Westside grant application gets OK from supes

San Benito Board of Supervisors last week authorized Chairman Jaime De La Cruz to sign a memorandum of understanding for the Westside Promise Neighborhood Grant application, which was due on Friday.
“The deadline is Thursday and we’d like a unanimous show of approval,” said Lisa Faulkner, the executive director of First 5 San Benito and a member of the advisory council for the grant.
Supervisors Jerry Muenzer, Robert Rivas and Anthony Botelho all expressed concern that the San Benito Health Foundation be included in the process if the grant is received, with two of the supervisors saying they had received calls from concerned citizens.
Since the advisory council presented last at the Hollister City Council on July 16, Faulkner had extended an invitation to Rosa Vivian Fernandez, the executive director of the Health Foundation, to sign an MOU and join the group. The city council members approved the MOU on July 16 with the understanding that the Health Foundation would be involved and Faulkner confirmed at the Tuesday board meeting that Fernandez had signed the document.
“They signed on to the advisory council,” Faulkner assured the supervisors. “We have 17 formal partners described in 10 pages of the application and another 10 pages of informal partners.”
Other members of the advisory council for the grant include Faulkner; Al De Vos, the county’s gang prevention coordinator; Diane Ortiz, executive director of the Youth Alliance; and Zettie Page, the CEO of Salud Para La Gente, a federal health center based in Watsonville. Salud Para La Gente is the lead fiscal agent on the grant application and city council members expressed concern that the agency could begin competing with the Health Foundation to offer services.
“I had the same concern with the MOU,” said Supervisor Robert Rivas. “It is a great effort and I couldn’t be more in support. My concern was the perception that the Health Foundation was not included.”
Muenzer said he assumed because no one from the Health Foundation spoke out against the application that they must now be satisfied with their level of involvement. Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz invited a representative from the agency up to the podium to address the application.
“There is a lot of misinformation,” said Rosa Vivian Fernandez, at the board of supervisors’ meeting on Tuesday. “We did not just come at the end and get dragged into the process. Members of the team were there at the first Dunne Park meeting. We were there from the beginning.”
“We do take issue with people saying we were not at the table,” she said. “We are very vested in the process and want to make sure it is a meaningful process. We want to be at the table.”
The supervisors approved a motion to authorize De La Cruz to sign the MOU once Faulkner revises it to include the San Benito Health Foundation as a member of the advisory council.