical difficulties. So we brought them in to review how to create a login, how to access the application, how to fill out the application. We did a live demo, which is the first time we did that. And we also as staff, we reviewed the content of the application with agencies as well. In addition to that, so following sorry. I'm not wearing my glasses. So this is a great time to not wear

my glasses. So over there.

No. But it's okay. In November, you all, as CSC members, got allocated to a specific ARC committee or application review committee. In December, the application closed on the second. And, prior to applications closing, this year, we also did something different where we actually remodeled the application to consolidate some questions and then group some sections together. Evelyn, you can't Sorry.

That's me. We're trying to promote Janet, and so Evelyn needs access to that. So it's gonna be just for a moment. Do you know which one she has? 441. Apologies, folks.

I don't think

Okay. We can't promote cell phones. But, Janet, if you can hear us, we will allow you to talk when you raise your hand. Sorry for the logistics interruption. This is the fun of the emergency participation.

It's Emily. You're on No the worries.

Right. So just to get back to some changes that we did this year, another thing that we heard from CSC members was that it would be nice to provide some more tech hands on technical assistance to newer agencies. So this year, we provided three sessions of two office hours to provide TA and prep applicants for their interviews with the CSC, and this was attended by nine agencies in total. Most of them were newer agencies, and we reviewed the interview format with agencies, spoke to commonly asked questions, and reviewed the post interview timeline. And I also got to test some teams with a few agencies as well.

In January, we hosted interviews, as you all know, after the CSC had reviewed those applications. And in February, here we are reviewing the draft funding recommendations, to review and discuss. And in March, we will as the CSC members, you all will, vote to be able to pass on these draft recommendations to council.

Thanks

for you.

Okay. So

in total, the, we, as staff, received 52 applications. Last year, we received 51. As I mentioned earlier, at the November CSC meeting, the commission, the three ARC chairs and subcommittees. So, for arts and music, this was led by, commissioner Wheeler. Infrastructure economic development art was led by commissioner Singh, and the services commission was led by commissioner Moore.

And I just wanted to take this time to thank you all for your service and to be able to sacrifice your Saturdays to interview and also inter, read so many applications, and as well as engage in extensive deliberations to make sure, we're, you know, sharing the impact and, making responsible decisions decisions on how to spend this out of funding. Okay. Next slide, please. So annually, the city receives approximately $1,700,000 to fund social programs and allocate both noncompetitive and competitive awards. The city allocates noncompetitive awards for projects that meet federal CDBG requirements and funds that were committed by the city in previous years.

So I started here, we have a slide reviewing the noncompetitive awards, and you'll see that, this first row is for HUD mandated fair housing activities awarded to Echo for Housing. And then you'll also see that through the city we have, through the city of Alameda County, they implemented an analysis to fair housing that was completed in 2020, and the city committed $300,000 to fund home rehabilitation programs to prevent displacement of low income households. And for this fiscal year, staff recommend a $50,000 increase to the home rehabilitation program to account for increased construction costs over the last five years, which will enable the program to maintain its current level of service. And to cap that off, so that would be $350,000 towards the home rehabilitation program, but we also, allocate 25,000 to Habitat for Humanity to support project management of the CDBG infrastructure grants, ensuring the city maintains compliance with federal regulations.

Next slide, please.

And this reviews the competitive board. So this table reviews, all of the applications that you all reviewed and, ultimately made decisions. Okay. Bless Bless you. And so you'll see the different applications, number of applications that were provided by category, funding source, amount requested, and amount available.

For those for the amount available annually, these estimates these are estimates, and they are subject to change. It all depends on our actual entitlement amount that we receive from the federal government that typically comes in late spring. CDBG awards are dependent upon the upcoming allocations, and general fund awards are subject to what is available and approved by council as part of the annual budget. So with the 52 among the 52 applications for this fiscal year, we had 11 new proposed programs, and 11 or and 10 new out next slide, please. So this is a graph, reviewing.

This blue line shows our total funding available, and then the green bar show how much is requested. And as you see similar to previous years, this year, the request amount far exceeds the the amount that is available, making this funding cycle yet another year of competitive funding. And, yeah, we just wanted to provide some more analysis and graphs, during this CSC meeting because last year, we provided them in the March CSC meeting so that you all can kinda see, like, the layout of, how the funding is allocated across the different categories. And we'll get into the analysis towards the end of this presentation, but now I'm gonna, start the next part start the next part of this presentation by handing it over to the ARC chairs, to provide a more in-depth look at the funding recommendations, by each part. And so first, we have the economic development and infrastructure, which which was run by commissioner Singh, I believe.

And so I'll pass it off to them to be able to review the recommendations.

Yes. So I'll share my, sort of the feedback that I could get during more interviews with the various applicants. So, as it it was mentioned, that would have, you know, for humanity, East Day, and then we're building together. They received, both were not credited. So they received the total amount that was requested.

And the other agencies that received total amount that were that they requested was Mongolia women's recovery program. And then community and child care council four c's, so they were allocated the entire amount that they had requested. So for central community partners, we gave them a partial funding, and we gave them first priority if there were excess funds available. We would give them priority. Downtown streets, we had, we gave them also partial funding.

They received a 175 k of the 208 k that they had requested. There were a bit of a mixed feelings for this agency, because of the fact that there were feelings that the the world results weren't as high, meaning the applicants that they served weren't as high based on the amount of funds that they had requested. But then others also felt that they had a strong community presence as well. So that's why so as a group, we kinda landed on the figure of a 175 k for this agency. For love never bills, We gave them a 185 k of the 189 that they had requested.

And if there is excess funds available, then they would be given second priority to receive that funding allocation. Or, Eden Investments. For this one, basically, it would say, from what I understand, it's apartment building that provides apartments or housing for low income individuals, and they had requested funding to do various repairs. And based on our, you know, interview with them, we understood that these repairs were not urgent. So thus, we didn't provide them in funding.

But if there is any additional funds that do become available, they would be given a third priority. And, basically, we would fund that they had a request for $15,000 to, I think it was for a parking lot gate. So we if they would ex if they if there is excess funding and they accept, 15,000 to fund the gate for the parking lot, we would allocate that to them. I think that's about it. And I as I mentioned, Mongolia women's recovery program, we gave them a 100% of what they have with.

Thank you, miss. Thank you.

So following that, I will pass it off to commissioner Moore to review the services deliberation. Yeah. We can go to arts and music if you'd rather okay. Okay. So we'll hop on over to arts and music to provide our overview of those deliberations.

Thank you.

As previously stated, we had 11 agencies, excuse me, 11 applications, but it was represented by 10 agencies. One agency had more than one application. We did determine that three of the agencies would receive their full funding. Seven of them are partial. I forgive me for not having the notes, but I do know that we provided feedback on the event there was additional funding available, which agencies to provide additional funding up to their cap, not exceeding their total request.

And there was one agency that we didn't provide, excuse me, funding to. I have some notes to share with you a little bit more specifically about each of the agencies. We did focus or prioritize youth and education agencies. That was important to us. Excuse me.

Yes. And I'll just review them, one by one, not in any particular order, just in how I have them in my notes. So the Hayward Education Foundation, we had determined that well, that that agency was able to demonstrate a significant direct impact on Hayward residents, which is something that was important to us for the applicants to be able to identify specifically how many residents of Hayward were going to benefit, from their programs. And this is serving low income students in music and arts programs and underfunded schools. And so we liked how this was complementing existing programs, but not replacing or supplementing them.

The Arts Council had low overhead, low staffing, and high impact in the number of individuals that were served, particularly in light of the amount of funding they were requesting. Additionally, we appreciated the accessibility of the art exhibits that they are providing. The youth orchestra, again, scholarships provided directly to youth, students of all ages, all music levels, and abilities. Again, this augments music education, but is not supplementing it or replacing it. We are interested in asking staff to provide them with some additional feedback around their equity plan.

They have some future plans that they're going to be working on, and we do look forward to hearing back from them on how those efforts went. In regards to the Pacific Chamber Orchestra, again, this felt, like a significant level of impact given the amount of money that they were requesting. They host assemblies, and so all the school was in the assembly versus just, you know, tens or so of individuals. The other thing that was impressive to us was how they were able to demonstrate the long term impact of exposing youth to classical music, and we appreciated hearing the impact of that. We do want to make sure, though, that they have the opportunity to extend their services to additional schools.

They were sharing with us how there are some schools that they're not able to get into, for, reasons

that and we we would

just like to see them continue those efforts. I think they're currently at eight with a whole of 10. If additional funds are available, this is one of the agencies where we're asking to provide those additional funds, up to their request in the max. Love never fails, healing arts had two applications. One of them we are funding and one of them we chose not to.

The reasons behind the first one, is around the, the impact that this is having with the young girls, that they're providing the supports to. We did reduce the amount of funding not fully to their request, based on just the competition, the limited amount of money we had. And then also we were able to see in their application, they're really well leveraged, and we felt confident or we're hoping that they're able to confidently maybe fill those gaps with some other funders that we were able to recognize long standing in the area, and obviously committed to them and their work. We were they have a small number of individuals they're serving, in comparison to say, like, the schools with the assembly or something of that nature, but we understand who they're interviewing, the cost, and

why that

is. The second application was not funded again just due to the lack of limited funding. And again, they appear to be well leveraged, we're hoping that they'll have the opportunity to seek that funding elsewhere. The the Hayward Historical Society, we weren't able to identify major weaknesses, major strengths. They were sort of middle of the pack for us.

And just based off of how other applicants really rose above, we were funding them to the best of our ability given the funding provided. Unfortunately, California Rebels wasn't able to share with us specific information about who's participating and the impact of what they were wanting to do. The concept is is notable, but it just wasn't clear on what the impact was of these individuals attending their performances beyond a social activity or event. And I'm not certain, but I believe there may have been some discussion about whether or not it should be in the event funding area as opposed to arts and culture because of that, because it felt very much like an event. Yeah.

Yeah. That's here. The other thing was around generation music. They're in the process of establishing themselves in Hayward, which is why we weren't funding them as high as others who were able to already show their existing impact within our city. They're mostly in San Lorenzo at this time looking to enter into additional services here.

And then, again, the Kwanzaa prompt was unable to quantify impact for us, and it's very qualitative in their interview, and it's difficult to measure the outcomes for individuals. It's very, the feelings of individuals or individuals are reporting. They're not weren't able to give us feedback beyond that, and we're hoping that they're able to work on the data collection. And then finally, the fractured Atlas was also, not able to provide us concrete data around how they're outreaching around their impact and the number of individuals, that they're serving. And so, we would love to see extended plan for them with providing access to additional students in the future as well as how the educational after school program.

We're not certain if it was appropriate in the arts and culture arc. Maybe it could be better suited for the services arc with some of the conversation that had come up for us in our deliberations. And that concludes arts and culture.

Much. I'm going to pass the baton to commissioner Moore to review the services deliberation. Okay.

My sense, the initially reviewed applications using the rubric scores, and we came to a consensus on which applications would not be recommended for fiscal year twenty twenty six funding. We also use the rubik scores to identify program priorities. The categories were housing and homeless programs, food security, and legal services, especially those agencies offering services to immigrant and undocumented populations. For those agencies that were to receive CTGB funding, the ARC used the following process. In the initial round, the ARC recommended to partially or fully fund all but one agency.

Covenant House is a new agency, a new applicant with a large budget. Funding recommendations for funded projects range from 100% to 45% of the requested amounts. The ARC also recommended full funding to Eden Council of Hope to echo tenant property owner services in the amount of $16,008.58. Should there be additional funding, the ARC recommends that first funding, Covenant House California up to 30,000 as it falls within the funding priority category of supporting housing and homelessness and any remaining amount to be distributed evenly to legal assistance for seniors, Spectrum, the Alliance for Community Wellness, and Ruby's Place up to the funding cap and not to exceed the funding request. For the deliberations among agencies receiving general fund funding, the ARC used the following process.

For general fund applicants, the ARC expressed the desire to prioritize housing, food security, and programs that supported undocumented populations and supported immigrants. In the initial rounds, the ARC recommended to fund most housing and homeless programs at 50% of the recommend of the requested amount. Food security at last year's funding levels for returning applicants and 50% of the requested amount for services. Opportunities for seniors, a new applicant funding Immigration Institute of Bay Area Legal Services for immigrant programs at 50% and funding Eden United Church of Christ navigation newcomer center at 25% of their requested amount. Using that approach, the ARC recommends to fully or partially fund the following agencies.

Five six Siva, Daily Bowl, Mercy Brown Bag, San Lorenzo Family Help Center, service opportunities for seniors, Ruby's Place, building opportunities for self sufficiency, Central Legal Dela Raza, community resources for independent living or Creel, Family Violence Law Center, First Presbyterian Church of Hayward, their, case management services, also First Presbyterian Church of Hayward, or the Shelter and Resource Center, Love Never Fails, Park Place Refuge Laundry Services, Eden United Church of Christ, the Newcomer Navigation Center, and Immigration Institute of the Bay Area legal services for immigrants. That's 15 that received full or partial funding. After the initial funding recommendations, the ARC decided to evenly distribute the remaining funds evenly across all housing and homelessness projects. Each of the following applicants received an additional $14,190. Building opportunities for self sufficiency, Central de la Raza, Community Resources for Independent Living, Family Violence Law Center, First Presbyterian Church of Hayward, Case Management, First Presbyterian Church of Hayward, the South Hayward Parish Resource and Shelter Center, and Love Never Fails Park Place Refuge Laundry Services.

We did not recommend funding to 12 agencies based on prioritization of funding categories. The effectiveness of the program giving the funding request amounts and limited funding. The ARF explored evenly distributing the remaining funds after allocating the prioritized categories, but that resulted in a multiple award less than 10,000. And we decided that maybe that wasn't the best use of the funds to give an organization less than 10,000. So the ones that were not recommended for funding are Bay Area Community Health, Crisis Support Services of Alameda County, Glad Tidings Community Development, South Hayward Adult Day Program, Glad Tidings Community Development, Hayward Police Activity League, Horizon Services, the Lambda Project, Diverseo Vasquez, Health Center, Youth Health Education at Hayward High, Front Porch Communities, the Home Match Program, Rising into Self Employment, Street Outreach Case Management, East Bay Agency for Children, the Hayward Hub Program, Be A Mentor, Bully Talk, Eden Youth and Family Center, the clubhouse at Eden Youth, and Safe Alternatives for Violent Environments.

If there is additional funding, the AHRQ recommends first funding Bay Area Community Health early intervention services for HIV care up to 50% of the funding request within the cap of 25,000. And should there be any additional funding, we'd like to fund Eden Youth and Family Centers Clubhouse program up to 50% for the funding request within the cap of 25,000. I'd like to note that this was a very, very difficult year. I'd also like to recognize the AHRQ members, and that was commissioner Gunn, commissioner Wong, commissioner Dow. Our notes say that commissioner Alvite was a member, but she wasn't present with us.

So I'm not sure what happened. Apologies. We had to shift.

Filled in a gap in another. I'm sorry about that.

That's fine. If my math is correct, there were requests for 2,800,000.0, and we had 652,000. So I think that's pretty simple how hard that was to distribute. It wasn't an easy two days, but it was a fulfilling two days because we did our best to make the best decisions given our understanding of the community's needs and the available dollars. That's where we are.

Thank you, commissioner Moore. So I'm gonna wrap up our the presentation with some analysis of the funding recommendations for your consideration. So here, you'll see the total funding amount by the project type. These graphs are also included in the staff report if you like to look at, like, a actual physical copy. And so among the top funded project types included economic development, housing and homelessness, food security, and artsy music.

For economic development and infrastructure, I'll just say that they as a bucket, there was $500,000 to be able to allocate among those two categories, which is pretty high, based off of the number of applicants there were. And then, homelessness and food security were within the same category. Arts and music has their own category as well. And in this next slide, so last year, we had some questions about the language that's in the RFP. So our RFP states that there is a priority for new applicants, and this was following a review of the CAC process in 2022 where there were modifications to the process to include a priority to fund 20 to 30% new and innovative programs.

Now this is while this is a priority for new applicants, this is not meant to be an entitled amount to new agencies, but rather a target percentage. All agencies recommended funding should still have to meet the qualifications and demonstrate the ability to administer a program successfully to receive funding from the city. This year, the CSC did meet this priority in the funding cycle where 22% of the recommended funding agencies were either new agencies or a new program, which is eight new agencies out of the 36 agencies that were fund recommended for funding. And you'll see here, this is the dollar amount and the percentage based off of the category. The next two graphs are more specific to the services.

So here, you'll see the percentage of total services recommended funding by funding category or competitive funding category. This is only the competitive, awards. You'll see here this explains $25,000 to support fair housing activities. And you'll see based off of the priorities that the, services ARC have, communicated that housing, food security, legal services, and those agencies that are supporting, those who are undocumented, were the top priority. And then you'll see here, this is a graph that the CSC requested last year, and this includes the eligible funding based on the funding cap depending on the category of service that they applied or that the individual applied for, their funding total funding request and the total funding recommendation.

So those cap amount, the middle is the request, and to the right is the amount that was recommended. The orange column on the left shows the eligible funding based on the funding cap for agencies that were recommended for funding in that service type. For example, housing and homelessness projects are eligible for up to a $100,000, and other services are eligible for up to $50,000. As a reminder, the CSC did develop these funding caps in 2022, which we've been implementing since 2023. In cases where the middle column represented the total represents the total funding request, cases where that middle column exceeds that orange column, at least one agency requested over their eligible cap.

And so I'm just gonna wrap up this presentation so you can jump into we can jump into public comment. But the public comment period for the draft recommendations open today and will close on March 19, at the next CSC meeting. This was noticed in a daily review in English and Spanish on February 7. You can direct comments to me, via this email that's listed on the slide, or you can phone them, or you can physically mail them to the city at City Hall 777 B Street Hayward, California 94541. For members of the public, the public comment period will close at the next CST March meeting, and the CSC will make their final recommendations to city council during that meeting.

The funding recommendations for all categories are scheduled for city council's review on April 1, and the subsequent public hearing is scheduled for April 22 where that on April 22, there will be a public hearing where city council will finalize these recommendations. Our division will be able to go into contract with the agencies that were funded, recommended for funding. And before we move on to questions and public comment, I did wanna touch on attachment three of your agenda packet, which reviews recommended changes to improve the community agency funding process. This is based off of several years of feedback that we received from the CSD and agencies that have gone through this process. Scott developed a list of recommendations to make potential improvements to this process in order to minimize the burden on agencies.

And we wanted to daylight this during this meeting for your review. There's no expectations to them today, but rather we wanted to provide it to the CFC, as staff is going to come back in March to review them, and we'll have time to benchmark do some benchmark research and bring some data, based off of agency feedback. Thank you for your time, and we will move on to public comment.

Hi. So thank you, Emily. This is the point where I shout out. She has done a tremendous amount of work. You all have probably gotten a dozen emails from her, I wanna commend her. She did a great job of listening to everybody last year and integrating your feedback into this year's purpose report. So thank you, Emily. Thank you. I'm gonna go ahead and share a timer so that we can do that with our public comment. Evelyn, will you please make your Zoom full screen so that everybody can see it?

Perfect. Okay. So we have public comment cards that are submitted here for this item. And I also see some hands on the virtually. Do you have a reference how you wanna speak up and if you wanna do the in person cards or That's in person first. Okay. So we're gonna do in person first. And then folks on Zoom, go ahead and raise your hand, and we'll get to you after that.

And the

first card I have is for Samantha Beckett. Can I stand? Yes. Good

evening. My name is Samantha Beckett. I'm the directing attorney of the tenants rights practice at Central Lake Austin. I'm here tonight to thank you all for the funding recommendations, but also express some concern about what the reduced funding amount that's currently being proposed would mean for pay for tenants. This means reduced staffing, for our life changing and life saving services.

The recommended amount, is $23,000 less than what we got last year and about $34,000 less than what we requested. I understand that the commission received far more applications than it can possibly fund. We have really difficult decisions to make. It's important to know that the city is in the midst of an evictions crisis. Hayward tenants are being hardest hit by the evictions crisis in the whole county.

An analysis of court filing data found that Hayward had the highest eviction rate in the whole county at 5.38% of all Hayward tenants faced an eviction case last year. That amounted to 1,209 eviction filings, which was 17% of evictions filed countywide. Since then, we've seen no drop, and there's no end in sight. So given this landscape, it would be very detrimental to Hayward tenants if there were less eviction defense representation services available because our work keeps tenants safely housed. I also wanna note that Centro applied through the general funds funding source, but is very experienced in complying with CVBG requirements.

We have a CDBG grant with Hayward in the past, and we currently have two others with two other cities. So we would be able to fully comply with CDBG requirements if there might be any CDBG funds available to make up the difference. Pennant Legal Services is the most cost effective homelessness prevention intervention. At a time of historically high eviction rates, we urge this commission to do what you can to prioritize this program. Thank you so much. Thank

you.

Kina Evans.

Hi, everyone. Oh, okay. Hi, everyone. My name is Kina Evans. I'm here on behalf of the We Talk Inc.

I just wanted to say thank you for allowing us to be able to receive the grant for the last year. And so we were just here to just wanted to take the time to acknowledge the opportunity to come up here and also also take a moment to express the gratitude and how much Bully Talk has grown just due to the funding. We have already been at seven schools already in Hayward, off of the funding as a sponsorship as well. And our kids in the community have had an amazing opportunity. The thing that we were kinda trying to bring this year was the youth ambassador's program for the youth, which is a four week program lesson being in the classrooms.

And so this is something that would be grateful to have opportunity to receive funding for another year. But again, I just wanted to take the time out to acknowledge and say thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you. Kim Olson.

Thank you, Christian. My name is Kim Olson. I'm the director of advocacy for SOS, Meals on Wheels, service opportunities for seniors. Our mission is we serve a daily nutritious meal and a crucial wellness check to homebound seniors. Our requested $2,000 would cover both the sorry. Excuse me. We would serve about five hundred five hundred residents in Hayward, and this portion would cover the meals portion of the meals on wheels. I we're particularly proud of the food that we produce out of our kitchen in San Leandro that it is distributed about around County. Our meals are developed with a dietitian. They are under strict, strict nutritional guidelines to be the most nutritious possible for seniors.

No salt enters our kitchen, and yet everything that exits our kitchen, we are proud to eat ourselves. It's cooked with a lot of love, low cooking times, and lots of herbs. When you think about people that this is the only meal that they have for a day, we wanna make sure that

they do it with a little bit of joy.

The other portion of of what we do is that crucial wellness check. For a lot of our seniors, our drivers are the only person that they see for a day. So it's not just nutrition, it's also that well-being of checking in on our older neighbors, making sure they're okay, and then connecting them to social services when needed. Right now, seniors are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population, and our drivers provide a valuable intervention to make sure that they're safe in their home. And if they're not, if we see a problem, we help them get connected to support so that they can stay in their home and age there with dignity. Really quick about the folks we serve. 99.9% are considered low income. I'm not sure about that one senior. I think it might be a data error. But 78.6% of them are considered extremely low income.

So the folks that we're receiving not only this social connection, they really do rely on these meals, for their daily, nutritional needs. So thank you so much for this. We're proud of Sarpedia Hayward, and and thank you for your time.

Thank you. Robert.

Hi. Howdy. Howdy, y'all. Public speaking never gets easy. So first off, thank you so much for the opportunity to give us all this money to help our nonprofit needs in order to get the basic necessities of life out to people. From housing to food, shelter, it's it's all very important. My name is Robert Bulletau. I am the executive director of Generation Music and Arts Academy. We are a five zero one c three nonstop community school in San Lorenzo. As mentioned earlier, we're trying to expand more towards Hayward toward families.

What we wanna do with this money that you guys are offering us about $10,000, we want to supplement the cost of music education, private lessons, as well as as ensemble courses for families that are in need. I was the PTO president of a title one school in San Leandro for a while, and my son's friend was playing flute. He had a school issued flute. I asked him if I could see it because I wanted to show off. I I've played flute since 1993.

Half of these notes would have come out. And it's in these types of classroom environments where you have 37 30 or so kids, it's a lot easier to keep an eye on the, the, conditions of these instruments and make sure that these kids are able to understand that sometimes it's the mechanism, and it's not the child's guild up. We want to supplement costs for low income and low low income families in order to offer them, you know, subsidies as well as full scholarships so that way nobody is left behind. We are very, very much interested in diversity, equity, and inclusion. And, yeah, thank you so much for your time.

Got five seconds. Thank

you. Alfred Jansky?

Good evening, community members and guests. I'm a new Hayward resident, seven years only. I'm here on behalf of Sun Gallery, which is not part of, what you've been discussing here, unfortunately. This is the first year that they have not received any grant money in a long time, and that is due to the previous board members and their, defallocation of funds. Dorsey and Carl are now running the organization.

I have experienced in nonprofits over fifteen years as the business manager. I've gone undergone audits. I'm helping them currently with their paperwork and helping them get everything in order. Carl has gone through an enormous list of corrections and correcting deficits and paperwork and all of that. And he was the one that reported to the city, his concerns about what was happening over there.

Unfortunately, because of the lag in time, it they are now impacted. So they have a huge gap that they really depended on this money. $20,000. They're a very small agency. Their situation is dire. Dire, and they have no way of replacing that money currently. The the possibility they may may not even be around next year is real. So they are working their hardest. No one is getting paid. Everyone is a volunteer there.

So I hope that somewhere that the administration would look relook at what they have applied and consider if there's any extra money that it goes to them because they really are deserving.

Thank you. Austin Bruckner Carrillo.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Austin Bruckner Carrillo. I have the honor of serving on the Hayward School Board. I'm speaking today as a member of the public and not on behalf of my colleagues on the school board nor do they represent the official stance of the district. I ran for school board to protect local governance, and little did I know that as a school board member, I and my colleagues would be tasked with fighting to preserve the right to govern locally.

Our school district is facing a $54,000,000 deficit. There are painful cuts as all of our providers will tell you at the federal level with more to come over the next, four, dark jerk years. Hayward is an education city, and I, as a school board member, believe that I have an obligation to fight for the needs of our students. There are several requests on this list, that if money were not an object, should be funded. And I really ask that this commission and council consider funding Tubercio Vasquez for their school based clinic at Hayward High, for EVAC, for their work at the hub to connect families with medical coverage, which actually provides families with health care and allows our school district the right to bill Medi Cal for services.

Our crisis support services for mental health support at school sites for Eden Church for support for our newcomer families, Centro de la Gal for the work that they do with our newcomer and immigrant families, Horizon, for their project, Lambda, and they work with LGBT folks, be a mentor, bully talk. We all know what's happening, on our school grounds. We have kids running around yelling ice. Now is not the time to turn our back on vulnerable kids. I would ask that we look at duplication of services, reconsider funding organizations that are receiving funding across marks, and, really, funding is a policy discussion and that this commission has an obligation to advocate beyond these recommendations and to push council and the county to make more funding available.

Thank you. That was my last card.

Okay. I'm so for folks who are online, I'm going to go down the list to allow you to talk, and I'll go down the list if hands were raised. And the first member, I actually think, is commissioner Khasuf. Commissioner Khasuf, is that you? You've hit star six to unmute if you're muted.

It looks like you're currently muted, so you have to hit star six.

Commissioner? Hello?

Yes. We can hear you.

So we're in the public comment portion right now. Can we come back to you when we get to commissioner discussion?

Yeah.

Okay. Great.

So the next person is Julie Greenfield. Can you hear us, Julie?

Yes. Hi. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I'm, speaking as a community member and also a member of the Sun Gallery and a longtime supporter of the Sun Gallery. I I'm very concerned that this organization, has been one of the pillars of the arts in in our area, is gonna be is going to go down in its hour of need because it's not gonna it's not getting our support, not getting your support.

And they had a really rough year and a half with some terrible mismanagement and maltreatment of some of the staff and the artists. And by some miracle, the the community was able to take back this institution where my children went to camp, and and we took many field trips to the Sun Gallery. My godchildren just have been going there just in the last couple of years. Their mother passed away from COVID, and it was a terrible situation. And the Sun Gallery gave them a full scholarship to go to camp, to go to art camp during the summer.

What a blessing. And, they've done so many wonderful community things, Dia de los Muertos celebrations. The earrings I'm wearing, I guess you can't see them. This is not a live thing, but I'm wearing the earrings I bought thirty five years ago during an exhibition of African art there. And, there's it's just such a wonderful community asset. I really think that, if at all possible, Hayward needs to support it right now. Thank you.

Thank you, Julie.

Okay. Next on our list is a phone number. The last three digits are 341, and you have to hit 6 to unmute.

Hello? Can you hear me?

Yes. We can. Go ahead.

Yes. This is Zelda with Faith Gardens regarding the Kwanzaa project. And, first of all, I would like to say, thank you for recommending us for some funding. Of course, I'm a little disappointed that we got 50% of what we asked, and I understood and heard the comments about whether or not the impact was clearly qualify a qualifying factor. And I wanted to say that we were originally supposed to serve 62 people, and our funding was reduced initially.

And in spite of it all, we still managed to get 164 people who went through the program. It was a new program. It did not happen the way we originally thought it would happen, but we had excellent artists. And the point is we feel the African American culture, with the DEI attacks that are going on now, are not truly represented in Hayward as far as the African American opinion is, not like Oakland where you can easily identify where the cultural centers are for the African American community, it is not found in Hayward. And also, when I go to employment establishments, I just feel that the African American community, even though we're 16,000 strong, are not recognized in Hayward the way they should be.

And I don't think that our community should have to go to Oakland to exercise their cultural experiences. And so the point is with the Kwanzaa project to try to expose all of the communities to the African American community. Oh, I'm sorry.

Your the timer is off. I'm not sure if you can see it because you're on the phone, but that's your two minute comment.

Oh, okay.

And just a reminder to you and to other folks that you can make comment at the March 19 meeting as well.

Thank you.

Yes. Thank you. Okay. Next on our list is Laura McInnis.

Hello.

Hi. We can hear you. Go ahead.

Hi. Hi. My name is Laura McInnis. I'm the managing attorney at Family Violence Law Center. On behalf of FELC, I wanna thank the commission for continuing to recommend funding for our legal services.

We understand that less funding is expected to be available from the general fund than last year, so many organizations like ours are recommended to receive less funding in fiscal year twenty twenty six. Unfortunately, organizations like FULC will be relying more heavily on city funds to continue to provide life saving services for survivors and and their families. We currently receive a significant amount of federal funds and expect those funds to be cut or heavily restricted during the coming year. Please please join us in encouraging the city of Hayward not to decrease its allocation of general funds in fiscal year twenty twenty six for these vital services. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Next on our list is Andrew Kong Knight. You can go ahead and unmute.

Yes. Hi. Can you hear me? Can everyone hear me?

Yes. Go ahead.

Hi, commission. Thank you for letting me tell you a little story about a artist that grew up in Hayward. He went to the Sun Gallery as a little kid after school program and summer art program, and his ambition, his dream was to be an artist since he was a kid. It was a Sun Gallery that brought him in, took him under his wing, and he he he was a home away from home for him. And how many of you can you can I see a a hands?

How many love the murals of Hayward? It was because of Sun Gallery that I became an artist and a long time teacher twenty five years at Hayward High. My students showed at the Sun Gallery. They were beneficiaries of Sun Gallery as as as just as recent as this December when we tried to have a fundraiser to to keep us a roof over our heads. We were barely paying the heat over there, and we have a long tradition, sixty years now, of the Sun Gallery.

It's our anniversary, and it's a shame to have this institution that help youth with after school programs and workshops. And now we have a cutting edge makerspace that shows technology to kids, teaching them technology, teaching them the arts, teaching them music. We have a we had a monthly jam session that invited youth to play, And there and and to piggyback on Austin's comment at the start of the meeting that, you know, we're gonna be failing our students of Hayward of Hayward High, which is right just a couple blocks from Sun Gallery, the Bret Hart, which is just in back of the Sun Gallery, those youth that that that come and visit after school at the Sun Gallery that that learn valuable skills such as gallery skills, it it will be gone. And we are not the guys that ran it before, and we are blacklisted. We are running around with this

Mister Knight, I'm I'm sorry. Your time is up.

Okay. Sun Gallery.

Next on our list is Jennifer You can unmute. Hi, everybody.

My name is Jennifer Dowrow. I'm the executive director of Safe Alternatives to to Violent Environments, but you know us as SAVE. SAVE has provided safety support and resources to citizens of Hayward impacted by domestic violence for decades. So it was shocking to us that even though there have been no performance issues and no substantial issues raised during our interview, that we were not recommended for funding. It's a relatively small investment that yields an excellent return when you consider SAVE provides round the clock culturally responsive, linguistically appropriate care to survivors of intimate partner violence in Hayward.

There's a lack of transparency around how this decision was made. And given the current political climate, SAVE and other DV providers are having to lean more on local funding than we have ever before. And to not even be offered a reduced amount and instead just zeroed out entirely is really alarming. We believe SAVE's been a good partner to Hayward over the years, and we ask that you reconsider this funding recommendation so that we can continue to provide the care that Hayward citizens rely on. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. We have one final comment with our hand up. Frank Goulart, you can unmute. Frank, you're still muted if you can hear us.

K. There you are.

We can hear you.

Thank you. I appreciate that. First thing, I've got a positive a positive eyes for Amy, today. I said things that shouldn't have said anything, so I should have been maybe so to but Amy, I'm sorry. Thank

you.

This is a this is a this is the places where the action happened in this this, commission. Thank you. I had a stroke four five years ago. It's almost five years, and I don't speak very well. But I'm gonna do here. I'm gonna pitch such such Valerie. I'm with all of the all of the Odd Fellows. We have done a a summer concerts fourteen years and providing music. Now it's all it's gonna be because and and Austin, thank you. And Dorsey, Carl, they we need some help.

And Andy, thank you. It's all about something about the name Donald. This is gonna be really, really we have problems going on here. So we need to get our get get stuff together and get together as a get the community key that you get things done. Star Astor Astorney, she's gonna be help with the the Hayward schools and all the other people that you're talking about. We're just gonna have to get together and try to make the thing works here. So that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you, Frank. Okay. That is our last public comment. K. Lead us to your discussion? Yes.

Is there a discussion from the commissioners regarding what you've heard tonight? Starting with commissioner Wong. Two questions.

Well, two things. One comment, one question. First, the question I had I kept looking for SunGallery. Can you help me identify that in the sheet? They're not.

Not on?

Yeah. They're not on the sheet. I'm so

the I have a note. I don't wanna

okay. So staff from Sun Gallery notified the city manager and city council and city staff about concerns regarding their former board, as you've heard. In November, there was a complete recall of their board. And at the time, the new board didn't have control of their finances and or fiscal control over the organization, and there was complete turnover. We had been in communication with them about the concerns.

We were also receiving communication from the fire board and staff about their concerns. And staff on our team consulted with the city attorney and the city manager's office and determined that we needed to conduct a thorough monitoring off schedule. Typically, our team monitors all funding recipients. And when we complete this funding process in the spring, we've been kind of on an every other year schedule because it's a big undertaking, and we were set to do that this year. We determined that it was appropriate to accelerate that monitoring process for Sun Gallery.

And so we're currently in that process. And we made the decision, given the amount of funds they've received, which between general fund and CBBG and ARPA was close to a $100,000 over the last couple years, And given the contradictory allegations that we were hearing from different folks, we didn't advance their application to you for review. We made a staff decision not to fund them for this upcoming year, let them get their feet under them with the new board, and let us complete our monitoring so we can move forward with that clear understanding. So that is why it didn't go to you all in the arts and music category.

Okay. I I appreciate that context. And then just to my own personal comment. So I wanted I reflected on being part of the services arc. And for me, at least, it was personally really difficult to make the funding recommendations that, I voted on, and I'm sure for many of my colleagues on the arm.

And, honestly, it felt I felt kind of powerless and angry when I had to make those type of recommendations. I mean, the fact that I had to recommend to find some very important organizations that work on housing and homelessness, but then say that, well, we don't have the funds, so we can't really provide any to a valuable service like Tipersio Vasquez or even Youth and Family Center or only 50% on Meals on Wheels, which to me seniors are a very important population, it felt very wrong to me. And, actually, just last week, I was coming back from my dentist appointment. And as I was coming back, I happened to go by a very long line coming out of a building. And I was wondering to myself, what is that line?

That's really interesting. I then went on to Google Maps and saw that that was the Freedom Store, and that honestly caught me by surprise. And it's evident to me because of that very long line that stand almost like the entire block into a parking lot that the fact that we gave them only, what, 10,000, it honestly feels like we're not giving enough to a service that is, in fact, used by the public. And perhaps one might say that that's just the budget situation that we're given, $2,000,000 being asked for while we only have, oh, is it for at least four, services. We only have, like, 455,000.

And maybe that's just the reality we live in, some might say. But, honestly, that does not feel satisfactory to me. And I personally will be attending the city council's work session to ask if the city council allocate more from the general fund. Whether a 300,000, 200,000, even a 100,000 would seemingly mean a lot to this organization and their ability to provide these very vital services to the community. And I'm hoping that us as a commission might be able to, like, unify around such a message to ask that the city council do allocate more from the general funds too so that we can provide more funding to very valuable services.

Thank

you. Additional comments? Commissioner Gunn?

Yeah. I I I agree with, Commissioner Wong here that it was a very, very difficult, process, you know, saying no to, no funding to organizations that I know directly impacts my students' lives, directly impacts so many people's lives. And so there's some very quality organizations that are doing amazing work that we just don't have the money for. And you can see if you when you look at the chart that, you know, we're still allocating the same roughly amount of money, plus or minus a few thousand, as we did in 2018, and the world is much different today than it was in 2018. And this request for funding have only skyrocketed and gone

up since

then. I understand that you can't, you know, pull money out of thin air, and I know that the our council has budget workshops happening where they're looking at where they can find money because, you know, our budget isn't exactly flushed with it at the moment anyway. But I do think it's important to just kind of, reflect on this idea that what we do here in this commission is more important than just our own time. It's literally saving people's lives, if they do or do not get funding from whatever organization that we decide ultimately to fund. And so, it weighs on me a lot, and it should.

It should weigh on me a lot, and it should weigh on all of us. And so I think that's that's what I all I wanted to say about that.

You. Commissioner Kumora? Yes. Yes. I don't know. Thank you. Yeah. A lot of things. Last year, I was able to participate in services community, so I know where you guys are coming from. And versus this year, I was able to, join the economic development.

So it's a totally different volume. It's like it's everything is different. So you guys struggle to distribute the funds equally or something we need in the community. Especially, I felt so ashamed that looking at those graphs, then we're not putting a dollar on the youth and, youth services. So, I mean, I feel like, we're just patching the problem, like homelessness and food shortages, but we need to start looking at investing in the future because the cycle just, you know, keep going.

If because I work for the substance use disorder, populations, and all of them have a tough childhood. None of them are exception. So we need to start investing those use services a little bit more down the line. They're not gonna be falling to the homelessness and the food shortage. And the next topic I wanted to mention was so economic development.

We felt like I'm not sure other how other commissioners felt, but we felt like we had enough money. We didn't really know what to do with all those money. Like, we decided not to fund one agencies with solid reasons, but most agencies got, satisfactory funding, I believe. So commissioners asked, staff member, like, can we allocate the extra amount of money? We feel like, you know, we don't need the other arcs. But the answer was no. So I

don't know how where the money is really coming from, how we need to

distribute, but something we can kind of consider to open up the application for different arts so we can kinda, like like, vague a little bit so the other agencies can kinda understand it. Let's apply for the economic development by, you know, using different wording so they can qualify. So so I guess that's my point. Thank you for listening.

May I speak to that? Yes. Do. Fair. Unfortunately, I'm not sure. Like, I think I see where you're going with trying to get folks into those other arcs. Unfortunately, the funding used for economic development and infrastructure is community development block grant funding from the federal government. And so the eligibility criteria is very strict regardless of who's in the federal administration. It's strict. And so we wouldn't effectively really be able to try and say that one service program is economic development, and we're monitored by HUD, they would catch us on that.

So that is why when you ask that great question about whether or not we can use some of this money for everybody else, But the answer to that, unfortunately, is no.

Commissioner Kumar, was that it?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Angola?

Thank you. This year, I was on the arts and music arc, but I wanna commend the services arc for trying to make the fun stretch. I can see how hard that might be. But I do wanna urge us to show our youth some love with the numbers if possible. As a survivor of violent crime where the people responsible for the crime were youth, I have made it my mission to mentor them, support them, and lift them up. And I believe that healthy youth equal healthy communities. So if you all can revisit that or just to look at that

again. Thank you. Miss Newberry? Thank

you.

Maybe I'm forgetting your last name, doctor Amy.

Got it. Can

you share with us, any other history around I imagine this is not the first time this commission has been faced with more requests than funding. I imagine it is not the first time we've been tasked with our best creative thinking on how do we solve this. Do you have any history or background you can share with us around other alternatives or solutions that have been implemented in the past. I know this commission has talked about at length, what responsibility we have to our community beyond divvying up limited funds. My mind was thinking of, okay.

Well, if we're not able to give them this money, can we connect them to other money? I'm just I'm just thinking. And so can you give us any history or background of alternatives of things that this commission has the ability to advocate for beyond asking the city to get turn up or whatever the analogy is and that kind of thing? And, you know, if there's other avenues we can explore, I would love if you have any historical background or can share with us additional guidance.

I would say some context that Emily mentioned that I wanna reiterate is that one of the things that made this year so challenging is the combination of more applicants, which not blaming you all, but it's your fault because you've done such a good job of getting the word out there and and making sure that people know about this funding and also making sure that we're doing a better job of getting the word out there as well so we have more applicants. Additionally, this year, we didn't have an additional infusion of onetime funds. So over the past few years, we had some combination of ARPA money one year, which was a big boost. We also and I believe this line here shows our general funds available. Is that correct?

Oh, it's total? Okay. So we had ARPA one year. Last year, we were able to use some of the funds from the city's portion of the national opioid settlement Mhmm. To fund or agencies that were meeting those eligibility criteria.

And we don't have an additional one time funding source this year, which is part of the reason when you factor in, we don't have as much money as we've had the last couple of years. We don't have the one time funds, and you have more applicants. So that is the context there for why this year is so extra challenging. I think also the services arc made a conscious choice to prioritize impact for few as opposed to, like, very smaller impact for more agencies, which is why in the time that I have been here, since 2019, I've not seen this spreadsheet with so many bureaus. And that, I think, is and commissioner Moore and and our council member have been here longer and can maybe speak to that as well.

In terms of what we've done in the past, I don't have a good answer for you about that. The commission did successfully lobby council to increase funding for arts and music a few years ago. For a while, that funding arc had about $82,000, I think, or 84, something like that. And council probably 82. And then council increased it $50,000 a couple years ago. But that's the only example I have of this group kind of successfully identifying other funding. Sorry. I don't have a better answer.

That's okay. I was thinking of, like, the appropriateness or inappropriateness. I know we had some technical assistance workshops. We reviewed our application process more. And I don't know, you know, if that's really our limitation. It's just the technical assistance around our own application process and if there's any limitations with supporting our agencies serving our community with connecting to other sources beyond us and whether or not there's a workshop that's offered to support them with with that. Not currently.

Thank you. Not seeing any more hands. Are there no more comments or questions?

One more thing also is that, one thing that we we struggle with on the services arc was also the the proper allocation of of for so for example, if we look at housing, and we're looking at shelters versus transitional housing versus long term affordable housing. Something that I personally would like to see as a commissioner is what recommendations or guidelines council has for this is how much we want each one to have. You know, I think it would be really bad if we funded only shelters, for example, and then no transitional housing or the no permanent affordable housing, versus also keeping people in their house housing situation already, which, you know, food services can lend itself in that way. So, I guess sort of, something in line with a strategic plan that says this is exactly what we're looking for as far as funding allocations, could be something that would be beneficial. Not necessarily to to agencies, but just to sectors is what I'm thinking.

Thank you. Commissioner Singh?

This is the call. I noticed the there were legal firms, I would say at least three, and legal is important to providing a valuable service when compared to maybe providing funding to agencies that provide food or housing. How did you guys kinda make the decision to go fund legal firms towards, like, maybe prioritizing food and shelter first? I want to understand that. But you like food and

Could you speak up a little bit on Yeah.

Sure. What your actual question was?

So my question is, you know, there were there's three, at least three legal firms that received, you know, funding. It might have been, the entire amount that they had requested. But how did, the commission or the commissioners on the services are decide that we should go ahead and fund these legal firms? What's this funding? Some of the food agencies or the agencies that provide food.

We started with the rubric. Okay. And so without having everything in front of me, if the rubric score was low, they didn't get the second nod. So part of it is is really vested in how the how the application reads and how what and then how well they interview. So I I'm I'm trying to think which three you're talking about. So help me with that.

Oh, just in terms of legal, it was, like, the, the immigration institution. That was one of the family violence law center and then, the central legal d. I'm probably pronouncing that incorrectly, but those are the three that I noted that received funding. Mhmm. And I was just kind of trying to understand how I mean, you kinda partly explained that you guys used to rubric.

That's where

we started.

And that's where you guys started. But in terms of, like, maybe looking at somewhat other some other agencies that are focused more on just providing food such as Meals on Wheels, which received, 50% of their funds to funding. Pretty sure there's other agencies that provide food or even, you know, how how to think of homelessness in terms of kind of, you know I guess what I'm trying to say is that instead of kind of prioritizing them, saying, hey. We're gonna prioritize these agencies to make sure that they get at least full funding for these food and housing categories instead of going to legal. How did you guys kind of decide that?

I know you mentioned it was partly with the group scoring, but did you guys kinda take into consideration the category? I will note

I'm sorry. I was just saying I will note that food security was the second highest funded. It was housing and homelessness, food security, and legal services. Yeah.

It was the thought that

our legal services, our immigrant population, the undocumented populations were going to come under attack. How do we, as a commission, address part of that? But the limitation of the funding was that's a huge issue. Because we can personally sit here and think that I would have done the first six, and maybe you would have done the second seven. But without the dollars, it gets into what I think and what you think.

And somehow we have to balance that so that we come to the commission with a unified voice that says this is what we're recommending given this limitation of dollars. And when you consider we had 2.7 in requests, that's that's just a real, real big that's a big hill.

Okay. Thank you.

Commissioner Daniel? Oh, I'm so sorry. Commissioner Maxon

is I'm sorry. Commissioner Maxon?

Hey, everyone. Well, I I just wanna start with just appreciating the services arc and your your work. This is I was a part of it last last year, so I totally understand the the type of budget you're working with and the amount of applications we deal with. And just noting that too of, like, there's gonna be a pattern of more and more agencies applying to this application process. And, like, with this pattern, even noting, like, of previous year's pattern, it's only gonna increase from here.

And with the budget cuts and uncertainty from this current administration, We're gonna need to find ways to collaborate with council on ways we can get more funding or ways that we can have more general fund allocated towards, you know, the community services arcs, mainly because even just hearing from the public comment about what Austin had mentioned about, like, the youth budget cuts too and noting too that, like, Alameda County had cut mental health and prevention services for community based organizations. So seeing that on the services piece too, there are some mental health resources that wasn't able to get funding this time around, but just noting that, like, across the board, it there are budget cuts for that. And just if there's a way that we can find an allocation for youth funding, particularly if we can do some cross issue infrastructure funding. So something like the youth and mental health that will help out with prevention and some of the some of our students at Hayward. So that's just kind of my suggestion to address.

Like, if there are agencies that kind of hit different cross issues, that we're able to still find funding on, that might be able to support also a wider array of of folks.

Thank you.

Thank you. First, I wanted to echo commissioner Wong's request of asking that council for additional funding for services as, you know, Amy has mentioned we were able to leverage that for for art and music previously. Hoping we could do, you know, that for services. Also wanna acknowledge, you know, the difficulty that that ARC had to do, you know, with the amount of funding requested and amount of funding available. I could just imagine the the difficulty of the decisions and, you know, the the third thing is, as we look at the graph, it was compelling to see, of course, that, you know, health and youth, and education, we were not able to allocate, any, funding, you know, this year, well recommend funding.

Is there and, of course, you know, I'm acknowledging, you know, commissioner Gunn's and and commissioner Wong's, you know, difficulty in in in trying to make this decision, but at the same time, being able to fund this, you know, services. I I wonder, you know, to since we were not able to fund, what are the alternative services available to address those that we were not able to fund? Like, for example, what exists now for crisis intervention for, you know, Hayward, you know, students? I think that will be great to see on, you know, what is available even though we were not able to fund this specific service. This is what is available.

I you know, it just eats on you, right, not being able to like, mental health, youth, you know, that affects me personally and a lot of people. But I I think it will help to understand what already exists since we're not able to to fund, you know, all of the services. I think that will kinda allay some of our concerns. I know it will for me because if, you know, again, if I know that if this crisis agency is not were not able to fund, but this there are other options to address that issue, then I think I'll be, you know, I'll be better. You know, it will be it will sit better with me.

Yeah.

I may I respond? That okay?

I I appreciate that, and I think I understand where you're coming from. I do not think our team has the capacity to accurately do that in time for our next meeting. I would be concerned we have our workloads are significant in addition to this process. Like, we're going through budget, lots of other things right now. I would be really worried that we would do that and miss things and give you incorrect information. So I I respectfully, I don't think that's something that we can do to provide you. Because we basically would have to do it in the next two weeks with our internal review timelines and things, and I I

don't think we can do that. I think most of the organizations, except those maybe that are very new, are aligned with organizations within their own sector so that they know that there are six similar agencies providing additional services. There are alliances and organizational communities that do the same type of work. And in my my thought would be that if we, over the next months, develop such a catalog that it could be provided to them at the RFP when we put out the request next year. I know that doesn't help anybody right now.

I'm just trying to think it through. That would allow them to align themselves with like organizations so that in the case of reduced or nonexistent funding from this body, they also know who are the resources available to them in this community.

I think that's a good.

Quick question.

Go

ahead. So, Doctor. Kolbloom, what about, like, some sort of, like, community needs assessment? You know, like or not now, but I'm just talking about kind of longer, right, longer term. And then we can figure out who are the service providers that already fill some of those needs, and then perhaps the gaps in those community needs assessment and where we're not seeing service providers filling those needs could be a potential lens for this commission to prioritize future funding perhaps.

I the last community needs assessment was in 2018, we have used that basically to the point where we can't use it anymore because it was seven years ago, which is terrifying. I we are absolutely due to do a new community needs assessment. To do it accurately and within, like, the full scope, it's typically something that we work with an outside vendor to do, which

I think we

would have to do again. And we are currently in the process of developing our five year consolidated plan for community development block grant. And that was what that was what result why we did a community needs assessment last time. And we looked at our budget this year and didn't have the ability to do it. So instead, our team did, like, effectively a doc review and looked at every single plan that the city has done, every report the city's produced in the last several years and integrated those findings and then did some surveying and spoke to this group to try and do that.

So we haven't done a comprehensive community needs assessment in the way that you're talking Community involvement block grant admin money can be used to pay for that, but we have been at our cap with our existing admin costs every year for the past three years.

I mean, just something to consider maybe as we look at budget going into 2025. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you.

One other thing also, and then, I know that, Emily, you had touched on this also as well was that one strategy that we looked at and ultimately didn't consider on services was just evenly distributing across various agencies that at least reached a minimum, on on the rubric score of something we're acceptable in. And, you know, awarding an agency $6,000, $3,000 is just not feasible, I don't I don't think, in my opinion. And so if we were to do anything like that, let's say $10,000 for seven organizations, we would then then have to find that $10,000 for seven organizations somewhere else. So the question goes to which housing agency are we willing to cut to do that? Which food agency are we willing to cut to do that?

And so that is where the difficulty lies in doing that.

I think it's really interesting, and, of course, you made your own decisions. How many of you say, I was on services last year, but I wasn't on services this year. And maybe it's because it is such a difficult place to be. You just needed to sit somewhere else this year. It's a very hard seat.

There's not enough dollars. There's multiple applications. It's two days, two Saturdays worth of work, and the rewards are minimal. You have to find some personal reward in it because basically you're not awarding to the agencies that you think, oh, they should have gotten x number of dollars and I would love to have seen these people get this amount of money, but there just isn't that amount of money. Are there further comments or questions?

Alright. We're gonna move on.

Also, before you comment on the stock recommended changes.

We weren't anticipating that you would have Oh. Our hope is to kind of daylight those things for you, and then we'll bring back a more fleshed out proposal for next month. We wanna be able to do some benchmarking with other jurisdictions so that we can anticipate your questions and answers to them. If you have questions already, you can feel free to email me so that we can make sure to have those ready for the March time. Let me go back to sharing.

Conversations on ratio and equity advance.

So Yeah. This is just a standing item. There's no staff report associated with it. We have no ongoing items that you've asked us to follow-up on, but it's

a standing

item. We We don't have anything on it for you this evening.

I'm trying to again see, we go.

I'm so our next item on the calendar on the agenda is the planning calendar for next year. I next year. Next the rest of this year. Mhmm. The I want to before we review or take revisions, I would like to request a motion from someone to make a change, as, Austin is no longer our chair.

Commissioner Moore is our vice chair and is currently acting as chair. We recommend adding an elections item to March's meeting, so that you can vote on a chair and, if necessary, a vice chair, and if necessary, a proletarian.

I don't know who

you're voting and to what, but we would do that in March. And so I'm making a recommendation, and it would just need a motion. In the past, we've had success with one motion that captures everything. So I'll pause here if anybody has any other recommendations for revisions before someone makes a motion.

Is there no motion?

I will motion to, accept the recommendation, to agendize elections for, chair and potentially vice chair parliamentarian at the

oh, which meeting?

March meeting.

March meeting. Just making sure. At the March meeting, and approve the rest of the agenda as as it is.

Second. May I make a friendly amendment into that? Mhmm. Is that okay.

Trying to think of one. I believe we already have a parliamentarian. I don't believe that's something we need to vote on.

Sorry. You can just say elections.

Okay. Elections. Yes. Okay. So my friendly amendment is to agendize elections, at the March 19 meeting and then the rest of, like, commissioner Benson. They accept it. If you can.

There's second. And I'll second it.

Okay. So is the third, and I'm gonna be seconding. So we're adding to leptin to the March 19 with the approval of the remainder of the of the. And I will speak about. Mister Moore? Yes. Mister Maxim?

Yes.

Commissioner Anguilla? Yes. Commissioner Gaur? Yes. Commissioner Dow? Yes. Commissioner Del Rio? Yes. Commissioner Gant?

Yes.

Commissioner Tamura? Yes. Commissioner Singh? Yes. Commissioner Wheeler? Yes. And commissioner Wong?

Yes.

Commissioner Kazinkuin also. That's good. Because there was no vote at the

Oh, you are. I'm sorry. Thank you. Okay. This is the point. Oh, that's you. Are

there any council member announcements?

Nope. I don't have any. I just appreciate your guys' hard work. I know that these decisions are so difficult. I remember, me and commissioner Moore doing this work on Saturdays, and it's like you all we always have this need of, you know, the community is the needs of our community are growing, and the resources that are available don't seem to be growing at the same pace that their community needs are.

But I do appreciate the work that you guys are doing and the advocacy that you guys have. And, you know, I think going to council and seeing how you can advocate for more allocation is you know, it seems reasonable. Just also know that, you know, at the city level, we're trying to deal with our own budget issues there because we do have a little bit of a imbalance that we're trying to, you know, manage from a structural deficit perspective in our own budget. So, yeah, all of I think we're all competing for this. We're not we're not all competing for the same resources, but I think we all are interested in making sure that we're using the resources that we're interested to in a way that maximizes the impact and the benefit to those in our community and particularly that need it the most. So thank you guys for your hard work and for these great recommendations.

Thank you. Any commissioner announcements?

Alright. Staff announcements? No announcements from staff.

Oh. We met our

new city manager? Yes. Is that your new council liaison? Yes.

Yes. But We're Yes.

Have you heard that? We're doing this meeting at 08:58. Oh. Thank you. Everyone.

It's 10:00.

Yeah. Because I'm sure we need something. 10:30. Like, wait up for me.