Human Affairs Committee

HUMAN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE JANUARY 15, 2015 A meeting of the Human Affairs Committee was held Thursday, January 15, 2015, at 7:00 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber. Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire, Chairman, presided. Members of the Committee present: Alderman-at-Large Diane Sheehan, Vice Chair Alderman June M. Caron Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja Members Not in Attendance: Alderwoman Pamela T. Brown Also in Attendance: Officer Adamson, Nashua Police Department Carrie Schena, Urban Programs Manager PUBLIC COMMENT - None COMMUNICATIONS  Carrie Schena, January 15, 2015, regarding a tentative schedule for the CDBG grant  Alderman Caron regarding the review and comment application process MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN MELIZZI-GOLJA TO ACCEPT AND PLACE ON FILE MOTION CARRIED UNFINISHED BUSINESS- None NEW BUSINESS – RESOLUTIONS R-14-097 Endorsers: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire Alderman-at-Large Diane Sheehan Alderwoman Pamela T. Brown Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja Alderman Ken Siegel Alderman-at-Large Jim Donchess Alderman June M. Caron Alderman Richard A. Dowd Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane RELATIVE TO THE ACCEPTANCE AND APPROPRIATION OF $58,000 FROM THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE INTO POLICE GRANT ACTIVITY “FY2015 VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN GRANT PROGRAM” AND TO AUTHORIZE THE TRANSFER OF $51,622 FROM DEPARTMENT 194 “CONTINGENCY,” ACCOUNT #70120 “CONTINGENCY, POLICE GRANTS” MOTION BY ALDERMAN MELIZZI-GOLJA TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Human Affairs – 1/15/15 Page 2 Chairman Wilshire Officer Adamson would you care to join us? Officer Adamson Sure. Chairman Wilshire Give us just a… Officer Adamson The gist of the funding? So this grant is a called a “Stop Violence Against Women Act Grant”. We’ve had it for since about 1996. What it funds now is a domestic violence specialist. It’s a sworn police officer. Of this $58,000, it funds a portion of his salary and fringe benefits. It funds 100 percent of our domestic violence victim witness advocate. Together they basically will follow up on any domestic related calls and/or arrests that are made. The victim reaches out as well as the specialist and we work with Bridges and other city resources – Marguerite’s Place and what have you – and it basically makes sure the victim’s voice is heard and that a strong case is put forward at court and that they’re properly represented. This is what this funds. As you can see, it’s not 100 percent. It’s a match grant. It’s from the Department of Justice that we get that through. Chairman Wilshire And the match has been put into your contingency account? Officer Adamson Yes. Chairman Wilshire Questions? Seeing none. MOTION CARRIED Human Affairs – 1/15/15 Page 3 R-14-098 Endorsers: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau Alderman Michael Soucy Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire Alderman-at-Large Diane Sheehan Alderwoman Pamela T. Brown Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja Alderman Ken Siegel Alderman-at-Large Daniel T. Moriarty Alderman June M. Caron Alderman Richard A. Dowd Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane RELATIVE TO THE ACCEPTANCE AND APPROPRIATION OF $25,865 FROM THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, DEPARTMENT OF SAFETY “STATE HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT PROGRAM” INTO FIRE GRANT ACTIVITY “2014 HOMELAND SECURITY GRAN PROGRAM” MOTION BY ALDERMAN SHEEHAN TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Alderman Sheehan I believe this is some funding that is reallocated that wasn’t used that they’re using to purchase something that will recharge their breathing apparatuses. So rather than giving the money back, they found another purpose that it could be used for if this is the one I’m thinking of. Chairman Wilshire Well the equipment being purchased with this will be for metering and monitoring of radioactive materials. Alderman Sheehan Yes that’s what I meant. They’ve done fantastic with getting grants. Chairman Wilshire Yeah I know they do a really good job with that. Further discussion? MOTION CARRIED NEW BUSINESS – ORDINANCES - None GENERAL DISCUSSION Chairman Wilshire Carrie, would you care to join us please. Thank you for being here. We really appreciate it and welcome back. Human Affairs – 1/15/15 Page 4 Carrie Schena Thank you and thank you for having me. Chairman Wilshire I was hoping to make that because this is a year the consolidated plan is due to HUD, I was hoping you might be able to give us kind of your plan if you will on how we’re going to accomplish this. Carrie Schena Basically to just give a quick overview for those that may not have been involved in the process last time, the consolidated plan is a five year plan and it’s related to our CDBG and HOME funds that’s required by HUD. It’s basically the priority needs and the goals for that five year period. So it’s supposed to help us focus the funding decisions during that time period and it’s derived from a variety of sources. There’s a lot of statistical data that goes into it and this year will be different with that piece of it because it’s going to be entered through HUD’s new on line system. Supposed I haven’t seen it in action yet but supposedly it populates a lot of that data for you. So it pulls in a lot of your housing data, market data, income information, and all those types of things that you would need. In the past, we’ve used consultants to prepare that information because it comes from census data, and HUD data, and there’s quite a bit of it to get together. So it will be interesting this year to see how that prepopulates into the plan for us. We would still have to look at that, and analyze it, and come up with what we feel are the priorities based on that information but it goes into thing such as housing burden for very low income people, housing cost burdens for disabled people. So you look at all those different criteria. The other way that it’s also compiled is through a lot of public input and that’s really the important piece that I think. We get that from a number of ways. We try to use some existing survey work that might be in the community. United Way every - I believe its three years does a very comprehensive community survey and they’re asking a lot of the same questions of residents that is of information we’re interested in as well. Its things like access to health care, access to child care, jobs, and things like that. So we try to use that as well so we’re not recreating the wheel but we do want specific input related to our plan in the HUD goals. We do that through again either surveys so that we e-mail out. We’ll probably put it on the city’s website so interested people can just click right on it and take it. One thing we’ll be able to do this time around that we didn’t last time is using the transit system. They have the capability to have a scan code on the buses. You people can use their smart phones, tablets, or whatever they’re using scan that code and it will bring them right to our survey. It’s a very captive audience. They’re sitting there riding the bus maybe looking for something to do while they’re riding it. I guess they’ve had some good results and responses with other surveys they’ve done. So I’m excited about that and I think that it will be part of our target population who we sometimes have a hard time reaching. They’re not necessarily inclined to come to night time meetings or community meetings. So they’ll be captive and hopefully we’ll get a good response with that. Then we’ll also be reaching out to the nonprofits in the community. Last time we did this we did – meaning Urban Programs – came in to one of the continuum of care meetings during the process and I think that that was a good launching point as well to reach a large number of the nonprofits. So we’ll look to try to get on one of those agendas and get input from those groups. That kind of puts the face to face input in more of an open forum where the surveys are very structured. Then of course we’d reach out to other departments in the city - the School Department, police, fire, code enforcement. They all have unique perspectives on what they see in the community. We’ll do that either through round table discussions or maybe a survey as well. We’re trying to streamline it this year and what was nice last time when we did use some surveys on line is that the results you can view them in a variety of ways. You can look at bar graphs, pie charts, and things like that and it takes a lot of the manual work out of that. It will be a combination of methods. We’ll certainly put it out on the public access channel that the surveys are available and if people Human Affairs – 1/15/15 Page 5 don’t have internet access, they could get a survey here. We’ll try to make it as available as possible to reach those groups. So once we have all that information, we really have to sit down in Urban Programs with some of the other positions in Community Development and we’ll look at that and try to analyze it and see what stands out as the top needs in the community. That will all be put into the draft plan. Then that plan will be available for 30 days for a public comment. So it’s similar to what we’ve done each year with the annual action plan. We also always allow a 30 day comment period on that. This year we’ll be developing the five year plan and also that first year at the same time. It’s a little odd that first year because you’re trying to take applications for priorities that you’re not quite sure what those are going to be. In general, we do know what the HUD goals are. So we’ll look at them that way. Then each year, those five year plan, we carry it out through those annual action plans and try to select the applications that are helping us address those goals in the plan. That’s the broad overview of it. Chairman Wilshire Do you have a timeline yet or not yet? Carrie Schena I don’t have any of the community meetings set yet. The survey work, we should have that up pretty quickly. We had them developed the last time we did it. So it will only need a little bit of tweaking for this time around. HUD hasn’t changed its priorities too much. They’re certainly more focused on things like green technologies and co-mingling funds, and trying to leverage and things like that, using transit for planning and things. Those come and go with HUD. Nashua does a good job of integrating all of those components anyway. We have the tentative schedule that you received but that kind of follows the same plan as the annual plan would. We’ll just weave that consolidated planning input right into it. Chairman Wilshire So is that due May 15th? Carrie Schena Yes it is. So it will all be submitted at the same time. Chairman Wilshire I like the idea of using the boss using the surveys. I really like the idea of face to face with the nonprofits. I think that is very important. It is to me anyway. One of the things that concerns me is that the COC meetings are pretty cut and dry. They’re one hour. They’re in, they’re out. So I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to talk to the folks that chair that yet. I was wondering if it might happen right after a COC meeting. I don’t know. Carrie Schena They can. I have the flexibility to attend whatever works best for everybody involved. If that means like you said people stay a little bit later or even a separate meeting. You just try to make the best use of people’s time. So that’s why when we did it last time, we did it an existing meeting. Certainly if their agendas are quite full over the next couple of months, then that’s a good suggestion to try to do it afterwards. Human Affairs – 1/15/15 Page 6 Chairman Wilshire Yeah because you have a lot of people here already in the building, it is a good way to get them. Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja Thank you. I like the idea of using the bus also. I have a question. Do you in any way have the information available at the Library? Are there hard copies of the survey there? Could you put a code there that could be scanned? Have you thought about maybe using the Library to capture information? Carrie Schena Well normally when the draft plans are available, that is one of the locations that we make the plan available. So it certainly would make sense to have the survey or at least the scan code there as well. If we’re going to develop that bar code to be used on the buses, it can go anywhere. So the Library is a good location. If there’s any other suggestions, I mean we can even get into some of the local markets. Just put a little thing up if people are interested. It’s January now. We do have a few months to get it. We need enough time to obtain the data and analyze it in order to put out a draft plan. Yeah certainly if there’s any other suggestions. Alderman Caron I was thinking of that too the Library but also even the senior center might be a place because you know they do have a coffee lounge and they do have the Meals on Wheels program there. A lot of people go there every day for lunch. You might get a captive audience or even one of their flea markets because there are so many people when they’re sitting and having their lunch. I could certainly get you those dates in February and March. Carrie Schena Great. Thank you. Alderman Caron The more information you get I think the better. Chairman Wilshire Anyone else have questions for Carrie while she’s here? Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it. Carrie Schena So at the next meeting I believe we’ll have the applications for this year’s funding to review if that proposed schedule works for everybody. Chairman Wilshire So that’s the 19th of February. Excellent. Human Affairs – 1/15/15 Page 7 DISCUSSION Alderman Caron Thank you. As you know, the Review and Comment Committee met yesterday to talk about what we were going to do now that the applications are available on line. There was an article in the paper. I put a letter on your desk and I highlighted that. It’s from the Chairperson Doug Tremlett. The two components that we really tried to work on and focus for this year had to do with incomplete applications and the fact that top level people from the agency were not coming to the meetings to give an overview of what they asked. In the letter, it specifically states that anything missing from the application will make it null and void. So there’s no rhyme or reason – the Mayor’s office is going to check them as they come in – the applications. They have a checklist. There’s a checklist within the application and then Doug or myself after there’s 4 or 5 applications in the Mayor’s office, we will go in there and review it again just to make sure everything is there. We were finding no CEO signatures. There was a lot of discrepancies and we felt that since this is taxpayer money and these are agencies that are looking for help, that their responsibility to the Review and Comment is to put their package together. This is not we’re just going to hand you the money any more. You have to take some responsibility for what you’re asking for. So we thought that was number one in our. The other thing is to make sure that someone was there that could accurately explain why they needed the money for their agencies. We know how important this money is for some of these agencies but we also feel that they have a responsibility when asking for it. We’re looking forward to that. As you know unfortunately we’re missing one Commissioner, so there’s only going to be four of us to deal with all the applications. With Kathy Nelson, John Cepaitis, Doug Tremlett, they feel that it’s something we can handle but we don’t have a lot of volunteers. Let’s just say that information that is vital for volunteers that participated last year is not readily available. So we are trying to reformat that. At this point in time, there are 11 people. The Ordinance requires 20. So today I picked up 3. Hopefully I’ll pick two more up. So I had a quick conversation with the Mayor and she understood. They’re going to see what they can resurrect. We’re really looking for there are some missing names and we’re looking for phone numbers. We as a Commission have no problem making phone calls and trying to get that information to get these people back on board. The Mayor has kindly said that she would send out an e-mail especially to the organizations like Rotary, Lions, to try to get those kind of people. We also will put something on 16, 99, or whatever to advertise, and also on the link. If anyone knows of anyone, you can contact me or Doug Tremlett but it’s imperative. As we were talking yesterday, it’s very important that we get a lot of returnees because the other ones that are going to help the Commissioners who are new which is you know Kathy and John, so we really need them back. If anyone has not heard from Doug that did participate in Review and Comment to give us a call or even call the Mayor’s office. They’ll take that information. We felt that those were our two goals. We can’t change everything but we felt those were the two important goals that we had and we did talk about the five year plan and how to deal with that. I know that the conversation with United Way – you know what we’re looking for so that we’re trying to give the money the best way we can for our agencies within the city to help them and make it good. Not that it hasn’t been good before but things happen and we slide back. So we have to just pull ourselves up and get back in. I am really happy that they’re all enthusiastic. They’ve come up with some great ideas and I think this will go very well this year. If you know of anyone who wants to volunteer, let us know. Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja Just for people who may be watching if there’s someone who’s interested in volunteering and hasn’t done this before, what kind of time commitment would they be looking at and could they call the Mayor’s office to get to you also? Human Affairs – 1/15/15 Page 8 Alderman Caron Yes and Doug because he is the Chairman of the Committee. There are three major dates. One is February 18th and that’s when all they are in all the volunteers get their agency, their applications for them to study. Then in March, each one of the Commissioners has one day where their volunteers and all the agencies that they’re going to talk to. That’s a long day because that’s from 6 to about 10. It may run a little later because we’ll have extra instead of 4 or 5, and then there’s a final review for the volunteers to hear from the Commission and be told exactly how the total amount of money was expended to make sure that they all understood this is what your group did. This is what A, B, C, and D did and this is what we’ve come up with for a total. If anyone had any questions or concerns, that would be the time. Last year they didn’t. There were a couple of minor things but not that we tweaked anything but they understood how much money we had and where it all went. That gives them some good feelings because they see where all that money has been allocated. Chairman Wilshire It’s a short time commitment. It only last 4 to 6 weeks and it’s only a few meetings. A lot of it is taking the applications and reading them at home at your own leisure but the time commitment as far as going to meetings isn’t a big commitment. Its short lived. Alderman Caron Right it’s over and then you go from there. For those that are new, last year we decided that we would put together for the volunteers a list of questions that they should be thinking of when they’re reviewing that application before they speak with the agency so that way they have it in their mind these are the important questions that you should be looking at. Let’s face it the applications could be 30 pages. These are the real pieces that you’d want to know – what the program is, how much you want, what the numbers of people from Nashua that you’re servicing, or how does that fit in with your budget, or can you sustain this if you don’t get that money the following year especially if it’s a program. Let’s say PAL wants to run a program and they want a start-up money. Okay if we’re going to give you this money for this year, next year are you going to have it in your budget so that you can continue with it if it works out well. You’re not going to run it if it isn’t worth it. So we compiled a list of questions so it made it a little bit easier. I found because I had like 3 people that were new. So that really kind of helped them when they were looking at their applications. Chairman Wilshire Thank you Alderman Caron. Thank you for all the work that you put into it. I know it’s been a challenge to get this together and I appreciate the hard work you’ve done. Alderman Caron That’s fine. I’m glad that I was able to sit on it and I think that it’s not a lot of money but for those agencies that really need it, it helps them and I think that’s what we’re here for to help our citizens. Chairman Wilshire I think the two things you highlighted are fair. If their application isn’t complete, come back next year. I mean any place else you apply for funding if your application isn’t complete, they don’t even look at it. We’ve had that a number of times. It gets their attention. I mean it’s a tough way to do it but at any place. Human Affairs – 1/15/15 Page 9 Alderman Caron It only has to happen once. The thing is that if you think about it even before when I was first retired as a volunteer and it’s the same agents. It’s really the same agents. I think that’s what happened. They just kind of got complacent. Chairman Wilshire And the other thing about sending the cook to discuss the program, yeah that’s not helpful when you’re trying to get the information you need to make decisions. They should really be sending someone who knows the budget, who knows the program as well. Alderman Caron Especially when they’re asking for a lot of money. Well before we hand you this money, we want to know A, B, C and D. So I told the Commission if there was any problem with it here in this Committee that I would let them know. Chairman Wilshire Thank you again. PUBLIC COMMENT - None REMARKS BY THE ALDERMEN - None POSSIBLE NON-PUBLIC SESSION - None ADJOURNMENT MOTION BY ALDERMAN SHEEHAN TO ADJOURN MOTION CARRIED The meeting was declared adjourned at 7:28 p.m. Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja Committee Clerk