CC Minutes - 04/26/10 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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Continuing, Ms. Jennings understood there were some questions regarding the CDBG allocation. She said the committee had a favorable impression of the NCS application, but the school had withdrawn its application before the final CDBG Advisory Committee meeting. She underscored that it would require more than the CDBG funds to bring the entire project together. Councilor Zelenka noted that at the bottom of the submittal box, Attachment A indicated that the administration costs were $450,000, which was almost 25 percent of the total amount. He asked for an explanation of what those expenses comprised. Ms. Jennings replied that HUD placed a lot of requirements on staff to administer things like the Fair Housing Plan as a condition of receiving the funds. She said development and administration of fair housing was something that was folded into administration costs. She felt that `administration' was a misnomer because it captured a lot of regulatory requirements. She stated that some of the implementation related to policy and regulatory requirements was included in administration costs as opposed to being charged directly to projects. She agreed that it was a significant sum of money, but they had tried to keep a cap on the costs. She noted that the amount on Attachment A reflected a small increase from the last year, but it had not been increased in five years. In response to a question from Councilor Brown, Ms. Jennings clarified that the school had responded to the RFP for the non - profit capital facilities. She said as part of the process, there were other pieces of their deal that they needed to complete in addition to the CDBG funds. She thought their application had been received favorably by the committee. She reiterated that the school had withdrawn its application prior to the final meeting and so was not considered in the final allocations process. Councilor Brown asked what would happen if the NCS project was put back into the list. Ms. Jennings replied that the council could choose to reconsider the CDBG item on Wednesday, but the action plan needed to be submitted to HUD by May 15. She said to delay it any further than Wednesday could jeopardize the funding. She explained that the committee served in an advisory capacity and the council could change the allocation. Councilor Brown, seconded by Councilor Taylor, moved to delay the vote until April 28, 2010, in order to allow the Network Charter School time to resubmit its proposal for inclusion in the Community Development Block Grant application. City Manager Ruiz stated that the school was asking for $1 00,000 for acquisition of the building located at 858 Pearl Street. He surmised that if the council approved the delay and allocated the money to NCS, it would be tantamount to directing him to sell the Pearl Street building to the school. He thought they would need more discussion on this. Mayor Piercy commented that the City Manager had sent the councilors an email with his recommendation on the viability of that purchase. Councilor Brown withdrew his motion. Councilor Taylor, seconded by Councilor Brown, moved to postpone the item for two weeks and to request information on what had been added to the list of CDBG allocations after the Network Charter School had withdrawn its application and whether an allocation to the school would make a difference. City Manager Ruiz expressed concern about the timing. He did not want to jeopardize the funding. Ms. Jennings reiterated that the report was due, along with the action plan, on May 15. She thought that a delay of two weeks could have implications for receiving the money. In response to Councilor Taylor's question regarding what would be taken off the list if the school was added back in, she said she could only surmise what would have happened given that the application for funding had been withdrawn prior to the last meeting of the advisory MINUTES Eugene City Council April 26, 2010 Page 7 Regular Meeting