Sachem Fund Board

Sachem Fund Committee 5/16/2012 Room 335 Special Meeting Minutes Members Present: Chairman Alderman Pete Desaulniers, Co-Chairman Bill Quidgeon, Jr., Mohegan Tribal Member, Joseph Ruffo, Comptroller, Lottie Scott, and Christine Averna, Recording Secretary Members Not Present:, Peter Davis Director of Planning & Development, James Gessner Jr., Mohegan Tribal Council, Mayor Peter Nystrom, Mark Brown, Ambassador Mohegan Tribal Council Others Present: Michael Driscoll Corporation Counsel Members of Press Present: none 1. The Meeting of the Sachem Fund Committee was called to order at 5:00 P.M. 2. It was determined a quorum was present 3. Joe Ruffo presented finance reports and reported the balance includes contributions, allocations from the City Council, and unspent funds that have been reclaimed. Also included were the disbursements of funds and some funds that have been de-obligated and returned back to the City. The total of all available funds is $ 166,466.70. Lottie Scott motioned to accept the financial report, seconded by Bill Quidgeon, all in favor the Financial Report was unanimously accepted. 4. Discussion on the direction the Committee wants to proceed in, funding for this year, and future requirements of grantee; 5. Review procedures utilized to date, discuss direction committee should follow going forward, discuss funding available this year and likely future funding and discuss processes to be followed by grantees and reporting requirements; 6. Discuss and possibly take action on changes in procedures and process and receiving funding, funding, and receiving reports relative to grants, loans and other funding; and 7. Discuss and possibly take action on recapture of funds made available to grantees and not utilized to date. Alderman Pete Desaulniers has requested and received some information back from some of the past grantees about their uses of the funds. One of the respondents was the Society of the Founders of Norwich, CT dated April 23, 2012. There was also a study that was done at the request of State Rep Melissa Olson by The Creative Industries in CT State House 46 State Representative Melissa Riley relative to business and employment in CT and the effects the arts has. Sachem Fund Committee Minutes May 16, 2012 Page 2  Bill Quidgeon believes maybe the funds should be divided among fewer applicants who will really help Downtown Norwich and the Economic Development of Norwich. Alderman Desaulniers agrees but feels that the ordinance is wide open. Corporation Counsel Michael Driscoll states that the ordinance was drafted that way intentionally to give the committee the maximum amount of power to do things. It doesn’t mean you can’t wait. The committee can set up its own weighting scale to decide what to do and what not to do. Also, they can limit the amount they give out per grant and that way if they don’t perform as promised the investment wasn’t substantial and they can choose not to give that organization another grant. Follow- up is difficult though. Alderman Desaulniers agrees about the follow-up difficulties. There are no time constraints and some of the projects are taking longer to be completed. Corp Counsel Driscoll states that one way to make it easier to follow performance of those who receive grants would be to give the grants in the form of loans that have to be paid back if they don’t perform as promised. That way if they don’t perform as promised or in the time stated there is a loan that has to be paid back so the City can recoup those funds. If they do perform as promised the terms of the loan can state that it won’t have to be paid back. Just giving money to organizations with no terms can make it very difficult to recover those funds in the case where they don’t perform. Alderman Desaulniers thinks that would be better so there is some incentive to perform as promised in a timely fashion. Attorney Driscoll states that the idea is to protect the Sachem Fund for future projects. Say a business wants to move into Downtown Norwich but the bank won’t make a business loan and the Sachem Fund does make a loan. This way there is money coming into the fund for future projects. Lottie is very interested in how the funds are disbursed. The Sachem Fund has been very generous and some of the projects are coming along. There are less funds available now. She believes that giving outright grants to organizations that are going to have an impact on Downtown Norwich is the best option. There is going to be a lot of monitoring no matter how the funds are disbursed. Her concern is that the results are not always as promised or expected. The most important thing is to be able to look back and see the positive changes, the economic and cultural improvements. She has questions sometimes of the successfulness of the projects. The Sachem Fund is supposed to do big for Norwich in a big way. Attorney Driscoll states that follow up is definitely key either way to see how they performed. It’s especially helpful if the same organization comes back for further grants. The track records need to be measurable. Sachem Fund Committee Minutes May 16, 2012 Page 3  Bill Quidgeon believes that too many programs have been cut. Things like the Christmas Lighting. That used to be funded through the City Council. There have been too many cut-backs. The Fund can’t be used to fill the budget gaps for the City Council. It needs to concentrate on what it was set up for. We can’t disburse funds as a budget substitute. Alderman Desaulniers agrees and does understand that the Sachem Fund did help out with some budget crises for the City. Some of the people who received funds and some of the uses the funds went to should not be allowed to happen again. It’s important to be a little stricter about the uses and really look at the process and procedure for approving grants. Perhaps it would be better to hold off for a little while before giving any more grants. Take some time to replenish the fund and restructure the applications. And maybe lay down some parameters that the committee can agree on. Bill Quidgeon suggests maybe spelling out application parameters which may deter some applications that aren’t what the committee is looking for. Attorney Driscoll reminds the committee that the Sachem Fund was set up to be permanent and also accept donor applications. When donor funds are received the donor has the right to designate what they want the funds used for. Lottie Scott feels that when you start doing little bits it adds up. When you look at the little bits the outcomes may take a long time but if they’re more beneficial then it’ s okay. But the committee has to make some hard decisions. It’s not possible to make everyone happy. Maybe some of the applicants should be looking elsewhere for some of their funding. Alderman Desaulniers asks what the committee thinks of holding off on accepting applications until the fund has had time to recover and recapture unused funds. It’ll give time to restructure the plan and policies. Bill Quidgeon thinks maybe it would also be helpful to narrow the applicants down to 2 or 3. The committee can set the criteria and announce. Attorney Driscoll states that the committee should know what projects they want to support in the fall. That would put the burden on the applicant to meet the criteria the committee is striving for. It would also be good to be able to weigh the different parts of the application based on what the desired outcome is. Lottie Scott believes the committee needs to be picky about who can give the City the best improvements. Also it would be good to weigh past works of the organization. Alderman Desaulniers states the committee needs to define what they mean by economic impact, economic development. That’s very broad. Sachem Fund Committee Minutes May 16, 2012 Page 4 Bill Quidgeon asks if the committee waits until fall, what programs are going to be looking for funding through the Sachem Fund during the summer that will be effected. For example, the parades and the fireworks may need funding. Will they  suffer? If it shouldn’t have a major impact on the City it’s a great idea to hold off. Alderman Desaulniers believes that most of the Downtown functions are self- sustaining. Bill Quidgeon agrees that maybe taking the Sachem Funds out of play for a couple of months will make some of the applicants look elsewhere. It would be good for all involved. Lottie Scott believes that sometimes easy grant money will keep them from looking elsewhere. It has made some of the applicants lazy. Bill Quidgeon motions that the committee hold off on accepting applications until the committee has had a chance to clean up their criteria and know exactly what the committee is looking for, until at least the fall, seconded by Joe Ruffo. The motion carried unanimously. Alderman Desaulniers states that they will send a notice to the applicants through the Mayor’s office of the decision. Attorney Driscoll will draft the letter for the committee to approve. Lottie Scott asks if this is a special meeting, does the committee have regular meeting dates set? There are things that need to be discussed and sometimes they aren’t on the agenda. It is explained that the committee doesn’t have regularly scheduled meetings and that in October that can be set up. Regularly scheduled meetings have to be scheduled and the dates have to be submitted to the City Clerk’s office for the upcoming year. The committee will work on setting up a meeting schedule for 2013 so that it can be posted properly. The members of the committee will have to work on figuring out when everyone is available for those meetings. Alderman Desaulniers will send out emails to the committee members before an agenda is set for upcoming special meetings so that agenda items can be properly posted before the special meetings. 8. Joe Ruffo motioned to adjourn, seconded by Lottie Scott. The meeting was unanimously adjourned at 5:45 p.m. Respectfully submitted by: Christine Averna, Recording Secretary