Hollister City Council members voted unanimously Monday to support the Westside Promise Neighborhood grant application – after three of them previously expressed concerns about the application at a July 2 meeting – which could inject a half-million dollars toward fixing the economically distressed area of the city.
“There was a lot of misinformation when I was out of town,” said Lisa Faulkner, of First 5 San Benito, who is one of the original founding members of the Dunne Park Collaborative that formed three years ago. “This federal initiative should be something the community is celebrating. We need to come together and show a strong unified effort.”
Al De Vos, the gang prevention coordinator, made the presentation to city council members on July 2 about the grant. Faulkner said as many as 80 partners have been meeting as part of the Dunne Park Collaborative, with a smaller advisory council formed to work on the grant application. The grant would encompass work to the west side of Hollister, including the neighborhoods surrounding Calaveras and R.O. Hardin schools. It would provide $500,000 for planning and then open up the county for additional implementation funding of up to $20 million from future grants.
The advisory council includes San Benito County, First 5 San Benito, the Youth Alliance and Watsonville-based Salud Para La Gente as the lead fiscal agent.
At the earlier meeting in July, Councilmen Doug Emerson and Robert Scattini were concerned about Salud Para La Gente being an outside health clinic. They said they had received calls from residents who feared the agency’s involvement would have a negative impact on the local San Benito Health Foundation, which offers similar medical and dental services to lower-income residents. At the time, Mayor Ray Friend said he did not believe the project should focus on just one part of Hollister.
But with a contract in hand and with Faulkner in attendance at the meeting, along with a representative of the San Benito Health Foundation, all the council members expressed their support for the application.
“If I send in the application and we don’t have positive press, we can’t compete,” Faulkner said, of the federal government’s requirement for a strong existing collaborative to complete the planning process. “The city council, the Health Foundation and all the partners involved really realize that the first step is to compete nationally.”
Faulkner said she reiterated to council members that the planning grant cannot be used for services and will be used only to hire a professional team to collect data on community needs for planning purposes.
“If we are just left with that alone, that is an enormous tool in grant-seeking efforts,” Faulkner said. “We will be one step closer to explaining the needs that exist here.”
Faulkner said the collaborative also has agreed to extend an invitation to the San Benito Health Foundation to sign a contract for the planning process. She said it would be available for their signature, in City Manager Clint Quilter’s office, by July 23.
“We will let them have one final opportunity,” Faulkner said.
Rosa Vivian Fernandez, executive director of the Health Foundation, did not return calls from the Free Lance for comment.
Emerson said his concerns were not about the application itself, but about possible outcomes for the health foundation if the group is successful in moving on to the implementation phase.
“The concern of a couple of council members of the process was that our local health foundation should be at the table,” he said. “I met with both executive directors and the end result is San Benito Health Foundation will be at the table in terms of planning for implementation.”
Emerson said his other concerns were reports he had heard that Salud Para La Gente had audit findings six years ago after which some staff members were fired. He said he did not verify the reports of inappropriate activities.
Faulkner at the council meeting shared the 2010 and 2011 financials from Salud Para La Gente and talked about a recent $5 million grant the agency procured.
“What that grant told me – they would not be able to attract $5 million unless they had a good financial platform to be accountable,” Faulkner said.
Faulkner said she also told the city council members that the advisory group had anticipated the grant would be due in September, as it was last fiscal year. They had scheduled the summer months for grant writing and outreach to the community about the grant, such as the presentations at the county board of supervisors and the city council. But the grant deadline was moved up to July 27.
“We are in the grant-writing phase and at the same time seeking support,” Faulkner said.
The group will present a contract to the county board July 24.
“If we had known earlier, politically we could have worked through this,” Emerson said. “We didn’t know until (Monday) that it was originally supposed to be due in September. It would have given some time. … But I’m very satisfied with the outcome. I don’t think I ever intended to vote no because it is a great opportunity for the community.”
Councilman Victor Gomez, who expressed support for the grant at the July 2 meeting, said he is excited to see a planning grant focusing on the west side.
“I think, unfortunately, there is not enough focus in that area,” he said. “It’s not the most attractive area of Hollister so it doesn’t seem to get a lot of focus. To be able to plan and organize more benefits for the community in that area is nothing but a plus.”
Gomez said he was encouraged to see so many nonprofits working together.
“We don’t have the money to do that right now – to contribute to nonprofits as we have in the past,” he said. “To work together to look for other avenues of revenue for nonprofits and the community is huge. It’s nice as a business owner as well to see nonprofits organized and willing to work together.”
