Board of Representatives Community Development, Housing, Education, Social Services and State & Commerce (chess) Committee - Regular Meeting

I think we could go ahead and call and open the trust committee meeting. It's 6.34 PM. Welcome everyone. And let's see, can we do a roll call? Do you have Anita with us?

Yes. Representative Goldberg? Representative Gross? Representative McGowan? Here. Representative Pollack? Present. Representative Price? Present. Representative Silvestri?

Present.

Representative Walston? I don't see her on. Representative Weers? I don't see him on. Representative Yagen?

Sorry, Representative Weers is excused. Okay.

Representative Goldberg, I'm sorry, I was unable to get off mute. I am here. And representative here is present and I counted.

And representative gross will be here he's a few minutes fine. Okay. All right, and I will entertain a motion to take item one chest 32.021 to review discussion of stanford's non clients with timely expenditure requirements of its Community development block grant Program.

So moved. Second.

And we have a second. All right. I'm assuming Bridget will be presenting? Or Anita?

Actually, not on this item. Anita is going to take the lead on this item. And then I'm here for the third. Thank you.

Welcome, Anita.

Representative Walston is here for the record.

Hello, Representative Walston. Welcome.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening. We're on our first item and we're looking for Anita for presentation.

Okay. Representative Gross is present as well.

Welcome, Representative Gross. Thank you.

How about this one? Can you hear me? Oh, we can hear you. Hello.

Yes, we can hear you. We cannot hear you anymore. We did for a minute. NOPE.

NOPE.

ANITA, YOU CAN CALL IN TOO IF YOU WANT. THERE'S A PHONE NUMBER.

AND WHILE ANITA IS TAKING A MOMENT TO FIGURE OUT HER audio. I'm happy to just share a brief overview of the timeliness issue and the city's response. So HUD did inform us that we were not timely with expenditures of our CDBG funding over the course of many years. And this was a result of Honestly, a change in staffing in 2023, there was a shift in the grants department away from a new team oversaw the distribution of the CDBG funding. So we have responded to HUD immediately. We let them know that we are committed to compliance on every level and that the Moira, who is now in charge of CDBG, will avail herself of all of the trainings, work with Anita and her team. There's Anita. She raised her hand. Just want to see if you can hear the audio now. Yes. I'll turn it back over to you, Anita. There you go. Let you finish your thought and then I'll. Oh yes. So essentially just to, to let the board be aware that we are aware of the noncompliance issues and the timeliness issues, but that we have, acquired an outside firm to help us with inventory of outstanding balances and that we're working with this group and our internal controls to ensure compliance going forward. So I'll let Anita take it from there.

Thank you, Bridget. So I, if I may, and I apologize for that. I don't know why I had a little bit of a snafu there with my audio, but I have a little bit of a slideshow because I, for new board members, thought it might be helpful to kind of give a little bit of information on timeliness so that you had some awareness. With the CHES Committee being responsible for community development funding, the Community Development Program wanted to update you on the current status of the funding and the issue that has put the city out of compliance. to what Bridget was saying with the HUD regulations. I know Moria was on vacation, so I'm gonna be presenting this. I know she sent you the documentation to the board office that went out for tonight's meeting. I do have this brief, presentation just to help explain that noncompliance. So basically what HUD Timeliness means is it's a regulatory standard that's used by U.S. HUD to measure how fast grantees spend or distribute federal program funds, primarily for the Community Development Block Grant Program. It ensures that funds are used promptly to benefit local communities rather than sitting unspent. Now, in this instance, HUD is not simply looking at whether projects have been approved. HUD is looking at how much CDBG funding remains unspent in the city's line of credit at the annual test point. So the standard is one and a half times our annual entitlement amount. And if that balance exceeds that threshold, then the city is considered untimely. And that's why project implementation for us matters so much. because a project can be approved by the committee, but if the steps necessary to get that project underway are delayed, that the funds remain in the city's federal balance and that continues to affect that timeliness calculation. And so for the committee, this distinction really matters because it's the ultimate expenditure test. So now we have, unfortunately, this historical timeliness issue that I think you need to be aware of. So the city has had this recurring CDBG timeliness issue that's gone back multiple years. So you can see we've had this problem since 2016, 2018, 2019, 2021. non-compliance years. And since 2022, the city has failed the HUD timeliness standard for five consecutive years. Now, I'm not sharing this history to dwell on what's happened in prior years, but I think it's important because the committee is new, needs to understand that we're addressing a longstanding program management issue, not something that's originated in like in this current funding cycle. But it is our responsibility to now understand what's driving the current balance and put systems in place so that we don't continue repeating that same pattern. And that's what we've been working on over the last couple of years, because timeliness has been building over time. So from when we took back over in 2023, we really started working on this problem. And in July, as you know from what Bridget was saying, the HUD letter was obviously a significant escalation, but we had this underlying implementation issue that didn't begin in July. So we had the outstanding issues of the HUD agreements that's going back to late October. We've had these conversations that have continued through 2025 and into 26. So we've had in June, we brought in CEW, as Bridget mentioned, and they helped us identify some legacy funding of prior year balances, which has been fantastic. And that's part of the agenda tonight that Bridget is here to talk about and that you have to make some decisions on, which is really going to turn things around. And that review has turned out to be extremely important. So on July 10th, though, that HUD issued that letter to the mayor identifying those five consecutive years of noncompliance, warning the city of upcoming CDBG funding that could be reduced. We did respond with a corrective action plan. We provided that to you in the documentation for tonight's meeting. um so the point i want the committee to take away from the timeline though is that the july letter was the major escalation but the work to understand and address the underlying issue was already underway long before this letter was received so kind of the last thing here really is where we're at now right prior year cdbg awards still awaiting agreements we need to put some scale around one of the implementation challenges because it directly affects our ability to improve timeliness. So we've got still years 50 and 51. We still have 52 CDBG awards totaling approximately 2.8 million that are still awaiting agreements with the legal department. So 25 awards in PY50. 27 awards in PY51. So that's 2.8 million. These are prior year awards that the committee has awarded. They are not new, these new recently approved PY52 projects. HUD measures the city on whether these dollars are actually spent. So it's important for the committee, I think, to understand what's happening between approving an award and actually getting those dollars out the door. That's two years worth of project funding that's still sitting without agreements. So approval, which you do, is only that first step. These agreements still have to be completed so the projects can move forward. And this is one of these areas that we are actively working through as part of our corrective strategy. So I really want to emphasize that this is not about one operation in isolation. CDBG implementation is involving multiple city functions. And the faster we move these projects through all these steps, the better positioned we are to improve our timeliness performance. So now where we get to the great part for tonight is that CEW, that the city approved CDBG hiring in June, allowed us to identify or helped us identify this legacy funding of about $1.1 million. We think it's from 2017, 2016. We really can't figure out which projects it's actually tied to, but we need to deobligate it. It is legacy historical funding that we think has just been kicked down the road. and it needs to be deobligated because these are prior year resources that are not tied to an active spending plan. And it is sitting in our IDIS legacy account, and it is tied to our timeliness. So in addition to these prior year award, this 2.8 million, we also have this 1.163 that is also impacting our timeliness. And that has been impacting that timeline for all these years. And we just now found it. So because as long as those funds remain sitting in the program, they continue to affect the city's overall CDBG balance and therefore timeliness position. So Moira, CEW worked through that historical activities and funding records. They identified that in June and they are now coming to you to reconcile those dollars. So that work is what's giving us something that we did not ever have before. And it gives us that clear amount that can now be brought forward for reallocation to be an eligible activity that we can actually move on. And that's why the committee's action on these funds is so important tonight. Because in September, HUD is going to make some decisions on whether or not they're going to de-obligate some of PY52's funding for the city. So it's not just an accounting exercise, it is part of the actual corrective strategy for reducing the balance getting the city into a healthier timeliness position. And the city has a longstanding timeliness history, but once we get PY50, PY51 contracts in order with the legal and get those moving in a timely fashion and get that addressed, and once we get this 1.1 million legacy funding out the door, I think we'll be in a much better position to move CDBG forward in a timely manner. And I'm happy to answer questions related to timeliness.

Thank you, Anita. That was a fantastic overview and review of this complicated item, which I know we've been going through for years on this committee. Is there anyone who has any questions right now for Anita on the timely manner for this review item? I see, I don't know which one to do first.

Thank you very much. Hi, Anita. I had a question to help me better understand kind of where the timeline is, or excuse me, what is defined as, you know, kind of unspent. Because I know in some federal regulatory programs, if funds are committed or obligated, they're no longer considered, you know, or they'll satisfy certain deadlines. I'm not really familiar with this program, so I was hoping you could help me understand if We do the approval. I hear you loud and clear that that doesn't get us out of it being unspent. But if we enter into a definitive agreement with the awardee, would that then make the funds considered unspent, even though they haven't been actually expended on, you know, say, for example, a contractor?

So what happens is we you approve. Then we enter into an agreement with the nonprofit organization, but we have to have an executed agreement. So we go through a process, though, while that executed agreement is happening on the back end where we enter, they go through their environmental, the finishing all their documentations. We enter everything into IDIS. And once everything gets entered into IDIS, the clock starts ticking. And that's where the timeliness issue starts. But we can't actually give them any funding until there's an executed agreement. Got it.

So once we have a definitive agreement executed, that's when we can consider the funds spent for the purposes of timeliness? Yes.

Right, so when we get the executed agreement, we execute a purchase order, we can pay the nonprofit, and we close it in IDIS, and it closes it for HUD, and they consider that timely, or the clock stops.

That's very helpful, thank you. My other question is, I think there was reference done that a study or an examination or audit has already been completed by that outside firm. Have we identified Any common factors with some of the awardees that have prevented them from getting to that definitive agreement?

Say your question again.

Sure. Yes. Basically, why aren't we getting to the definitive agreement in a timely way?

You know, that's a challenge that we have. I know there's a backlog.

Anita, you went on mute. I don't know if that was on purpose.

No, I don't know. Am I better? I'm on two computers. I have my audio on one and my video on the other. But I know there's a huge backlog at the legal department. And what we did is we proposed in March to kind of help offset the backlog by bringing in some outside counsel. We've offered some of our administrative dollars through the CDBG program to bring in some outside counsel to kind of help that backlog. And we're hoping that that kind of addresses that because they, you know, they're just backlogged.

Sure. That makes sense.

I'm going to ask to piggyback real quick. There's a question Anita, real quick, does it help on top of all those things to answer Representative McEwen's question? When we do the CDBG grants and organizations have to spend the money in order for it to be paid out to close out the contract, does that play into effect here to answer his question as one of the spokes?

Well, they can't expend dollars until they have an executed agreement, and then they can't get reimbursed until we have an executed agreement. So is that where you're leading the question?

Yeah, that does help. It also kind of gives me a clarifying question. So I understand that it's a reimbursement program generally. So when, for the purposes of HUD and strictly just a timeliness requirement, are we considered compliant if we've got a definitive agreement, but the reimbursement has yet to be processed? Or does the reimbursement actually have to be processed and the actual dollars exit the account for us to comply?

So we comply at the point in time where we reimburse the recipient organization. We make the draw from HUD, reimburse the city and close our account with HUD.

Got it. That's very clear. Thank you. And then my last question for now, I have more, but I'll leave some airtime for others. My last question for now is, are we seeing, you know, with no particular awardee, you know, I'm sure being Are we seeing generally across the board any lag between the definitive agreement execution stage and the reimbursement stage? Are we seeing projects get stalled in getting launched after the agreement's been signed?

No, because a lot of these are public service and they're continuing to operate. So the reality is they really are continuing to do the work that they're doing. So we're backdating a lot of these agreements so that they can get reimbursed for the work that they're doing and so that we're able to just pay them. But we've got a two-year backlog. We've got PY50 and PY51. you know, and we're waiting to award what you just funded, PY52. Okay.

Thank you. That's helpful very much.

I have in the lineup Representative Gross and Representative Price and then Representative Goldberg. Representative Gross, you have the floor.

Thank you. Yes, I just want to be clear. So tonight we're essentially allocating the 1.1 million in legacy funding. And so we're not acting tonight at all on that 2.8 million from the previous two years.

Correct. That's funding that you've already allocated and awarded. That's just an awareness for you on the timeliness issue.

Right. So is there something that we will need to do with respect to that PY50 and PY51 money?

It is sitting there. It's been awarded. We're just waiting on contracts.

Okay. And that's something that just goes on with each organization?

Well, I mean, it is just where it's at. And as soon as we can get, we have made significant progress with the legal department. And we're hoping by the end of the month that we actually have contracts rolled out with many of these nonprofit organizations. So I'm hoping by the September meeting that we give you this fabulous update on a status update where we are with PY 50 and 51.

Right. That's why you said the, that's why you cited the legal, the backlog at legal is the reason for the slack of contracts. Got it. I'm wondering also for tonight, at least for this 1.1 million that we're going to reallocate with that, bring us into compliance under that 1.5%? Excuse me, 1.5 times? It will.

It will. So that we hope our goal would be that if we can get some of these PY50 and 51 contracts out, which they've almost basically expended, at least on public service, a lot of that funding already because, as you know, those are one and two years old. We can go ahead and report out to HUD that those dollars are expended. We can close those out within 24 hours. We can get those out the door, get requisitions, purchase orders. We've already got procurement ready to execute. Everybody's on standby as soon as we have executed agreements. And then once we have approval of this legacy funding and we get that process through, our goal is to update HUD so that hopefully it will have an impact on their decision-making and also have spend down on the timeliness so that they can see that we've made significant progress and take that down below the threshold.

Do you know the exact... percent it will bring us to?

Not yet.

OK.

I'll update you as soon as we do.

Great, thank you. Alright, thank you.

Thank you Representative Gross. Representative Price, do you have the floor?

Thank you Anita. Thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you for the presentation and I want to pick up on something that you just said. about waiting to hear back from HUD. I saw in your presentation that we have a consultant, a HUD dedicated consultant, and I'm interested in what his or her, for lack of a better term, prognosis is gonna be for how this all shakes out.

And I don't know that yet, but we can keep you updated. what what's the is the consultant giving any kind of direction on which way he or she thinks this is going to uh kind of develop well i think if it were a different administration i think we might have um better way to gauge but not unfortunately not with this administration i don't know thank you thank you representative price representative goldberg are you on mute

Thank you. I have a number of questions across various domains. I'll probably do the first couple and then pause and see if anybody else wants to jump in. I don't want to hog the floor. What is the most stale project we have at this point?

So our PY50s Let's see, let me pull up my spreadsheet here, if I may. Our PY50s, we have, these are 2024 projects. We have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 public improvement activities. All of our public improvement activities are waiting for contracts. That's the 1.264 million. And then, well, all of our public improvement projects are waiting for contracts. And 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 public service. So those are 2024. All of our, those are PY50s. So that's July 24 to June 30, 25.

So these organizations have been raised with us the fact that they're, are we waiting on them or are they waiting on us? I'm a little.

They're waiting on us.

Okay. And they have not been putting pressure on us to get projects that we promised them two years ago funding for to get moving?

They absolutely have.

So I would imagine this has impacted our reputation with some of these organizations?

We have been communicating with them on a regular basis and we have been Communicating actively. We have documentation communicating with legal on a regular basis since October of 24 for contracts.

I don't understand what she just told me.

You know, we've been actively communicating, requesting contracts for these organizations regularly. And we've been waiting. That's all I can say.

Okay. So it's not 100% on us. It's also on these organizations haven't been timely either.

No, I don't understand what you mean. We're waiting on the legal department to give us contracts.

Okay. And has the legal department been waiting on the grant requesters?

No. Okay. We're waiting on the legal department to give us contracts that we can send out to these nonprofit organizations to sign.

Okay. So it's all on us.

Right now, yes.

Okay. So... What are our contingency plans if HUD, particularly given this administration, takes a very hard line perspective and reduces the funding?

The only funding they're going to reduce is PY52, and that's the funding that you just awarded, which would be, you know what, It's not gonna impact 50 or 51, which we're still waiting on contracts for. So this is the funding that was just awarded here in 2026. And I don't know a contingency plan.

So I think we need to have a contingency plan. I mean, we're either, I mean, I'm not really, coming at this from a risk management perspective, we need to develop a contingency plan. And that contingency plan may be, you know, it can be anywhere from, I'm sorry, you're not getting any grant money from us, to we're going to have to go allocate funds out of, you know, our unallocated overage. But it feels like, to me, we need to have a contingency plan. All right, let's move on. So what are the, if you look at the execution risks we have right now. Yeah. So what, do we have anything that's ready to go right now that we can, I guess what I'm not clear on is, is there anything that we can do To get the legal department to at least get some of these things moving.

Oh yes, and that's where I was telling you that we think hopefully by the end of the month because we've been working with them since October of 24 to get these out the door and help them with outside counsel that happened in May. So we feel very optimistic now by the end of the month we're going to have some contracts and let's see. PY 51, we have public service in the amount of 391,000 that will be out the door, hopefully by the end of the month, reimbursed that we can report to HUD spent clothes. For year 50, you've got Give you a number. One second. You have an additional 66,000 in public service that will go out the door by the end of the month. Ideally that will turn around within 24 hours paid closed to be able to tell HUD. Better that are done and closed because they will have been Some of these public improvement activities, I hope we're able to tell them we'll be able to complete by the end of the year. That's on our working activity plan that we had to submit. So for PY50, a lot of these projects have been in a shovel-ready status because they're now two years old. So that is, let's see, that's,

with the public take public service out apology well i'll tell you what maybe what would be helpful is to give us a report back on what's trouble ready versus what's going to be dependent on design bidding permitting whatever i mean sure i i think further what what sort of routine um reporting or monitoring, are you going to be giving this committee going forward? Because I am uncomfortable managing through crisis management. I'd rather see this move from a crisis management to timely management. I'm very disappointed, very disappointed that we're at this stage.

Understood.

So are you going to have any kind of, I know, let me rephrase that. I want on a regular basis, at least quarterly reporting on where you are and how you're doing at resolving this.

I'm going to jump in really quick here. Um, any of our requests, I think they're reasonable. I think we should go through this meeting and we'll set up a timeline of things that we have requests all together. And what I'm hearing from Anita is she's also disappointed, and that's what they're doing here. So let's get reports and stay in the know. I agree with that.

Chairman, I understand. But I've heard a lot of apologizing. I haven't heard what kind of reporting you're going to be doing and how you're going to be holding yourselves accountable. And I want to see that. And if I need to make a motion to do so, I will.

Representative, are you making a motion right now for a request?

No, I'm expressing what I'd like to see done voluntarily as opposed to having to use a whip. I tell you what, I see that Representative Yeager wants to ask some questions. I'd like to yield and give you an opportunity to come back around to me.

Sounds good. Thank you, Representative Goldberg. Representative Yeager, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Anita. And I actually just have one question sort of following along with Representative Goldberg and some of my other fellow representatives' questions. If you had any insight, Anita, or if the consultant had any insight as to what was different or what worked in 2017 and 2020 from your presentation that appeared to be the only two years that passed in the last decade.

You know, we haven't figured that out yet. It's an excellent question. We were thrilled to find the anomaly of the 1.163. And we really haven't figured out where that actually lands. We just know that it's prior to 2017. So it's possible that it actually is from 2017, which allowed us to have the timeliness. And then, you know, from there, who knows? And it's possible that 2020 is COVID, but we don't know.

I was wondering if that had something to do.

It's possible, but I can't put a finger on it.

Thank you. I yield.

Okay. Thank you, Representative Yeager. I know that Representative McEwen.

Thank you very much. So I got some additional questions, some related to kind of the general big picture and then some more specific. Obviously, of course, this is a systemic issue that we've experienced, like you said, over the last decade. And I don't really think... So I guess my question is, do you know if we've done these types of audits previously and if they've revealed any different information that's contributed to this issue, or if it's for the last decade, for better or worse, been simply a backlog in the legal department?

This is a recent issue that we've encountered with these agreements. So when we took this back over in 2023, we started looking through all the files and looking at historical data and trying to figure out what the problems were and looking at all of the timeliness issues and all this historical data. and haven't been able to find a whole lot of information. And honestly, not until we really hired CEW there here in June, have we really been able to start uncovering what the historical issues have been and learning more about what the historical issues were simply because we didn't know what we were looking for in terms of digging into the data. don't know what we were looking for. And then, you know, we have this side issue going on with the legal backlog, which has created its own quagmire, but then this legacy funding that we uncovered. And if we hadn't uncovered it, I think it would have continued to cause this timeliness issue. So we figured out.

Understood. And One of the solutions you had mentioned tonight was hiring outside legal counsel to help with this backlog. I mean, similarly to Representative Goldberg, I'm disappointed to hear that largely the factors contributing to our noncompliance have been internal, as opposed to waiting on some external pieces to fall in place for us to move things along. So I definitely think that getting outside counsel is helpful in addressing appears to be the only factor causing our non-compliance. My question is, do we and are we able to plan to have outside counsel handle these things for the upcoming budget year so that we can allocate an increased amount to the admin cost, the admin allocation of the grant? I mean, it's not ideal. It would mean less funding to those in need. But if the choice is having a program that functions as an income

And I don't know that answer yet. The one thing that we do know is that because there's been significant changes in the federal regulations, what's happening with the outside counsel is that they're working with our legal department to create templates. for lack of a better term. But once we have those updated revised templates with all of the terms and conditions, the federal regulations, we are able to just input all of the data. We have term sheets now, we have the standardized language, and we're able to just insert the information for public service. We're able to have the legal department who is assigned to the CDBG project or the program review it. approve us to form and route it through for signature. We're hoping that that is really gonna streamline the process. And it is up to the legal department, I think, to work with us to determine if outside counsel is gonna continue to be needed. And we're gonna assess and see then how we're gonna be able to fund that going forward.

Okay, thank you. The next couple of questions I have are kind of minor, but I think, and are a little bit more logistics focused. So obviously we're kind of in a bit of a crunch, we're working against a clock. And part of that calculus is, you know, the large amount of dollars that are unspent. So my question is, are we prioritizing in terms of the backlog, those largest grants such that each contract we get out the door gets us substantially closer under that threshold?

Our priority request to the legal department since October of 24 has been the infrastructure projects.

Which I assume are the largest?

Correct.

Okay. Thank you. And with respect to deobligation, does that mean we would be approving essentially deauthorizing a previous grant from the Board of Representatives?

Well, I think because at some point in time in the history of CDBG, you're talking about item number two?

Yes.

Okay. Because at some point in time in the action plan, there was $1,250,000 was approved somewhere in an action plan. We felt that it was prudent to have a de-obligation on record for $1,250,000. We cannot honestly find where that funding is. It's probably multiple projects at some point that had something that was unspent or something that didn't get funded or something down the road. But we felt that it was prudent to have it deobligated so that when we created it in the new action plan, when we revised this current action plan, there was an audit trail. And that's where we stood.

Thank you. The last question, the last request I have is the Excel sheet that was provided to the committee Um, doesn't kind of comfortably sit on a page and it gets kind of chopped up. Can we get a copy of the actual Excel itself? So we can kind of see the data. As it was kind of intended. Thank you so much.

Uh, thank you. Representative Goldberg. Thanks.

So my colleague just mentioned that it seems like this is a legal bottleneck, but I thought I heard you say that you were having trouble getting your arms around the data of where various, you're having trouble finding documents, amounts, what have you. So is there also a management systems problem here?

No, this is that legacy funding that we're talking about from prior to or 2017 and prior that we found this sitting balance of this legacy funding that's just hanging out on the books in IDIS and in HUD. That we don't have any tag to a project that we can identify, but it's sitting there, sitting in our timeliness issue. And so it needs to be de-obligated so that you can obligate it to a new project and we can spend it.

Okay. So how are we going to track this going forward? Have you thought through how, so that we do some sort of routine reconciliation to say, here's what's in the account, you know, here's the ins and outs. I mean, I find it worrisome that we have this balance outstanding that we don't know how it's allocated. That seems like a basic accounting systems challenge.

I honestly, Representative, I don't know... I don't know where it was in IDIS.

I'm letting go of the legacy issue. I'm asking how are you going to keep it from happening in the future?

Oh, well, so the process in IDIS is actually very current. Once it's current, it goes into the action plan. It gets allocated in IDIS as a current active project. It tracks very well. Like the legacy issue is a whole other animal. But once it's current and tracking in IDIS, it just tracks. And it records and accounts for itself.

Okay. How are you thinking about how you're going to update us on the resolution of the legacy issue then? So you've got this old balance out there. You've got to figure out what you're going to do with it. Like, how do you keep us in the loop?

Once you make your decisions on how you plan to spend this funding, then it goes into the current action plan, which we have to modify. It becomes a new IDIS project. It'll go into the PY52 projects, and it becomes part of that planning process.

Okay, gotcha. How much is the consultant costing us?

$10,000 right now.

And what do we get for $10,000? And is that going to be enough or do you anticipate you're going to have to ask for more consultant dollars?

We anticipate probably another $10,000. And then actually, we have an RFP that we actually maintain a consultant that provides guidance for us on our CAPER and our annual action plan. And we spend about $25,000 a year annually on a consultant in general. And Civitas is our primary consultant. This CEW is on the side. And we just, we had actually interviewed him for another, he was interviewed as part of the, do you remember the housing and owner occupied rehab program? He had interviewed for that position. And we were very, very impressed with the interview. And so when we were struggling with all of this timeliness issue, we said, hey, we've got a little bit of money over here. Let's just see if he can provide some guidance to us. And so we just called him up and asked him if he could do some consulting work for us. And he agreed and agreed. found this million for us, saved us a significant headache. And so we procured him under that, you know, with the little bit of money we had left. And we asked him if he would consider responding to the RFP. So we'll see if he becomes our new overall consultant. I don't know what that'll produce, but we'll see.

Okay. So you're going to need What else do you need from the Board of Representatives?

On item one, it is purely discussion.

No, I understand that. I'm saying over the life of resolving this, what else are you going to need from us?

Aside from the other two items, the only thing that would probably address would be, to your point, is if HUD would come back and have a negative impact on our timeliness.

Oh, I think you can be guaranteed a democratic state, democratic city. I'm pretty sure I can project that one.

That would not be my intention.

Excuse me, Anita. Representative Goldberg, I'm going to bring it back to the review item in front of us.

That's fine. I've still got some more questions related to it. Go for it.

So

Are you going to have the ability to show us a reconciliation going forward by project that shows the grant dollars allocated, what's been spent or draw down and what's left so that we can do some more real-time monitoring project by project?

Yes, we can do that.

I think that would be really helpful.

One second, Representative Goldberg, can you please repeat that so I can just make a note so we can follow up later?

Yeah, it's just by program and then by grant, it's kind of a simple report, three columns. One would be the column of what we approved. Second column would be what's actually been drawn down. Third column would be what's left to be drawn down. And it'd be great to have a fourth column with sort of notes on, What's the plan, the drawdown plan for the balances that are left? And I don't think we need to see that monthly, but here in the beginning, it's probably good while we get our sea legs. But once we've gotten them, I would imagine quarterly or biannual, once we all feel good that the program's back to a regular cadence, I wouldn't think you'd need to show that to us on a regular basis, but I think initially, I mean, you know, for those of us that are constituent facing, you know, we interact with the leaders of these nonprofits and I'd like to be in a position if they ever want to chew on my ear to be able to talk with some data.

Thank you. Anita noted, right? Thank you.

I guess I'll yield at this point. Sounds like you want me to yield.

Not at all. I just wanted to make sure it was noted, Representative Kofrick. If you have any more questions, you still have the floor.

All right. I think that's it for the moment. Okay.

Thank you. Anita, thank you very much for the presentation. Yes. If there isn't any more discussion. After you, Al.

Oh, you do have discussion.

Yeah.

Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no.

Yes, Chair. I just wanted to note while we're still on the review item for this discussion, we noted that report. I was going to make a recommendation earlier that for our September meeting, we can either have a review if a report is not sufficient on HUD's findings and what this month's efforts come out to. And so I will put that onto steering. If we could just preemptively just note that we're going to come back to have a review. And outside of that, Anita, if you could correct me if i'm wrong here it sounds like we are going to be tonight working on the next two items and then in terms of allocation i know with the timely manner that we need to approve where the monies will be spent and back to that original statement that they need to be spent before this fiscal year is that true to your understanding anita

Our plan is to spend them prior to the end of this calendar year. The calendar year. That's what I meant.

Thank you. So before December 31st, we have to go through the whole process to make sure it's spent. And next month, HUD will be doing the review of tonight's outcome for this month. Is that correct?

Correct.

Okay. Thank you very much. I do see representation.

One other thought occurred to me. What sort of output or documents are you getting from the consultant? Is there anything that's appropriate to share with us to help us stay abreast of what's going on? Are they providing you routine status updates or PowerPoint presentations, what have you, that would be useful for us to be aware of?

We haven't asked for those kinds of documents at this point. They've really just he's really just been helping us dig into itis to try to get to the bottom of why we've had such a historical timeliness issue. And, you know, so that's really been just that historical dig. So we haven't been asking for reports or anything at this point.

Maybe at the end of this, you could ask for a briefing for us from the consultant of their findings and their recommendations.

Okay. Okay.

I yield.

Okay. Representative McEwen, you had your hand up before?

Yes. Thank you, Chair. At this point, I think there is more discussion. We've had a lot of discussion about the item, but I think that needs to take place, I'd like to make a motion to recommit this item to steering for next month's agenda.

Do we have a second?

Second.

All right, I will do this by, oh, any discussion?

Please.

Any discussion? Representative McEwen, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. With respect to Representative Goldberg's request for a report, I think the Excel does a good job of laying out each of the outstanding projects that are projected in annual spend for the next several months on a monthly basis. And perhaps we can update that Excel to move every September, move from projected to actual with respect to each of those projects. And that might satisfy Representative Goldberg's request.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

If I may, we will be unable to do that until we have contracts executed. Once we do that, we will be able to update that.

Understood. So, for example, some of these that have projected spend in September, are we saying that those may not yet have contracts in place or they do have contracts and we expect them to spend the dollars in September?

We expect them to spend the dollars in September once we have contracts executed.

Okay, so we don't have contracts then. Correct.

That is correct.

The only other request I have coming into our September meeting I'd like to hear an updated report from Legal Through You as to their opinions on outside counsel. I know you mentioned that they're going to monitor the usefulness and the value of outside counsel. Given we're in this kind of crisis mode and each month is valuable, I'd like to hear their thoughts either through an email to a committee or funneling them through you as to kind of what they think the last I see the next 30 days brings in terms of values of outside counsel.

Okay, sure.

Thank you.

Thank you. We have a motion with floor second discussion and I see Representative Goldberg.

So thank you. I was just going to suggest if it's not obvious which one of these, at least not to me, maybe I'm missing it. Is there a completed with an X in it that means yes or something that would just be at a glance we could tell which ones are resolved and which ones aren't on that spreadsheet no sir we don't provide that to HUD well do you can you provide is there can you add a column for us that's

We'll provide that on the other spreadsheet that we provide you with the updates. How about that? Yeah, that's great. That spreadsheet is our working spreadsheet with formula. So we'll provide that on the other spreadsheet.

Yeah, that's perfect. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Is there any further discussions? And I will take it to a voice vote. All in favor of recommitting item one, chest 32.021 back to committee for steering. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, that passed for recommission. Thank you. I will entertain a motion for item two, CHES 32.022, approval of the deobligation of unspent prior year CDBG public improvement funding in the aggregate amounts of approximately $1.25 million.

Second.

Motion and a second. Who will be presenting this item tonight?

It's my item. If there's any additional questions, I think we kind of touched on it during the first item. You have the legacy funding that was identified in June between Moira and CEW, our head consultant. The actual amount is 1.163690.05, to be precise. So if you want to make that correction and de-obligate the exact amount, that is up to you.

Can the office staff put this up on the screen?

Representative Goldberg, real quick before we do that, we should be amending what is the actual number on this item. And Representative Goldberg, did you have a question about putting the agenda on?

Yeah, can we just see, can we see the corrected document on the screen?

Oh.

There you go.

Yes, so Let's see. Who do we have? Is it Sheila? Sorry.

Yeah, I can't really do it right now. I can do it and then send it to you later.

Okay. Can you please say, Anita, the number again slowly for us?

I absolutely can. Thank you. 1,163,690.05.

Okay, so do we need a motion, parliamentarian, to make that amendment to our agenda? So is there a motion?

Yes, not necessarily to the agenda, but I'd like to make a motion to amend the previous motion to strike the funding amount of $1,250,000 and replace it with $1,163,690.05.

um we will take this to a place oh any discussion yes here or there either one i just have a quick clarifying question actually i'll do it on a main motion i'm sorry okay yeah so i see no other discussion all in favor of this amendment say aye aye opposed abstentions that passes okay we're back to now the original motion um

you have the floor thank you chair um i just had a quick question you know so the one the now 1.1 million dollar figure in legacy funding is that reflected in the outstanding balance listed on this excel of 2.6 i think i think the answer is no but i just want to double check it the answer is reflected in that worksheet the timeliness worksheet the big spreadsheet uh Sorry. So it is reflected in the 2.6 million figure, the total outstanding balance?

Correct.

Ah, okay. So if we were to subtract that, the quote-unquote current or the post-2023 figure would be 1.5 million and change?

Correct.

Ah, okay. That's better. That's great.

Correct.

That's very helpful. Okay. That's the only question I have. I yield. Thank you.

okay um since uh let's see anita would you like to continue or is there anything else that we have to add for item two before we go unless anyone has any questions do we have any questions no okay um i guess no discussion yes you can represent those you have the floor

Thank you. Yeah, I'm just wondering the link between the amount in this item and the amount in the third item. Are those supposed to be the same number or no? What's the reason for the difference between the numbers in items two and three?

I think that's what we just identified for a public improvement project as a safe round number to work with for you to reallocate. And then you have a remaining balance of $160,000 that you can you know, work with in the future, it will be a nominal figure that won't affect the timeliness issue.

So we'll just have that sort of extra $100,000 change to reallocate at a later date?

At a later date, correct.

Okay, interesting. And I'm assuming the third item you'll get into what we're allocating the money towards?

Correct. And that will be also Bridget.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. I see no other discussion or questions. I will move this to a voice vote. All right. So all in favor of the approval of the D obligation say aye. Opposed?

Any abstentions?

Okay, that passes with a noted amended amount of $1,163,690.05. That passes. And I will now entertain a motion to take on item number three, CHES 32.023, which is an approval of the reallocation of the available prior year CDBG balances of the aggregate amount of $1 million to a public improvement project.

So moved.

We have a motion and a second, multiple. Thank you. Bridget, you have the floor.

Thank you very much and good evening again. I am just here with the request that this $1 million be allocated to a lathe and wider sprinkler installation. So as you know, the city has been making many upgrades to the lathe and wider community center, which is located at 137 Henry Street. And we are requesting this funding for the fire and sprinkler code compliance upgrades necessary at that site. To do this, if this is an anticipation of a major schematic upgrade to the community center, And in order to have those upgrades take place, we need this building wide code compliant fire sprinkler system, which currently does not exist. So the request is that we allocate the funding to install the sprinkler system within the building. And that's it.

Thank you, Bridget. I don't know if Moira is on or able to speak, and again, feel free to interrupt if anybody has more knowledge on this. I do know when this came forward just a few weeks ago, back to the timely issue, there's a lot of pieces you went through the CDBG funding for all the projects before, and the good problem to have is where to spend the money. the administration, thank you, Bridget, found it's not just finding where to spend it, but it checks off all the boxes so we can make sure that it's spent before the end of the year. And Bridget just presented what they recommend. And it's one of those timely matters, not saying we have to do it tonight, but we would probably have to come up with alternatives, make sure it checks all the boxes. So if there's no other recommendations, My opinion is we should entertain what the suggestions are unless somebody has another alternative. But thank you, Bridget. I will open up for questions for anyone from the committee at this time. Representative McHugh.

Thank you. I just had a quick question that's admittedly a little basic, Bridget. I know the Latham-Waldau Center has been the recipient of a number of different, you know, has been the subject of a number of different requests. So I just wanted to confirm, do you know if this sprinkler system has been part of the scope of another grant that has already been approved, or is this brand new to the board?

Good question, and I honestly don't know the answer to it. Okay. I'm not aware of any grants for this sprinkler system.

I can answer that. Thanks, Anita.

Yes. That's my only question. Thank you both. Are you?

Okay. Representative Gross, you have the floor.

Thank you. Yeah, so I mean, I'm sort of wondering, I mean, if we hadn't found this money, I mean, how would they have paid for the system exactly?

Yeah, that's a great question. Likely, we would have gone to capital funding.

Okay. And I mean, Are there, there's no other, any projects that sort of fit the bill that we could conceivably spend this money on? Or like, you know, there weren't more other options identified?

Yes, so what Representative Pollack just described is that a month ago when all of this came to light, we did an exercise, Matt, Anita, other members of operations to look at all existing projects that could be spent in the timeline that was presented so that by the end of this calendar year, the money could be expended and the project could be complete. And quite honestly, this was the it was on the nose in terms of the amount of funding necessary. So the million dollars was, is exactly within the scope of the work that's necessary and the timeliness, given how much work we're doing at Latham wider at the moment, it was a perfect project that emerged.

Right. And so just to clarify, again, I know I mentioned before, but spending this 1 million, One thing, it has to be used by the end of the year, and this would bring us into compliance under that sort of percent required by HUD.

Yes, has to be extended by the end of the year.

Can I add one thing, Bridget, just for clarification? Not just that it has to be spent through the organization, the project has to be, again, correct me if I'm wrong, it has to be closed out and submitted and gone through the process and closed out on our end before the end of the year.

that's not easy right but there's not a lot of projects that we could guarantee close out by the end of the year the whole system close out yeah i see sorry budget just wanted to no thank you good clear that was great clarification thank you that makes sense um i'm sort of just wondering i mean you know when we were allocating all the cdbg money earlier in the year you know we had you know these full applications that we were projects, but I mean, we don't really have that here. Is there any way we can sort of get that information of just what exactly the project is that we're allocating towards? We just don't have that information today.

So sorry, can you repeat the last part of the question?

I'm just wondering, you know, if we could have this sort of full, I mean, do they have to like apply for this CDBG money or is this just, you know, is there an application submitted or like detailing just, you know, more details of the project that we're actually allocating this money to?

So this particular project is going to be in a city-owned building, so we did not have to have an application process.

I see. Okay.

Okay. I'm sorry to interrupt. We can submit you some information on it, though, and I apologize that we didn't. I know that Matt did send some information on like a statement of work. So I'm happy to forward that over to the office just to provide some additional context for you to share. So apologies for not sending that sooner.

Yeah. I mean, just having like a sort of, you know, breakdown of, you know, what the money's going to.

I can forward that right now to Sheila.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, it would have been nice to have had that information before we had to make a decision on this, but, you know.

Yes. It's okay. Bridget, and also, I know you're sending it over now, but there are criteria. It's not just a million dollars for whatever you want to spend. It's for the sprinkler system. It has to go through legal. It has to make sure that it's not outside of the scope of fair market rate, so... Bridget, you're sending that over now, but if you want to explain a little bit how it's not just open money for sprinklers.

Sure. I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer that question. I did just send over the whole scope, which will lay that out. So I guess I don't know. I'm not the expert on the system itself and how it would be installed.

Oh, you're asking about the system installation. I was talking about the grants and how we apply the money.

Oh, how we apply the money.

Yes. For this specific item and item three, I'm assuming Representative Gross was asking because we didn't see any of the spreadsheets like we've seen in the past to see what we're spending a million dollars on for sprinkler systems.

Got it. Perfect. So what I just sent over, Matt has a whole breakdown of how the funding will be allocated for that particular project.

And if I may, I'll add, if you would approve this project, we would then take that work with operations to enter the application into Zoom grants like the other CDBG projects are in the system. So it would have an application in the system like the other projects do.

That would be great. Thank you. Representative Gross, do you have anything else or do you yield before?

I yield for now. For now?

Okay. Representative McEwen, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. I had a question about this expenditure and how that will bring us into compliance under the 1.5 kind of ratio threshold. And I just want to put it on the record. I am certainly not the best mathematician. I proved that in our allocation meeting. But that being said, so my question is, it looks like inclusive of the 2026 allocations, we have an outstanding balance of 3.575 million approximately. Even if we were to allocate 100% of this 1.1, even though right now we're only talking about allocating one, that would bring us down to about 2.4 million. And I guess, I just want to help understanding how the ratio is calculated. So if it's based on the annual amount we received from the federal government of approximately 990,000, wouldn't 1.5 put us at a maximum balance of 1.4 million? So if I may. Please.

Please, if I may, if you think back to what I was talking about with PY50 and PY51, we're hoping by the end of this month to have those agreements out the door, which is going to have 2.8 million in those awards out the door. And so that's going to help get that threshold down. This additional million, which is those legacy funds, is then going to take that that back history dollars also off the tape and we're going to be able to report then in september to hud hey we've got this and we've got this and this is what's moving so that by the end of the year we're going to be down to here and that's what we're going to demonstrate to hud in september okay that that's helpful so in addition to this 1 million

You're saying within the next 30 days or so, we should have definitive agreements in place that would bring that even further down?

Correct. It'll be all those last two years' worth of contracts that we're waiting on.

Got it. And at least to your knowledge, do you know if those two-year-old products have at least had their expenditures so that we can reimburse immediately?

Well, what I did the math on with Representative Goldberg was about 1.5 million.

Okay, got it. And then my last math-related question is, what is the 1.5 upper limit dollar figure we need to be under?

Oh, I don't know that off the top of my head.

Okay. Is it based off of the most immediate figure allocation total, so the 945,000?

You were asking a formula question in that calculation. I have worked with HUD, our HUD field reps on that formula for months, and I still don't know how all those formulas, to be honest, calculate.

Fair enough. If you could, between now and our next committee meeting, if you could confirm just the dollar figure we need to be under in terms of total outstanding balance of unspent dollars, that would be helpful for us in managing how close we are to basically hitting that target.

Cool dollar we need to be under. You got it.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Okay. Real quick, Representative McEwen. So we have for... Actually, we're going to bring this up at the end after we close out this item. So remember, at the end, we're going to discuss anything else that we would like for the week in the middle.

Okay.

So we'll just make a list of the few things and have that ready. Do we have any other discussion for item three? Yeah.

Hey, Representative Goldberg.

Representative Goldberg, you have the floor.

Thank you. And maybe this is... This is sort of in line with Representative McEwen's questions, but regarding the spreadsheet, and who actually is the author of the spreadsheet that calculates all these ratios? Is that something?

HUD.

Oh, HUD owns it. Okay. And, hmm. This, returning to the sprinklers, you know, it would be nice if you have a document that would be similar to what we ask the outside agencies to provide that goes into sort of all the specifics. Is that what you sent to us, Director Fox? Yes. Oh, okay. And with that, is that document, I haven't seen it yet come in. Is that going to have things like the budget for doing it and the risk to the budget? So is a million dollars enough? You know, is there, what is a million dollars bias split between materials and labor, all that sort of stuff?

It's a spreadsheet or it's a graph that has a budget category, the amount, and the timeline. So it may not satisfy what you're looking for, but it's a breakdown of how the funding, the $1 million, will be spent.

You mean the cash flow per month as opposed to line item detail of this is what sprinklers cost, this is what piping costs, this is what labor costs?

Correct.

You feel pretty confident that $1 million is going to cover it

yes okay um president goldberg before you move on to your next comment or question um i just want to loop back to that question anita did mention that she will i believe try to get it into a format as well for us like we've had on the zoom grants is that correct anita um if it's approved correct okay just wanted to note that for you representative goldberg information that you were just asking about.

Let me ask you this. If we want to wait on that detail, because my sense is some of my colleagues and I are a little uncomfortable approving sort of a, I mean, you kind of came to us and said, hey, would you give us a million dollars for a sprinkler system without any backup? So, you know, I'm a smidge uncomfortable with that. I sense I'm not the only one in the room.

You are not. And I would make a recommendation since it was sent right now of Sheila, do you have the ability to pull that up? And the only reason that I'm recommending we take a look at it now, it's because of the time sensitivity of getting a project going. But I think we should spend the time to look at it now if we can.

Do you mean what Bridget Fox just sent?

Correct.

Oh, yes. Let me look for that. Hold on.

Thank you. I, I, I guess where I'm going with this is, um, I mean, I trust you, but you know, trust would verify. Um, uh, and it feels like we hold ourselves to a different standard than we held outside entities, which is a basic question of fairness. I would think, um,

i really don't know what to think of it what happens if we don't approve it tonight represent goldberg is your last statement referring to how outside organizations apply for our cdpg grants but when it comes to the city they don't have to fill out an application and provide the information that we're requesting correct okay so right now in front of us i believe sheila is pulling up what bridget sent and we should look through to make sure that it obligates So what happens if we don't feel like we have enough information to approve this tonight?

What is the risk of us waiting on a more thorough

Yeah, I mean, I wonder if my answer to that, with Matt on vacation this week, not being present, I can get you as much information as possible. Given what we've shared with you this evening around the urgency of spending this money in a way that we can do by the end of this calendar year as to not have a risk of losing it, I would probably ask that we do something that I don't know if we can wait a month, but certainly if you need more information or want more information, I can go back to the project team, get more information and perhaps host a quick special meeting to get this approved.

I mean, I'm just saying out loud what everyone else is thinking.

No, we should absolutely go through it. And if there's more information that's needed, we would have to do a special meeting. And to answer your question, if we wait another month for whatever reason, it makes it more difficult to fulfill. But that doesn't change that we should do our due diligence and look through it and make sure our answers or questions are answered. Are we, Sheila, was this also forwarded to our committee's email for those who can't see it on the screen?

I don't have it. That's why my hand is up. I was going to ask for a copy. I can forward it now.

Okay. Thank you. Right now, Representative Goldberg has the floor. Representative Goldberg, do you mind if I allow others and you can come back?

Yeah, that's fine. I yield. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. My question is, I know we were targeting to kind of have this million spent and, you know, to comply with the program by end of year, but the timeline here looks like 85% of the funding is projected not to be spent until December at the earliest, but all the way, but it could be all the way through February. Am I reading that correctly?

Yes, and I'll have Nita confirm, but my understanding is, again, as long as the work is underway and obligated and we have a timeline that is as close to this finish date, completion date as it looks, then we are in compliance with HUD.

Correct. If we're showing them an aggressive timeline that gives us a completion date with as much funding as possible by the end of the year, then according to HUD Consultant, He's saying that we have a really good shot of being able to preserve as much of that funding for PY52 as possible.

Okay. So I'm looking at, for example, line number six, GC award and contract documents phase. I'm not sure I understand. Is that the part where... executed or work is performed?

I don't want to answer that without knowing exactly. My understanding was that was when work was performed.

Okay. So my concern really is just, you know, I'm in support of the project, in support of the allocation. My concern is are we actually delivering on this timeline because the timeline doesn't seem to have the same kind of outlook as I had expected. So I'm hoping that we are seeing these expenditures come in by end of year so that we can demonstrate to HUD that we are aggressively delivering. But I have some concerns based on how this is summarized, unless I'm critically misunderstanding. i don't think that was i don't think i actually asked a question there so i'll heal it um were you saying that you want to make sure that this is compliant for what we're trying to do here with hud i understand the consultant is you know giving an educated estimate that they think this project would substantially reduce our risk demonstrated we are aggressively attempting to hit timelines but i don't think this project for what i'm seeing is hitting the timeline i think it's demonstrating our efforts towards aggressively spending the money which the consultant is advising us in their experience will be sufficient at least for the purposes of getting a hud kind of off our backs but anita please correct me if that characterization is is wrong or you disagree

I can't say that the consultant looked at this specific thing. But he's saying overall, if we're demonstrating an aggressive timeline that we're spending, and we're saying by December 31st, we have obligations, which this will be obligated, and we're showing that we have a significant amount of funding obligated and spent by the end of the year, he's saying that that will demonstrate good faith to HUD and should put us in a good position. That's all he can say, truly. I'm, you know...

so this goes back to this is what they propose for being our best option and unless we have another alternative that's better um if we approve of this project this should be the one that we move forward with because they do not have a recommendation for one that's better yeah no i i hear i hear that point also of course the committee is never going to be in a position to have an alternative recommendation because we can't do the groundwork there's no friends

there's no applications yes well we haven't solicited any you know of course but i you know i'm not saying that we shouldn't approve the funding i guess i i do have i i'm feeling even more value in having our conversation next month to talk about status but i but i yield okay representative gross you have the floor thank you um yeah i mean i'm sort of just wondering i mean what's

If we wanted a more comprehensive application for this money and explaining the need for the money and where the money's going to and the purpose of the project, if we wanted that comprehensive application in the style of what we saw in Zoom grants, how long would it take to put that together?

You know, I could go back tomorrow to Matt's team and ask for more specific information. And if I can get a little more clarity from this group as to what exactly you're looking for, I can absolutely see what I can do with turnaround time. I'm going to just add some more context to this particular request and the reason it bubbled to the top as a priority. This board is aware that we've, as an administration, committed to investing in our community centers across Stanford. And this particular project meets all of the criteria as well for being in a low-income neighborhood and the HUD requirements where you get extra support for projects that are in neighborhoods with increased need. So the flexibility to invest in a city owned building that is currently now being operated, we have many nonprofits that have moved in there in the course of the last several months. So it's really become a community hub and it's a unique opportunity to bring to compliance a building that has been aged and has been in great need of infrastructure upgrades and repair. So I'm happy to provide additional information on the scope of this project and the work that will be done. But I did just want to explain some of the rationale behind why our small group who was tasked with the job of SIFTING THROUGH POTENTIAL PROJECTS THAT COULD CHECK A LOT OF THE BOXES THAT WOULD MAKE THIS POSSIBLE TO ACTUALLY SPEND THE MONEY THAT WE HAVE SITTING IN THIS ACCOUNT. AND THIS ONE WAS NOT ONLY ONE THAT MET THE TIMELINE REQUIREMENTS, BUT WAS FRANKLY A VERY WORTHY PROJECT.

YEAH, AND I MEAN, I BELIEVE YOU, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE SORT OF WRITTEN DATA AND THE WRITTEN JUSTIFICATION OF HOW THIS IS SORT OF MEETING THE GOALS THAT CDBG I believe you, but I mean, we have to have this sort of sufficient documentation so that we can audit where this money is going to. And I don't feel like I can make a decision without seeing that documentation. So that's why I'm inclined to postpone perhaps this item or judgment on this item, even if only a week, if we could just get more information on what exactly the project is that we're approving, how this is going to meet the goals of CDBG funding.

Can I jump in real quick to ask the parliamentarian a question in terms of procedure? If we approve the item tonight, as opposed to holding the item and then doing a special meeting, if we approve the item tonight in hopes that we get information to get confirmation that this could satisfy the HUD requirements, and if we do not get it, then we're at risk of holding it at the full board meeting. Is there any way to have it keep moving forward, request information, and keep it going on its track?

I see what you're asking. Technically, approval in this committee doesn't constitute approval generally. recommendation for approval or if they would wait until the full board meeting approves. I don't know how the administration operates in that way.

I did hear that it needs to be approved by the full board. So tonight we're the committee and by the full board, we should have an approval. Now, whether it's, we do a special meeting or approve it right now and hope that we get the information. If we don't then do a special meeting. I see what you're saying.

I think between those two, I mean, I think that's, Honestly, in your judgment, I think that if we were to not pass the item in the hopes that we get information to hold a special meeting to have a discussion between now and the board meeting, that's certainly a path forward. I think if we were to approve now, hopefully we get the information, but if we do not, we would nonetheless either hold a special meeting to revote or at the board meeting, the committee's leadership

a point of inquiry.

Excuse me, co-chair Pollack, this is Sheila. We have in the past had a couple items where it was approved and said with the expectation that a certain report or something will be received by a certain date before the board meeting or by the board meeting. Just wanted to tell you.

Okay. So if I could just jump in, chair, with a point of inquiry for the- Yes, Mr. Mayor. If we take no action on this item, it doesn't kill it. It doesn't refer it back, but it moves forward to the board. Is that correct?

Through the parliamentarian question? Because right now Representative Gross has the floor. This is a question you have right now for the parliamentarian.

Yes. If we take no action, what is the parliamentary outcome of that?

okay i'm going to take one pause real quick i want to check in with representative bros who has the floor please pause on that one second so if i could just clarify i mean i'm saying you know like we have i mean it's a it's a late meeting in september with um late labor day and everything i mean i'm saying postpone this you know a week and that would give us enough time to consider it postpone our committee's recommendation vote a week, if that's sufficient time for us to get this sort of documentation. Is that?

It is in front of us tonight for our committee to approve the reallocation.

I know, but I'm saying I would postpone it for essentially a special committee meeting.

So you're talking about specifically holding the item and then doing a special meeting.

Special committee meeting.

a special meeting for us, and that's the two questions right now that we have in front of us, whether we do a special meeting in a week or two when we get the information, or if there's a way to make it more streamlined because there's process and procedures that we have to do to get a special meeting and restrictions in time.

So that is... You're saying we just can't do that?

We can, but we're just trying to figure out which path forward is the most efficient. which the parliamentarian said that we can do either. And Sheila brought up another recommendation that we could approve it tonight with the expectation that we receive this information and if we do not get it, it's not sufficient that we take action.

Which means it wouldn't go to the board. And we essentially...

Yes. So we could move forward with the expectation that we get the information. If we don't like it, we're going to have to have a special meeting and ask them to bring forward something different we have a special committee meeting correct but would it still go before the the full board the full board only if we get it done in time find something and approve it it would be a special meeting before the full board well and we need to we need to notice the meeting we do we have to go through the steps public But my recommendation right now, from what I'm hearing, is that we move forward with this item with the expectation that we will get the opinion about whether this satisfies HUD. And should it not, then we request more information.

I mean, my request isn't just that it shows that it will bring us into HUD compliance. My concern is just that we know what this money is going for. I would just like more information on the project itself. I believe then that they say that it will bring us into HUD compliant. As we did all of our due diligence for all the other projects we allocated CDBG money for, I'd like to do the same due diligence for this project before we allocate a million dollars to it. Of the options identified, I mean, it seems to make more sense for me to say, you know, we're not going to give a recommendation because we don't have enough information tonight. And we just say, well, you know, schedule a meeting. It could be virtual or maybe for a week from now to consider it. Okay.

So I guess I will make a motion. There's still more discussion, but yes, you can make a motion for that and we can vote on whether it's to bring it back. I saw that Representative Goldberg's hand up, so I want to hear more before we make motions to bring it back.

I think my hand is up too.

Okay, but I reserve the right to make this motion. Yes, you can be the one to make motions. Do you yield the floor?

I yield for questions before making a motion.

Okay. Representative Walston, I'm sorry, I did not see your hand up. It's your first time, so why don't you go ahead and take the floor?

I won't be long-winded. But I hope that we do approve for tonight, like Sheila said, for the expectation that we will get the clarification documents that we need. I really hope that we do approve this tonight because... The Latham-Weiner is special to me too. So I hope you guys consider, and I believe that the administration will get us the documents just to get us out of the black with HUD. So please, I ask that you consider. Thank you.

Thank you, Representative Walston. Representative Goldberg, you had your hand up before.

Yeah, I guess where I was going is I appreciate that this is a worthy cause. I think maybe what Representative Gross is poking at and others is that, you know, I don't know what the alternative is. I mean, you're asking me to spend a million dollars without me having any idea what the alternatives are. And, you know, maybe this is the highest and best use of the funds, but I don't know that because I don't know what the other... were. So that's what gives me pause is I feel like I'm being asked to make a pretty important financial decision not knowing what the alternatives are and not knowing if this really, I mean, I appreciate that the administration thinks that this is the highest and best use of the funds. They're probably right, but you need to, you know, I need to know what the alternatives were to see if I agree

Before we go to any motions for efficiency, can I get a really quick census of the committee? We have two tracks moving forward. One is approving the item with certain expectations, whether it's HUD, whether it's more details, we could make a list. Or option B is not taking action and doing a special meeting. Can I just get a general? Yes.

i mean isn't that sort of the point of voting on the motion i'm looking for a consensus so we could go into your motion so we could move forward with it all right mr parliamentarian is that probably my turn that is not impermissible under the rules but if you're asking whether or not it's invited that's the discretion of the chair it's not impermissible to make the ask you're also not required to make

Um, if that bothers you in any way, I'm happy not to do it. And you're happy just to go forward and you can make your motion and then we can go through discussion. I was trying to make it more efficient. Okay. Um, you don't have to vote on this. So just looking for a general consensus. Um, if you feel like doing it, please raise your hand. If you're looking more to exploring approving tonight with expectations, um, feel free to raise your hand. Okay. Anybody looking to not take action and move forward to doing a special meeting in a few weeks following procedure?

Kind of in that ballpark.

So I'm getting more of a consensus. Would you like to have a floor?

I have a question.

Yes.

Largely for Sheila, do we know what the absolute fastest time is we could schedule a special meeting would be? Basically, how much notice to the public do we need to schedule a special meeting?

I have to check that. And because Barbara and Angie are both out this week, I'm not 100% sure. So I'd have to find out that. Sorry.

That's OK.

Thank you. It would involve three days at least for the public notice. to get it with other timelines and other committees. It's not a problem. We should do what we're going to do. But I agree that I would like to have some more details before approving the item. And I would like to make sure that this is going to fulfill at least a lot of HUD's requirements. I think in terms of ease, I'm more comfortable moving forward with certain expectations or like contingencies. But I'm open to the committee's.

I guess my question is just procedurally or logistically. I don't think we will not get the information. I suspect we will. But in the event we don't, there's no opportunity between now and the board meeting for the committee to come to consensus if the materials are insufficient.

And we then vote it down because it doesn't change.

I guess how does the chair report out the committee's findings at the meeting in that circumstance? That's where I'm going.

So you're asking about with our expectations, if they're not fulfilled, how do we procedurally go forward to the committee to say we do not want to move forward with our recommendation?

There's no way to do that because we can't do it via email. We're not having a special meeting to get an actual vote of the committee. So all we have going into that meeting is an approval and the chair's opinion that the materials were insufficient.

I think then, just shooting from my hip, that we would then vote it down. because it still has to go through the full board vote. We would all, I would be gone. Yeah.

You've got a point. You've got a representative. Walston's got her hand raised. I don't know if you can see it.

I cannot thank you for sharing representative Walston. I'm sorry. Real quick. Representative Walston, representative McEwen had the floor. Okay. Now you have the floor representative Walston.

Okay, so back to the approval with the expectation that they will send us the documents. Can't we put like a caveat or something like if it's not suitable to us, we can just say no, something like that, instead of just saying with expectations. But if it's not suitable, can't we say something else? Can we just put that kind of language in there?

Well, yes, I don't think we even need to put that language. Our expectations are that we're going to receive certain documents or opinions. And if it doesn't reach our expectations, we would then vote down what we voted for to approve tonight. And I would have to make a statement as to why on the floor, and then we would vote it down if it does not satisfy it.

When you do the approval, would that be written? Would that be written on the record, what you just said?

The approval would be written as it appears tonight. And our expectations are that we need to see these items before a certain date.

And if they don't meet our expectations, shouldn't we kind of include that language thereto or no?

Well, that's hard to quantify if it meets our expectations, but I would say we'd put it in before a certain date. Hopefully we'd have time to have another recommendation in a special meeting. So if we could get this information within a week, that would, sorry, Bridget, thank you for bearing with us here as we're working through this dynamic. Do you think it's feasible for within a week to get, or are you muted, Bridget?

Oh, sorry. Yes, absolutely. We can get you the answers you're looking for within the week.

Who's on vacation?

A lot of people are on vacation, but that's okay. I will commit to getting the answers that we need and I can put together a memo.

Okay. Okay. Can we just, for the record, anybody, I don't know if there's any, Representative Walson, you saw the floor. Did you have any other questions before I take note of what our expectations are?

Oh, yeah. Can we just put like a date that we get our expectations in-house before such and such date?

Yeah. One week is what I have right now.

A date, a date, not one date.

Sure. So the date for one week from now would be next Monday, the 25th.

Would that be okay with Director Fox? Yes. Yes. Okay. I yield. Thank you. Okay.

And the other, let's be specific.

I have my hand raised. Sorry.

Okay. you have the floor.

Chair, I'm going to ask you, given sort of the given our current situation, what happens if we just take no action on this item, just report it out to the board? And between now and whenever the administration comes back with the analysis and you can give the report that we just didn't feel like We had enough information to make a report to take action on the item, and we decided to just let the board deal with it. I mean, here's the fundamental problem I have. I don't know what the alternatives are. You're kind of asking me to approve something blindly. I just, I don't know what the alternatives are. I don't know what they looked at and said. And if the answer is there are lots of good things and this was the best one that got us out of the doghouse with HUD, then that's maybe good enough. But I'd like to know, like I feel like I'm being asked to make a decision in a vacuum. I don't know what I don't know. And I feel like with all the other people that came before us and asked, And nobody else asked for a million dollars. Well, I guess they did, but you know, a million dollars. They're asking me to make a decision.

i'm sorry to interject but i've had my hand right yeah go for it thank you we cannot see you but feel free to speak up with your hands raised um you you did ask us to provide you a list and we did it was attached to your um what you received with the packet and it contained um a list of all existing projects that are currently in play that probably could use their public, there has to be a public infrastructure project and they are current projects that are currently in play that could use additional funding. They are nowhere near amount of funding at the lathe and wider fire sprinkler but they are all projects that could use additional funding those are the only ones that are shovel ready and are in play it is um i think it's the only word there there it is and that was what was provided to you in your packet yeah but one uh may i have the floor you still have the floor representative over okay so the only thing i was going to say is once again you know you've got

you've got a list and some dollar amounts. There's not the full due diligence package that we got on everything else.

Well, this was quickly put together because their existing shovel, their existing projects that are in play with CDBG. So that that's, I mean, I apologize.

Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of people that would argue Stanford. I mean, if you think about the blowback we got last year on Stanford manor,

We only picked projects that are active currently, except for Latham-Wider. Apologies, except for Latham-Wider, because it's shovel-ready, basically. So these are currently funded CDBG and home projects.

So, look, here's where I am. I'm going to abstain on this vote, because I don't have enough information to make a decision, and I'm not going to make a decision in a vacuum. I think this was very poorly handled, and I yield.

And thank you, Representative Goldberg. So I think we're, do you have your hand up? Are you? Yes. Okay.

Can I make my motion? Or maybe?

Yes, you may. You have the floor, Representative Gross.

All right. So I'd like to make a motion to postpone consideration of this item definitely by committee to, I'll just throw it at the end of time. Well, I mean, she said she can get it to us within a week. So, I mean, we'll schedule a special meeting for, you know, one week from today. You know, they've sent us something that's sufficient for us to make a decision on this.

So after one week, or after we get the information, of date, so this way we can check to make sure it's compliant. So your motion is to a window of time instead of an exact date.

But I'm proposing to postpone considerations item two. We have to postpone it to a certain date that we're going to meet and decide what I'm saying.

I'll let you finish making your motion and I'll respond.

Okay. Well, I'd like to motion to, what's the term? Postpone this item definitely. Item chest 32.023 to Tuesday, August 25th at 7 p.m. Does that make sense? I think it's the 26th.

Oh, Tuesday is the 25th, yes.

Tuesday the 25th at 7 p.m. Consideration is second.

I'm sorry?

And the motion is, is that in the ROP or?

I think once it receives a second, I think it's difficult with the specific date, not knowing if it's, they don't have, but I mean, if we need to postpone the meeting again, because we don't have the information we can do again, I'll let you make your motion and then we'll go through a second. Yes.

Point of information.

We have one point of information right now by Reverend McEwen and then yours represented Walston.

my my question uh to through you to representative rose is perhaps um a motion to postpone definitely uh to a special meeting to be scheduled between the week of at the discretion of the chair can i not schedule it in the version you can but i think it would be restrictive yeah exactly yeah that's what yeah so that's my question is would that be more why thank you

In between what dates? I guess just in between now and the next board meeting, right?

Correct.

Yes, you can comment. All right. Since there's no second, I think I can amend my motion.

I'm sorry, we have one more point of information.

I'm sorry, another point of information before I amend said motion. Please don't second it.

Representative Wilson?

I'm a little confused. Was there a motion on the floor to approve with the expectation? Because if so, I guess that has to be withdrawn, correct? Was there a motion on the floor before?

No, there was not a motion on the floor for any amendment. Right now, Representative Gross is in the middle of making his motion. Go ahead, Representative Gross.

Okay, let me rephrase this. So I make a motion to postpone, let's delete that. Yeah, right. to postpone the consideration of CHES 32.023, postpone it definitely to be reconsidered at a special meeting of the committee between now and the full board meeting on September 8th at 7.30 p.m.

Perfect. So we have a motion on the floor.

Second.

And a second. Do we have any discussion?

I have discussion.

Yes, and questions. Go ahead, Representative Goldberg.

Yeah, I was just going to share with you that there are some more committee meetings and big ones that I think some of our members have to attend. So on the 24th, We have the fiscal committee. A lot of us are on that. And on the 25th, we have legislative written rules, which I believe one of our members is actually chairman of.

Representative Goldberg, are you sharing dates right now? Should this go through? I would have to, regardless, go through and make sure there's dates that do not have any conflicts with committee members. this was that's part of the discussion right 100 and i'm noting it that should we approve this motion to have a special meeting it would have to be uh fitting first schedules thank you uh represent did you i just think we should put on record what exactly it is that we're asking Bridget to yes 100% agree whether it's for this item or for the expectations we should list what we're looking for and also at the end of this meeting we have for each item some requests that are going through yeah um so right now we have the motion to pretty much do a special meeting and we have a second and any other discussion before we take this to a vote nope Okay, all in favor of going for item three, chest 32.023 to come back to this committee before the full board meeting for a special meeting. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Actually, I'm going to take this to, actually, is there anybody who's opposing or abstaining?

I am.

Okay, I'm going to take this to a roll call vote. Sheila?

Yes. Representative Goldberg?

Abstain.

Sorry, one second. Representative Gross? Yes. Representative McGowan?

Yes.

Representative Pollack? I'm going to pass. Representative Price?

PM is not on the meeting.

Oh, okay. Representative Silvestri?

Yes.

Representative Walston.

Could you please repeat the vote for me, please, for the record?

Okay, so far, Representative Goldberg is abstaining.

What are we voting on? That's what for the record, I wanted to be a little more clear.

Can Maureen do that? Yes, I have it, but it's in its privilege.

Sure. Right now, the motion is for item three, back for a special meeting before our full board meeting in September at a date to be determined that works with the schedule and we get the items we're looking for. Does that help?

Yes.

Okay.

So your vote is yes?

No, I'm not in agreement because no.

No. Representative Yeager.

I'm going to abstain.

Abstain. Okay. And Representative Paula?

I'm going to abstain as I would go either way and leave it to the committee to decide on this one.

Question.

So that's one, two, three yeses, one no, three abstains.

Sorry, can you repeat that? I'm sorry.

I'm just double checking. It's I have one, two, three yes, one no, and three abstentions.

Okay, so does that pass?

Yes.

All right. Oh, hello. Welcome, Terry. Representative Adams?

Yeah, if they don't vote, then the yeses win.

That is correct. I'm just making sure I have the correct ones down. I have three yes, one no, and three abstentions. So the motion that we will come back for a special meeting on this item. Before we wrap up, I would like for the committee to make sure that we have for Bridget for this item to please get for us if you can within a week. And I will have to circle back with, in terms of scheduling, but as soon as possible, obviously. Can you, Bridget, please share what your expectations are, what you're gonna gather for this item, and then if there's anything missing, people can speak up.

Sure, absolutely. I will go back to the operations team to get a more detailed, A breakdown of how the funds will be spent and exactly how those funds will be spent against the budget. So I'm happy to do that. And I do apologize for not having. been more prepared this evening, given some people on vacation, I decided to be present at the meeting to try to represent the work that we're hoping to do. But I'm happy to get this to you as soon as possible. And the only other thing I'll mention is that we often with the Board of Finance holds hold like 9 a.m. meetings, given that they will likely, it'll not be as long a discussion perhaps. And it sometimes is more amenable to people's schedule if you want to host a daytime meeting. So I was just going to offer that up as an option.

Thank you. So we also have, you're going to get the breakdown for us as soon as possible. I will be circling back with the committee in terms of a date. And we also had a question about HUD requirements. If there's an opinion that this could be sent over, that this would fulfill as best. Oh, sure.

Yeah. And yeah, exactly how I can articulate in the memo, how this project meets the requirements of HUD. So happy to do that.

Okay. Is there any other items that people would like to have for this? Thank you, Sharon.

Director Fox, to the extent you can, and I understand the timeline is largely described, but if you could kind of just get a little bit more detail as to when we'd expect expenditures to be made. To the extent you can, obviously it's projected, there's a lot of variables on the bid process, but as much information as you can gather on timeline would be helpful.

Yes.

And then I had my hand up. I had my hand up for a while, so I don't know.

I did not see Representative Adams hand up. Thank you for sharing that with us. You're not on the committee, but Representative Goldberg has spoken. Representative Adams, go ahead.

I guess a question of clarity. This is a grant, and this is a fire safety request. And a city-owned building with this grant will bring the city building up to Cohen by using this grant before the end of the year. And if they don't approve this, we will lose the grant? I don't get that. I mean, what am I missing?

Representative Adams, were you on earlier?

I was on earlier, but I couldn't raise my hand. But this is a city-owned building. The fire sprinkler is bringing the city-owned building up to standard. And it's a grant for a million dollars. And it's a spell out how the grant gets spelled out. And if we don't use a grant or show the ability to use the grant before the year out, we lose it. Explain to me why is this a problem?

I will try and attempt to explain it to you. We all do want to have this grant go through. We just did not have information on the details. And this is not a specific grant that was applied for. This is a reallocation, which we de-obligated beforehand. So we're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole to be able to spend this money before the end of the year. the administration found a great option which is what's in front of us to allocate the money to there's members on this committee who don't feel comfortable approving without seeing details and as opposed to just requesting the details and holding it we're doing a special meeting before the next full board meeting to make sure that people feel comfortable so we can allocate this money we're pretty much all in agreeance that we would like it to go forward we just need a few more details

Okay, so this safety hazard in the building where kids and adults are is not urgent enough to answer anybody's question? This was in the building?

That's not what's in front of us. So this was going to be done through the administration through different forums and monies. This right now is a way for us to allocate the money through HUD grants. that we are trying to allocate from prior years that was not spent. It does not take away from the city trying to help with the sprinkler system. It's how we're allocating the money. That's my best of information. Yes, we have a point of order.

Madam Chair, we don't currently have a pending motion and the chair has asked the committee explicitly for items that they are requesting that the administration should be delivered between now and our special meeting. So I would suggest that comments outside of that are not germane.

I agree.

It's clarity, information.

Yeah, you know, it's true. We do not, we already finished our items. I'm happy to jump on a call with you and explain after the meeting's over some more stuff. We don't have any more action items. We closed out all three of our items. If you want some clarity, I'm more than happy to.

Yeah, no, I would have had this conversation earlier when the item was on the table, but they didn't pick my hand up, so I had to go to my laptop. So, I mean, we'll discuss it. I just want to see what the hang-up is on a safety item in a city-owned building where you got kids in the building.

I will absolutely call you after the meeting and we could continue. I just want to make sure, I guess, because it doesn't change any of the outcomes.

Okay, cool. Thank you.

Right now we're back to, yes, hold on one second. We're just finishing up what items we're requesting to make sure it's on the record before our special meeting.

So that's why my hand's up.

And Representative Goldberg, you were first.

So I just think it would be helpful as part of the packet you're putting together for us to just explain why you chose this versus the other projects. And I think it would be incredibly useful to say, here's the ones that were shovel ready and here's why we chose this one over the others. I think the one question you're going to get the most questions about is Stanford Manor. It seems like to me, you've got two big dollar city owned projects that have city owned buildings that have desperate needs. And I think that's the real juxt for a lot of us is why is this better than all others? So I just like to understand that. That'll probably check the box for me.

Perfect. Thank you, Representative Goldberg. You're welcome. Three, just noting for you, we have three right now. We have the HUD, the details of the breakdown, and the whys, this project. Representative Gross, you had an item to address?

Yeah, I was just, in the spirit of what we saw from the other CDBG applicants, I'd like to see the number of Stanford residents affected by the project, or going to be impacted by said project. How many people is it going to serve? as well as you know like the percent or percent of uh uh you know those affected that are like low income for instance um sort of see that uh impact so we can sort of chart this against you know the requirements for spending cdbg funding um you know i'm sure this project meets that i would just like to see those sort of numbers okay so is that opposed to doing a full what anita was mentioning that she was going to do more of our zoom grant well no i mean that that So I mean, that's sort of, I guess, part of that, but I just want to make sure if we have those specific details.

Okay. So you're highlighting that one. Okay. All right. Anita and Bridget, did you get that? Yes. Okay. So I'm not mistaken. I think that we, um, We are going to conclude the meeting with expectations that we will have those items within a week. And I will circle back around and look into doing a special meeting before the end, before the next full board meeting.

Point of information before you go, you said in a week, but we need a date for the record.

We have for the week, we have Tuesday, the 25th is from when Bridget will be getting items for us. And in terms of the special meeting, I'm going to be looking into getting one that is as soon as possible and complies with any of the regulations. But I would like this to be as soon as possible to get this in front of us. I can't do a date because I have to check with all the schedules.

Okay.

With that, is there a motion? there's a second all in favor i'm sorry okay all in favor say aye aye any opposed extensions okay thank you everyone this was important thank you everyone for uh presenting and be in touch you good night good night good night