Fortunately for Hollister residents, the Brooklyn Bridge was
unavailable at the time.
As you read in Tuesday’s Free Lance, a two-year contract with
the grant-writing firm of Randall Funding and Development
expired.
Fortunately for Hollister residents, the Brooklyn Bridge was unavailable at the time.
As you read in Tuesday’s Free Lance, a two-year contract with the grant-writing firm of Randall Funding and Development expired.
The taxpayers of Hollister have been coughing up a total of $100,000 in monthly payments since the deal was cut.
How much money in grants have been written?
Try $26,000.
You do the math. To make the issue more insulting is that the grant-writing wizards are from San Francisco, which makes this mess literally sending our money up the pike.
In its defense, the company has knocked off a few months of the payments and there are several potential grants pending – some of which would benefit the Hollister Fire Department, which could certainly use the help in added resources from any avenue.
And it’s true that the company received little input or inquiry from most other city staffers and departments.
The grant writers have also agreed to keep plugging away until they have made up some of the shortfall.
But here are a few questions that should have been asked two years ago:
Isn’t there anyone on city staff who knows how to apply for numerous grants? If not, why not?
What about the smart folks at Gavilan College, which is a lot closer and cheaper and has a branch smack dab in the middle of town.
Isn’t there a private sector person or firm in Hollister – or at least San Benito County – that could be hired to help with the grant soliciting process?
And why wasn’t the original deal structured so the city paid a percentage on how many grants and their total funding were in pocket instead of paying a flat monthly fee?
The good news is that City Manager Dale Shaddox discovered yet another bad money marriage and the current City Council is working together with the company to right – or is that write? – the previous wrong.
In the meantime, the Free Lance will continue to monitor the potential boondoggle.
And it is certainly a lesson to our elected and appointed city officials to not just rubber stamp what could be a costly mistake to us hard-working taxpayers down the road.
