Citizens Advisory Committee

CITY OF MIDDLETOWN CITIZENS’ ADVISORY COMMITTEE – Meeting via WebEx Minutes – April 23, 2020 Committee Members: Attendance: Staff Member: R. Pelletier, Chairman Present Lynda MacPherson R. Bantum M. Belyea Present H. Cushing Present G. Daley Present M. Fallon Present G. Faulkner Present Mayor Florsheim Present S. Fulton Present J. Middleton Present S. Owens Present J. Rumberger Present L. Salafia Present M. Salafia Present C. Smith Present V. Szynkowicz Others Present: Joe Samolis; Director of Planning, Conservation & Development; Tony Gennaro, Councilman; Deborah Kleckowski, Member of the Public A. Call to Order - The meeting was called to order at 6:13 p.m. B. CARES Act Funding -Mayor Florsheim provided an overview of the CARES Act Grant and the plans for spending this money will be presented at tonight’s meeting. The City received a total of $283,911 and is proposing to spend it as follows: --$16,844 to St. Vincent DePaul – To address additional families needing assistance with food items as a result of COVID 19. --$67,067 to Columbus House to cover costs of relocating the homeless population to the Red Lion Hotel. --$50,000 for an isolation center to quarantine homeless individuals or individuals that live in shelters. --$150,000 job creation/job retention grants for small businesses. The resolution accepting the CARES Act Funding in the amount of $283,911 was explained. C. Reallocation of Prior Years’ CDBG Unspent Money - In addition to the CARES Act Funding, there are unspent dollars from previous years’ CDBG projects that can be reprogrammed and added to the $283,911 to address COVID related activities and projects. The amount of unspent dollars totals $155,984.29. The recommendation is to add this amount to the $150,000 allocated through the CARES Act Grant for job creation/job retention. These grants will be available to small businesses that have 20 or less full-time employees or microenterprises with 5 or less employees. This will make a total of  $305,984.29 available to small businesses in Middletown. The grants will be capped at $2,500. Several committee members questioned the amount of the grant being too small. It was noted that this amount is subject to change and may increase. On motion of Gerald Daley, seconded by Harvey Cushing, the funding and reallocation as outlined above was unanimously approved. D. Modification to Citizen’s Participation Plan –Mr. Samolis explained the need for amendments to the Citizen’s Participation Plan. The plan is being amended to allow for a shortened comment period due to COVID. On motion of Linda Salafia, seconded by Gerald Daley, the amendments to the Citizen’s Participation Plan were unanimously approved. E. Other – H. Cushing requested that the Mayor’s Office establish a task force to look into growing food. Food insecurity will continue so this should be looked into. The Mayor thanked the committee and acknowledged their concern about the $2,500 threshold being too low. F. Adjournment – It was unanimously approved to adjourn the meeting at 7:25 p.m. Lynda MacPherson Community Development Specialist, Planning, Conservation & Development