Sachem Fund Board

Sachem Fund Committee 5/23/2013 Room 210 Meeting Minutes Members Present: Co-Chairman Alderman Pete Desaulniers, Co-Chairman Bill Quidgeon, Jr., Mohegan Tribal Member, Lottie Scott, Mark Brown, Ambassador Mohegan Tribal Council, Mayor Peter Nystrom, Gary Evans, Supervisor of Community Development Members Not Present: Joseph Ruffo, Comptroller, Kathy Regan-Pyne Mohegan Tribal Council, Others Present: Council Woman Deb Hinchey, Jason Vincent, VP of NCDC and Sheila Hayes, Members of Press Present: Claire Bessette of the New London Day The Meeting of the Sachem Fund Committee was called to order at 6:00 P.M. 1. It was determined a quorum was present. 2. The minutes from 5-16-2012 meeting were approved and Bill Quidgeon motioned to accept, seconded by Peter Nystrom, all in favor of the minutes as written, the vote was unanimously. 3. Gary Evans read the finance report for Joe Ruffo 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 $ 223,037.19. Peter Nystrom made a motion to accept the financial report, seconded by Mark Brown, all in favor the Financial Report was unanimously accepted. 4. Discussion on the direction the Committee wants to proceed in: Pete Desaulniers stated that there were several questions that the committee had about the fund the way it was written up and come up with a direction. Mr. Desaulniers reported that he feels the ordinance was well written. Bill Quidgeon stated that his comments last meeting where he said; “I believe the funds should be divided among fewer applicants who will really help Downtown Norwich and the Economic Development of Norwich” were the way he thinks the committee should go. There are a lot of issues. The only It is our decision as the board how the funds are going to be distributed and to figure what we want to accomplish in and for Norwich. Gary Evans said he thinks it is more of a procedural need than a matter of changing the ordinance. He said that the need is more in keeping with the requirements you give when you loan money and require a quarterly reports. Mark Brown said if you look at the number of things we gave to and that it may have benefited the entities we gave to but what is the benefit to Norwich. That is what we need to figure out. Is there a benefit. Benefiting Norwich is our real intent. He stated that we may be looking at 2 different things, grants and loans. He wants to know if others in the city might want to donate to the fund. If a business or private individual want to donate he stated that we should let them to grow the amount in the fund. Gary Evans said that could be done and a tax credit given by the city for the donation. He also said we should do an RFP that narrows the focus of fund disbursement. He also said the recipients have to turn over quarterly reports to them as proof of ability to finish project or meet all criteria needed. He  also said it is easy to put this type of measure in place. Mark Brown said if we could implement this we could put out an RFP this year and specify what we are willing to disburse the money for. We need to do something that gives us a higher impact Pete Desaulniers wanted to know if the committee would have to request the ordinance be changed to do as Mark Brown suggested and accept donations from others. He said we can write a letter to Corporation Council Mike Driscoll and ask for an opinion on the question. Lottie Scott said we should also look at allowing others to become involved in donating and we should look at the loan aspect of what we are talking about, and while we are looking at this we should also look at our grants and what they do accomplish for the city. Pete Desaulniers asked if the committee wanted a letter from Corporation Council about accepting donations from others in the community. 5. A motion was made by Mark Brown and seconded by Lottie Scott to send a letter to Corporation Council to request an opinion on accepting funds from business and private individuals. On a vote from the committee, the vote was unanimously 6. Discuss continued and it was stated that if donated funds were accepted they would not get a chair on the committee. 7. Discuss returned to the ordinance and everyone stated they are good with the way it is written. That SOP need to be followed. We need to decide what we want to fund and set up how, as in loan, grant or a combination and what they are required to bring to the committee as documentation. Bill Quidgeon asked how the committee wanted to focus on going forward. Lottie Scott said we need to look at what we have seen that we consider is important. Is that something we have seen that we should focus on? If we go through the RFP system can we change it? Mark Brown, which is what is important for the city to consider, you see it every day and you need to consider if this is important. The biggest focus is what the city needs to figure out for the next meeting or the future, what do you see that should be the focus of our distributing funds. It should be your decision, you see it all the time. Bill Quidgeon said the tribe is not here all of the time and doesn’t see what needs to be concentrated on. What we don’ see if is this area needs more attention or does this area need more right now. We need you to look at that. Lottie Scott asked should we sit down and figure out what our priorities are, should we sit down and talk through what we want. We can come back with a recommendation on what to do. Gary Evans, when we start to figure out an RFP we are going to put out we do a gallery type of presentation with each other to see what we will do. Through questioning and thinking something develops into an RFP. I would be happy to felicitate it if the committee wants. Pete Desaulniers said he would like to see the tribe continue to be a part of the committee’s decisions and work with the city to make the decisions. Bill Quidgeon said he wanted that also but he felt the city knew more about the city than someone that didn’t work and live in the city. Pete Desaulniers and Bill Quidgeon agreed that we need each other to continue but the city is looked at more by members of the committee that live here. Peter Nystrom the strength of the Sachem Fund is not allowing anyone to look at this fund as the sole source of money they must bring other forms of equity, even if it is in kind services. Recalling the last meeting I remember the committees concern being jobs created and maintained. We need measureable value for the granting of monies. We need to figure out how are we going to measure this and at what point. We need this for leverage of funds, job creation. Gary Evans stated that community development monies that are given out have set criteria for leverage. That is built into the application. Leverage can be used for several things, you must be careful when writing up the RFP and application.  Lottie Scott stated we have given a lot of money and we need to have more meetings addressing issues and that is one of the reasons we are behind. I am looking at what was sent to Bonnie (attached) and it advises us to identify if that is a way we want to go to. Do we need to have a discussion on what we want? If you have time maybe that is something you could do, said to Gary Evans. Gary Evans, my concern is you might be steered in a direction you might not want to be steered. I believe we should go to results based accountability. Lottie Scott, I am interested in results based accountability. I think we all are Pete Desaulniers, do we want to set up a small committee to see if we can set up a procedure to follow. Mark Brown, it is a good idea, than we will have something set up. Pete Desaulniers, good then the committee could review it and decide if this we want and we can plug other issues into it. 8. A motion was made by Peter Nystrom and seconded by Lottie Scott to form a sub-committee to look develop the scope of work for the RFP for the Sachem Committee. Upon taking a vote it was unanimous. 9. Lottie Scott, Mark Brown and Gary Evans all volunteered for a sub-committee. 10. A discussion was held on more meetings. Pete Desaulniers said we need to have more to keep the work going. He asked Gary Evans how long will it take to get the sub-committee together and do the work requested, he said it could be done over the phone in a couple of hours. Lottie Scott asked when we are meeting again. Peter Nystrom said it was necessary to back off for a while with the economy the way that it was. Bill Quidgeon said he would like to see some funds distributed before the end of this calendar year. If it is possible to do because we are behind the eight ball this year. We told the public that we would have something out before this. 11. Next meeting of the Sachem Fund Committee is July 11, 2013 at 5:00 PM 12. Citizen Comment: Sheila Hayes of 288 Central Avenue said that several years ago there was talk about supporting women in business and minority women in business. It was part of the talk about Economic Development and that Peter Davis was supposed to get back to her about it. She had heard about a small amount of the fund that there should be spent at least a little amount of the fund be given to minorities. She also request information on the recapture of funds. She suggests that there be a method of recapturing funds without a problem. She said you should have a time limit. 13. Peter Nystrom made the motioned to adjourn, seconded by Pete Desaulniers. The meeting was unanimously adjourned at 6:45 p.m. Respectfully submitted by: Bonnie Cuprak, Recording Secret From: Billcrealestate@aol.com [mailto:Billcrealestate@aol.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 4:02 PM To: mayorsoffice@cityofnorwich.org Subject: Sachem Fund organization 5/22/13 Bonnie, Please pass this on to the Sachem Fund members. As we discussed, I believe the Sachem Fund is an extremely important organization, and it may be unique as a partnership between a municipality and a Native American Tribe. It has great potential to make a lasting difference in Norwich. I've had the pleasure of working with 2 organizations in Connecticut which I think could be very helpful to the Sachem Fund in their quest to re-organize. The first is the Peer Advisor Network (PAN), a program of the CT Commission on Culture & Tourism. For very low cost ($50 to $200 paid by the requesting organization...the State pays a larger share), an advisor is assigned to facilitate a discussion and bring a resolution to an issue (in this case re-organizing the Sachem Fund) with the Board. The PAN advisors are professionals who have expertise in certain areas (ranging from organizational development to technology to marketing to financial management, etc.). The consultants work more as a way to give back to the community than as a means to make a lot of money. The advisor chosen will have worked in CT on similar projects and they will be matched to the requesting organization with that in mind. The application is very easy and the Regional Field Representative is great to work with. The second is the ProBono Partnership. As the name states, this program costs nothing. It is based in Hartford and serves all of CT. They deal with all kinds of municipality and non-profit issues, mainly centered around Board development. They offer many workshops, but they also assign advisors for specific projects. I have found that working with a professional, who is a skilled facilitator, and who has no attachment to the requesting organization is extremely beneficial. The Norwich Historical Society Both has worked very successfully with both organizations in the past several years. Please let me know if the Sachem Fund Board would like to consider using the expertise of either of these groups: I'd be glad to assist in helping to make contact with them. Sincerely, Bill Bill Champagne