Seattle City Council Libraries, Education and Neighborhoods Committee 2/13/25

Good morning, everyone.

The February 13, 2025 meeting of the Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee will come to order.

It's 9.32 a.m.

I'm Maritza Rivera, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Salomon?

Here.

Councilmember Moore?

Present.

Councilmember Hollingsworth?

Here.

Vice Chair Rink.

Here.

Chair Rivera.

Present.

Five council members are present.

Terrific.

We got a full committee today.

Thank you for being here, colleagues.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

There's one item of business on today's agenda.

We have a presentation from the Department of Neighborhoods on the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

I'd like to thank Sam Reed and Daniel Sims for coming to council chambers today to present.

All right, let's go to public comment.

We'll now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comment should relate to items on the agenda or within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently we have zero in-person speakers and two remote speakers signed up.

Thank you.

May you please read the public comment instructions.

the public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

We will start with in-person speakers first and then remote speakers until the public comment period has ended.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

The public comment period is now open.

We will begin with the first speaker on the list.

And clerk, seeing as there are no in-person speakers, we'll go straight to the remote speakers.

Oh, go ahead.

The first remote speaker is Alberto Alvarez.

Speaker, please press star six when you hear the prompt of you have been unmuted.

Hello, good morning.

I won't take up committee time here.

I just wanted to say a thank you to Councilmember Moore, Hollingsworth, and Rink for us standing against the use of the so-called non-lethal weapons without proper safeguards.

As Councilmember Moore said, we now hope for a reasonable federal judge to look this over.

Your vote is highly appreciated.

Thank you, and have a good day.

Thank you, and as a reminder, comments need to relate to items on today's agenda.

The second remote speaker is David Haynes.

Speaker, please press star six when you hear the prompt of you have been unmuted.

Hi, David Haynes.

Neighborhood matching funds can be a great idea, yet sometimes it's like it's a political sport capacity building for the reelection apparatus of council, always trying to get a bunch of names on the list that you all helped use tax dollars to organize so that then you can hit them up for a donation, asking for their nonprofit endorsement, maybe even have them volunteer to doorknock during election hour.

Where is the effort to solve the public safety crisis that has overwhelmed and ruined the enjoyment of the library?

And due to all the behavioral crisis and sanitary problems that make it miserable to go into the library and rely on it as a resource for actually reading and writing and thinking for 20 minutes or two hours without being bothered by a bunch of creeps.

The library needs a lot of improvement because you have probably hundreds of lights that are not meant for reading.

They're meant for like trade chic, bourgeoisie perceptions, artistic enjoyment when you're driving by.

But yet when you actually need the lights for reading, they irritate your eyes because they don't work properly.

And just by the mere happenstance of the flawed floor plans in the library, it's like they try to force the community onto the individual where they force you to sit in a chair that's really, really hard, that cuts off your circulation in like 20 minutes, and then there's some person behind you within inches.

And that's never been improved.

But yet I noticed they got four employees down at the first level of the central library, and three of them are librarians who bring in the books right next to the automatic book intake that doesn't work proper.

And then they got a customer service, and then they got like a security guard.

But there ain't really hardly anybody down there except some whacked out people in the bathroom messing it all up, stinking it up.

But yet the societal problems that are stemming from bad police chiefs who keep exemptions from jail and not doing proper, has overwhelmed our in most other places.

It gets used as a day camp because y'all don't want to have the service.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Are there any other speakers?

That was the last registered speaker.

All right.

Thank you, clerk.

Public comment period is now closed.

We'll proceed to our item of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda item one, neighborhood matching fund overview for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

This item has been read into the record.

As I said earlier, we have Sam Reed and Daniel Sims from the Department of Neighborhoods as they make their way up to the desk.

I will say colleagues, as you know, I very much appreciate the neighborhood matching fund.

It's a great way for neighbors to get small localized projects done.

that the city might not otherwise have existing fundings for, and this really helps strengthen communities.

These grants are open to every neighborhood and every district across the city.

Residents directly apply for funding for their specific projects.

There is a match requirement, but that match can either include actual funds or volunteer hours toward the project For instance, design work, and I'm sure we'll hear more from the presentation.

During this, you might remember, colleagues, during this past budget cycle, one of my budget priorities was to restore funding for this program after the funds were not included in the mayor's package.

Fortunately, with your support, I was successful, and we get to be here today to hear more about the program and its benefit to our local communities, including your community's colleagues in the districts that you represent.

And you, Council Member Rink, you represent the whole city.

So all of the communities you represent.

So with that, would you like to go ahead with your presentation?

Please state your names for the record and you can get started.

And then colleagues, I'll ask that you please let our friends at Department of Neighborhoods finish their presentation before taking questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Sam.

Good morning, Council Members.

I am Sam Reed.

I'm Deputy Director of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods.

Good morning.

My name is Daniel Sims.

I'm the Community Partnerships Director for the Department of Neighborhoods.

I don't have the presentation up here.

We're getting the presentation put up.

Council member Hollingsworth, do you have a joke for us today?

You should always have one ready for this committee, council member.

I always have dad jokes ready, but I see the presentation.

I'll save it.

I'll save it to them.

Saved by the bell.

Thank you.

I'll save it.

Oh, thank you.

Oh, technology.

Uh, uh, thank you.

Council member Rivera for the invitation to come before this committee and share about our programming.

We always welcome any opportunity we get to lift the honor through programs like the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

And since we're here to talk about the Neighborhood Matching Fund, I just want to first offer, as Council Member Rivera, you spoke to earlier, on behalf of the Department of Neighborhoods and all the communities we serve, just our deep gratitude to Seattle City Council members for their support of maintaining the funding for this program.

I know that you all had to make some pretty, rough and challenging decisions in last year's budgeting process.

And we really just appreciate the acknowledgement and support of this program that means so much to community.

So thank you.

As some of you may remember, we were here last year talking about the Neighborhood Matching Fund and that presentation really focused on community impact and what the community was doing with those funding.

And today we're really gonna kind of dive deep into how the program works and kind of the nuts and bolts of it.

So I'll kind of kick us off and just give a refresher on an overview of the program and then I'll pass it over to Daniel who will kind of dive into all the details of the process.

So the Neighborhood Matching Fund is one of our department's oldest and most treasured programs.

It's been around for 37 years and has always been committed to supporting projects developed and implemented specifically by community members.

Since its creation, more than 5,000 community projects across the city have received over $64 million in funding.

Every one of those funding awards has been matched by volunteer labor, donated materials, donated professional services and cash.

And all of that has generated an additional $72 million in community investments through MATCH.

There are a lot of reasons why this program works and has been around so long.

In short, really, it works because it is centered on and rooted in community and what community is looking to do.

It supports ideas initiated and championed by community.

It really strengthens engagement and relationships within communities and encourages volunteerism, leverages community contributions and focuses on developing partnerships and enhances the city's vibrancy and values.

The program itself consists of two different funds.

The first is the Community Partnership Fund and the second is the Small Sparks Fund.

So the Small Sparks Fund provides funding up to $5,000 per project and applications are accepted on a rolling basis generally through October 31st each year.

These are designed to support small community activities such as neighborhood cleanups, block parties, community celebrations, workshops and more.

And then the larger fund is the Community Partnership Fund, which provides funding for larger projects up to $50,000.

This fund has two application cycles each year.

The first is currently open now through March 10th, and the second will open in July and close on September 8th.

This fund provides opportunities for communities to create large and lasting impacts by supporting community organizing, public art projects, park improvements, cultural events, and design and construction of community facilities and much, much more.

So that's the general overview and I'll pass it over to Daniel who will start to dive into how the program works.

So at the Neighborhood Matching Fund, we fund a variety of creative community-centered projects that meet specific criteria.

Projects must involve community members in the creation and completion of the project.

They must provide a public benefit.

They must be free and open to all and demonstrate a community match as well as occur within Seattle city limits.

The Neighborhood Matching Fund is structured to support a wide variety of project types and community ideas.

Festivals, traffic calming, museum exhibits, playgrounds, murals, plays, events, all of these things are fundable through the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

But while we fund quite a few things, there are some things that we do not fund.

The Neighborhood Matching Fund does not fund projects that are not free and open to the public.

We do not fund things that are duplication of an existing private or public program.

anything that is ongoing or an existing program or service support, any social services, projects that do not have project or property owner permission for proposed improvements.

We do not pay for an organization's ongoing expenses, and we also don't replace any lost funds from other sources.

Who do we fund?

We encourage applications from neighborhood groups, community organizations, informal groups, and business groups, although not-for-profit business groups, focused on building stronger community connections.

All applicant groups must be open and inclusive.

They must actively engage diverse community members in significantly be composed of individuals who live or work in Seattle.

These are values of the program and what drive us forward, and we need to make sure that all of those are in place for the organizations that we do fund.

projects or organizations that we don't fund.

We don't fund any individuals, so you must come as a collective.

Individual cannot apply to the fund.

We don't fund for-profit businesses, religious organizations, major institutions like government agencies, political groups, any organization that is outside of Seattle city limits, groups who currently have an active Neighborhood Matching Fund grant.

Now, if you've applied to the Neighborhood Matching Fund before and you close your project before the deadline for the next award cycle, you can apply for that.

But if you have an active project, we don't fund the same organization for two Neighborhood Matching Fund projects at the same time.

And we also don't fund groups that have a history of unsuccessfully completing their project within the last two years.

So if you had a project within the last two years and for some reason that project got canceled or withdrawn, we would consider you ineligible for funding for two years.

The community match is the heart of the Neighborhood Matching Fund concept.

Community match is important to us because it shows buy-in from the organization or from those that are applying.

They are also equally as invested in bringing in volunteers to the project or bringing in cash or donated resources to the project, but really doing something that enhances the project beyond what the city's investment in that project is.

So the community match is very important, and how it qualifies in the Neighborhood Matching Fund is that for every dollar that the Neighborhood Matching Fund would release as an award, we ask for 50 cents in community match.

So for CPF, the maximum is $50,000.

So for a CPF project of $50,000, there would be a minimum expectation of $25,000 in community match, generating a $75,000 project total.

Match can be met in a variety of different ways.

We try to allow for nimbleness in the community and we try not to put too many obstacles in the way of community actually achieving their match.

Volunteer time is a way to meet the match that's very important to us and something that we drive for in the program.

We actually value volunteer match at $35 an hour, understanding that people are giving up their time to participate on this project and they're coming from all walks of life and we want to honor and reward them.

donated supplies and materials is also something that we collect as a match category donated professional services but with donated professional services services we cap it at a hundred dollars so if you charge a hundred and twenty-five dollars normally we would have to bring that down to a hundred to fit within the neighborhood matching fund And then there's also cash match.

So some organizations are able to generate cash match, and then they would add that as their match category or as their match for the particular project.

So maybe they have $50,000 that they'll add to match for the project.

And they can get the funds from various different places, but we need to make sure that they have cash on hand to actually consider that as match.

So there's a couple of requirements for all awarded projects.

And they're listed here, accessibility, fiscal sponsorship, contingency, and insurance, as well as hiring processes.

But we go into it a little bit more in the next couple slides.

So I'll go to the next one, which is accessibility.

So for all improvements to city to city facilities, they must be accessible and they must meet the criteria of the Americans with Disability Act.

So if we are doing an event on parks property, it must be accessible.

If we are improving an SDOT right away or some type of project related to that, then again, it needs to be accessible.

So we require projects to be accessible for all people to be able to participate in.

Fiscal sponsorship is something that we require for organizations that are not 501c3s.

If you're a 501c3, then you can manage the finances themselves.

But if it is a collection of individuals or an ad hoc group or an informal business group that's coming together to participate in the Neighborhood Matching Fund, then we ask for fiscal sponsorship.

And then the fiscal sponsor is part of the contracting process.

So we would contract with the organization, and the fiscal sponsor would also be part of that contract because they hold the financial responsibilities for that project to make sure that they can happen.

One of the reasons why we have fiscal sponsorships as part of the Neighborhood Matching Fund is because, again, we are working with a lot of ad hoc groups and individuals, and we want to make sure that they have access to the funds, too, and fiscal sponsorship allows them to have access to the fund.

Contingency is important for us for all physical improvement projects, and we ask that people budget 15% of cash into contingency funds.

This can be done with award dollars, but we're just aware of the fact that inflation, fluctuation in prices, and all of these things are important to consider, and sometimes where your project, when you were developing it where it started, things may have shifted, and we just wanna make sure that there's the ability to complete this project by also having some contingency funds on hand.

For all projects, we ask for commercial general liability insurance.

Again, this is something that we can support through the actual grant as well.

And some partner or some organizations and applicants are actually able to get commercial general liability insurance or have it extended by their fiscal sponsor to support the project.

But others need to come up or need to have commercial general liability insurance.

We also, for hiring these, we ask for organizations to open up some of their larger requests for an RFP process.

And then we also are looking for organizations to make sure that they're working with women and minority-owned businesses, and Wembe businesses, I think is what we call them here.

So we want to make sure that people are looking to support those as they're growing their project and engaging in the work.

How do we get the word out?

At DON, we have multiple avenues and channels to get the word out.

I think that we, as a department, are very steeped in community engagement, and we try to use all of our available channels to get the information into community.

We have our community engagement coordinators, but alongside them, we also have P-Patch coordinators.

We have our equity and engagement advisors in various different programs, as well as our project managers themselves who reach out into community and try to promote the program.

targeted advertising that we do via social media, so when we're aware that maybe there's a gap area in the program or a community that hasn't been really applying to the Neighborhood Matching Fund, we'll research that, we'll review that, and we'll try to intentionally reach that community as best as we can.

We also rely on our city partners, including council members, to help assist in promoting the Neighborhood Matching Fund to your constituents and to other city departments for them to also get the word out to their communities and the communities they serve as well.

That's another avenue that we use.

We have, again, our community storytelling efforts that we do on DON's Front Porch blog and social media.

I am not sure if you all follow us on Facebook or Instagram, but if you don't, please do.

That is another avenue in which we are regularly promoting the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

So that goes out, I think I've seen at least three or four promotions of Neighborhood Matching Fund since we've released this current round of CPF.

We have pitches to local media that come back to actually asking us for interviews.

So we've done a few interviews around Neighborhood Matching Fund in the past to just make sure that, again, we're getting the message out as well as we can.

And then we also have a email subscription list of 14,000 individuals and community groups who we reach out or who we send email blasts to about the Neighborhood Matching Fund when it opens, making sure that they're aware and willing to or able to be informed of the Neighborhood Matching Fund and hopefully come to our program.

So how we help community apply, this is actually not just a neighborhood matching fund ethic and ethos, but it extends to the community grants programs as a whole.

We used to have the Duwamish River Opportunity Fund, now we have the Neighborhood Matching Fund and the Food Equity Fund, but we really rely on the PMs working with community, working with applicants as they come in to help them navigate the program, help them navigate our databases, help them navigate our applications, and we really look for our project managers to assist organizations and individuals and help them navigate the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

Our project managers will answer questions and provide technical assistance.

This can look a lot of different ways, because there's a lot of different questions and then obviously many different areas of technical assistance.

We make individual presentations to community groups, but we also will review draft applications and provide feedback.

It's not just one draft application that we look at, we'll look at multiple draft applications.

and provide feedback to the organization to try to position them as best as possible to be competitive.

We aren't able to score you and pass it forward, but we want to make sure that you have all of your I's dotted and your T's crossed so that when your application is submitted, will be as competitive as possible against all other applications that are submitted so one of the things that we really believe is that first-time applicants should likely meet with project managers so after all of our workshops the project managers will look at all the attendees and then they'll reach out to them directly and ask if they want any support on their project and and then they will work with the organization to make sure that they have all of the answers that they need to be as competitive as possible with the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

We are also in space to make sure that we're informing people of the fiscal sponsorship responsibilities that they need.

If it's an individual or if it's a, not an individual, excuse me, but if it's a group that's coming in who we have not worked with before, but we know that they need a fiscal sponsorship because as they're coming to us, that's not defined.

We'll make sure that they're aware of that and even can connect with fiscal sponsors as well.

We make sure that they have all their supporting material.

And one of the big things that we do is we connect the applicants with other departments.

Oftentimes, people come to the Neighborhood Matching Fund and they have a design idea.

Perhaps they want a traffic calming project in their neighborhood, but they haven't really secured partnership with SDOT or the Seattle Department of Transportation.

We will make sure that we connect them with the Department of Transportation so that they can work the project through with them.

get the Department of Transportation's support to actually make the project viable versus just a concept and an idea, but make it potentially doable if it's funded.

The Neighborhood Matching Fund managers, they host six virtual workshops a year.

To my understanding, they just completed their last workshop of this round yesterday evening.

So for all future workshops, those will come out, those will open up in July when we released our second award.

But in the meanwhile, if any organizations that you all are aware of, or know, want a presentation on the Neighborhood Matching Fund, you can always send them our way, and we're willing to have one-off conversations with them and explain the program to them as well.

Our application process.

So our application is split, well, we consider two categories.

We have a 100-point system, 50 points in building community partnerships, and 50 points in project readiness.

But when we receive applications, the Neighborhood Matching Fund team will review the applications for eligibility, making sure that all the documents are there, making sure that the organizations are nonprofit, making sure that everything checks out in a sense that creates an eligible application.

And then once those applications are considered eligible, then they get forwarded to the community review team.

And if there's another city department that needs to review the application, then they're forwarded to the city department as well.

So the Neighborhood Matching Fund team is the team that first looks at the applications for eligibility.

All eligible applications at that point go to the community review team and the city reviewers for their review.

So part of the criteria that builds our community partnership side, again, we have three things within the building of community partnership.

We have community benefit.

We wanna make sure that the project is open and eligible to all community members and inclusive.

And we also really wanna see it detailed that it is, that it's speaking to a idea of the community or a concern of the community, and it's not just an individual with an idea with no community support.

So we like to see the community kind of support detailed in the actual application.

And then again, as community involvement.

We like to know when the community is going to be involved throughout the project.

We want to see the relationship with the existing partners and then the relationships that we think that are going to be formed throughout the project.

But we also like to see this in detail, right?

Like we want to see this kind of like built out we want to see some thought in the applications and those make the strongest applications is when we get a lot of detail in that and ideas about what the community is really doing and when we can envision it and then when the community review team can envision these projects as well volunteers volunteers is a big part of our pro program i think i mentioned that earlier we love to see how volunteers are going to participate in the project we love to see where they're going to participate and we also like to see how they're managed in the project and who's gonna hold that role of managing volunteers.

But it's a critical part of our program and we'd love to see that in the applications.

Project readiness is, again, another 50-point category here, which is split into quite a few subcategories.

But we have project owner permission or property owner permission.

It's important.

If you don't have property owner permission, then we can't fund you because there's no permission to actually do that work.

I know it says project owner permission.

I think we meant property here.

But that's a critical area for us because if we're trying to do an improvement on parks property or we're trying to adjust the property or we're actually looking to review maybe moving a pickle or I think at one point in time there was a tennis ball or tennis Court and they were trying to move the tennis court in a park But we needed to make sure that parks was going to be on board with that We can't do planning and designing of your space without your permission to do so So that's an important piece for us again as property owner permission Beginning, we want the project to be ready to begin.

We want it to be ready to begin after those awards go out.

I think in March is what we have.

March 10th is our deadline for this round of Neighborhood Matching Fund, which means we're likely going to be making award announcements come May.

So within two to three months of those announcements, we want to see that the project can actually start moving at that point.

We like to be able to fund things that are gonna start moving and actually have that buy-in from the community and they're ready to go.

Leadership committee is another thing that's important to the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

And again, this is to make sure that the project is involving community and it isn't just individual projects.

We ask for seven to 10 members to be part of the leadership committee.

And within that, we like to see what they will be working on with clearly defined descriptions of the work that they're gonna do in the project.

Personnel and consultant position descriptions.

If we are going to be funding a project and there's gonna be a project manager, we like to see that detailed, the work the project manager is gonna be doing.

And then any consultant position descriptions as well listed there so we're aware of the work that the consultant will be doing.

A work plan, 10 to 15 primary steps.

This isn't the totality of the project, but again, it's like key milestones that show us that this project has been thought through and we see where we're going and we can envision that as well.

It is important, I'm sure budget's important to you all as well, and it's important to us.

We like to see how the money moves in the project, what it's related to, what it's funding, where it's funding, does it make sense to be funded at that amount, and also we collect our community match through that as well.

So community match is identified in budget categories too, so we'll have cash match.

Again, personnel, or not personnel, excuse me, but service materials, materials and supplies, and then other items, so volunteer hours.

Those will be listed in the budget as well.

So this brings us to our community review team.

In 2024, we decided to kick off a community review team to really work with the community to bring to determine where we invest the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

So one of Department of Neighborhoods, one of the pillars that we stand on is really forging solutions with community, and we believe that for that to effectively happen, then it needs to be in our grant programs as well.

Our grant programs should be working alongside community to determine where we're investing grant dollars.

One of the things that we offer community grant or community reviewers is $1,000 stipend for their time and consideration on the project, really considering that they're going to be spending over 50 hours reviewing applications and participating in actual meetings to determine where the awards are given.

So for community review team candidates, some of what we look for is regarding experience is just, do they have previous volunteer experience?

This is something that is critical to our program.

Have they volunteered?

Do they have an idea of what that looks like in work?

Leadership role in community building and projects or organizational development.

Previous involvement in a grant project doesn't have to be a neighborhood matching fund grant, but just a grant.

Is there some experience around that?

And then the other relevant experience in community building, neighborhood enhancements, and or equity projects or programs.

So we're trying to get a set of skills with community review team candidates to just be able to look at the breadth of applications they're receiving and have an idea about where they see these investments going and how to score the projects that are coming their way.

So community review team applicants, we ask that they, we have a simple application form that we send potential applicants and then they fill it out and we're asking them questions about their past role and experience with grant programs, their community building and volunteer experience, any examples of how they've engaged with black, indigenous, people of color, immigrants, refugees, people with low incomes, people with all abilities, LGBTQIA+, youth and or seniors.

Because again, one of the things that we do within the Neighborhood Matching Fund is we like to have our grants really impacting and really serving communities and organizations that are working on bringing in a lot of diverse members to the actual population.

And we want to make sure that the lens of the people reviewing these projects has experience working in largely diverse settings as well.

And then we just have an open question really about any other relevant experience that they have that they can put here to really show how they would be a strong community review team applicant.

We don't want to have all the answers for them or all the questions.

We also want them to be able to kind of say if they believe a certain thing that they've done in the past is relevant for this experience, we want them to lift that up as well.

We have some just basic general requirements that I think are for a lot of community review teams across the city.

They must be 18 years of age, live or work within the Seattle city limits, not be affiliated with any project.

But if they are affiliated with any other organization or they have knowledge, then we ask that they actually disclose their conflicts of interest and then sit out from reviewing that particular project.

We ask that they have access to a computer with reliable internet.

I know it's kind of an interesting one to say here, but oftentimes in a hybrid environment, we just want to make sure that people are able to receive all the information and being able to engage.

And, you know, again, the stipend comes to the fact that we recognize that a lot of people are committing a lot of time to the community review process.

We have it here at 40 to 50 hours of work over the course of eight weeks.

This is going to be from an orientation to reviewing the applications to also attending at least one community review team meeting and oftentimes more than one.

So we want to make sure that people are being incentivized, in a sense, for that effort or that they're coming in and that they're being supported for what they're going to do, because it's a solid 50 hours of their time that's going to be on this.

And then in the space, they're gonna have to work collaboratively, so we wanna have that.

The space is typically facilitated by our community grants manager, who is also our neighborhood matching fund manager, and they're the one who will facilitate the community review team meeting.

And then, again, provide written and verbal comments based on the NMF criteria.

They'll score the applications.

They'll write comments.

And all of this at the end comes in the form of a recommendation of the projects that the community review team would like to fund.

So they make the recommendation.

The recommendation then goes to our department director.

And then if our department director agrees with those recommendations, they're lifted to the mayor's office for final approval.

Sure.

I just want to add one other thing.

The, as this is a new community review team is a new process that we launched last year.

One of the other things we track is geographic diversity.

So as we get applicants, we really look at which council district they're in as well, because we want to ensure that we have citywide representation.

So where it's not a requirement, it is something that we track and try to follow up on to ensure that we have that kind of geographic diversity throughout the city.

Thank you Sam and thank you Daniel for taking us through that detailed description of the program and how I think it's really important colleagues, this is a review of one of the city's programs and for many reasons including ensuring that we're giving information to our constituents and to the public about where their tax dollars are going.

It's for me an accountability piece and also an opportunity to showcase and highlight our good work at the city.

This is a program that is open to any group of constituents across the city.

And as you heard Daniel talk about, any number of residents in a neighborhood can come together and form a group to work on a project that they would like to see happen.

As you heard from Daniel, the team is very hands-on in helping that group.

And Anywhere from the application process to identifying a fiscal sponsor if one is needed.

The fiscal sponsorship is another important piece both for accountability's sake and to ensure that that program gets done because we as a city can't gift public funds to an individual.

So that fiscal sponsor piece is so important.

and the department gets very hands-on in that.

So I'll take your question, colleagues.

I do want to acknowledge there's a number of staff members from the Department of Neighborhoods here.

I love the team at the Department of Neighborhoods because they always come to support their colleagues who present And of course, Director Chow cannot be here today, but we know she's a great partner.

She wish she could have been here today, but she sent her trustee team.

And so thank you out there.

And I wanna give a special shout out to Jenny Crooks because I had the pleasure of working with her when I worked over at the Office of Arts and Culture.

So I'm so happy to see you here today and for your involvement with community as part of the neighborhood and the community grants program.

Colleagues?

Let me see, sorry, let me get to the hands, the little hands for questions.

Looks like Council Member Solomon.

Okay, I'll take advantage of having raised my hand first.

And I also wanna give a shout out to the DON staff that is present here today.

Hey, cuz.

You know, you and I go way back, and there's actually a familial connection that goes back many generations, but that's a whole other thing.

I appreciate hearing about the neighborhood matching fund and getting that update.

As a crime prevention coordinator, my colleagues and I would often promote in our block watch meetings that there was the Neighborhood Matching Fund available for them to do projects in their community to help as a way to continue to strengthen their block watch group.

So it's not just focused on, you know, the burglary that happened or the or the drug house, but how can neighborhoods come together to support each other in doing a matching fund program?

It's one of those ways that kept neighborhoods engaged with each other.

Traffic circles being a prime example in some residential streets, which raises the question for me about if we have a project, we've got a group of neighbors who are concerned about traffic and speeding on a major arterial.

Obviously, they would have to do some coordination with Department of Transportation on that.

But is there any ability for them to tap into neighborhood matching funds to assist with the traffic calming that they want to do, like maybe some traffic islands or some curb barriers to prevent vehicles from smashing into their homes because they're going too fast, miss the curve and go straight as opposed to turning?

For the traffic calming planning, they can definitely work with us.

And we'll work with the Department of Transportation as well in figuring out the plan and the design, because it has to be approved by SDOT.

And then after approval, there's that partnership that comes from that to then do the other steps as well of the traffic improvement that you're talking about, the curb bolt, the cut, and everything like that.

So this would be started with us, in a sense, to bring that traffic study to bear at least the results of that.

and then continuous work with SDOT to then bring the actual curb cut, the bulb, and everything else that you're talking about for traffic calming.

So if you have a project that you're interested in sending our way in relation to that.

I do.

Please do.

OK, another question.

Does any of the funding that you provide allow for a group say, again, a group of neighbors who are looking at doing a particular project to actually pay salaries for a consultant, where those have to be in-kind donations.

So you don't fund payroll, you know, through this program.

we don't fund like the organization's payroll, but if there's a consultant that has a role on the project, there is consultant costs that can be incurred to pay for on the project, but we would need to know what the consultant's doing.

It had to be clearly identified in there, what those dollars are going to be used for.

Okay, cool.

All right, good.

Thank you for that.

And in terms of like fiscal sponsorship, we'd be looking at a community-based organization to like Rainier Valley Community Development Fund or sale neighborhood group who could function as a fiscal agent for a particular project?

Oh, yes.

If they have 501 status and they have the ability to serve as a fiscal sponsor, then they can serve as a fiscal sponsor.

I know I have a lot of questions, so forgive me.

How much do you have in the bucket?

Dollars-wise?

Yes.

We can always use more, but we have about two, I think about 2.1, 2.3.

It kind of fluctuates between that.

And then sometimes we have carry forward dollars as well, but about 2.1 million.

Okay.

Yeah, I just wanted to get a sense of what you had that you were able to distribute to the neighborhoods.

Mm-hmm.

And final question, does Daryl Smith know he's on page 22 of your slide presentation?

I don't know.

We didn't ask him for that.

But all pictures, like everyone signing off for pictures, so we do have permission to use it, but we didn't let him know that we used it on the slide deck.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Thank you, Council Member Salomon.

And I'll say this neighborhood matching fund is intended to be smaller projects, not bigger projects.

So there is a limit when you're talking about the traffic calming.

And I will say that I recently spoke to SDOT about a traffic calming project in the district that I represent.

And they would be involved in terms of they have to assign an engineer to go look and see if whatever is contemplated is feasible or talk about alternatives and all that can happen and you can talk to SDOT about all of that before they would even apply to Neighborhood Matching Fund or you would send a constituent that way to ensure that if you're going to recommend that to a constituent or group of constituents in your district that they would be more successful if the project is so costly that it really doesn't qualify for the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

I would say it's not where you wanna steer folks, but you can do the background work to get to whether or not that would be even feasible to recommend.

And I share that from experience from having worked with SDOT on something like this.

So thank you for your questions and just wanted to share my experience if that's helpful.

Council Member Hollingsworth,

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera, and also, Councilmember, thank you, Chair, sorry.

Thank you, Chair, and then also, you're a Councilmember Chair for this, and also thank you for bringing this, you know, this presentation.

Thank you, Daniel, thank you, Sam, thank you, Don.

I just have quick comments.

I don't have any questions.

I appreciate Department of Neighborhoods.

I think you all are one of the most underappreciated departments in our city.

because you all are, I say City Council's the front porch to a lot of things, but I think Don is the front porch.

I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am for you all and Director Chow.

Anytime I have a meeting with the community or I'm trying to make a connection, Don has always been there to help Because the city is really hard to navigate.

It's hard for us to navigate.

I don't even want to talk about the county piece, but it's just hard to navigate.

And I think...

for you all to be in the position that you all are in, you make it palatable for community folks to be able to understand who to contact, where to go, how to navigate certain things.

You're patient, you're very connected to the community.

So I just wanted to throw that out there.

I also really appreciate the grant piece, the SPARC.

I know a number of organizations that have gotten money from you all and from a SPARC grant and have grown into, you know, elevated to different heights where they could apply for other grants.

Because a lot of organizations don't have the capacity to take a large amount of number of money, but they do for like a smaller amount to help build that capacity.

And I think you all do a phenomenal job of the projects that you all fund, the different pieces that you do as well, and the depth of the project.

I just ran through the list of projects that you have been doing since 2017, and I didn't realize the amount of different organizations.

and people and different types of projects that you all fund from, you know, in our district, Estelita's Library to the Judge Johnson, you know, law form that he does with young people and, you know, different community projects, a pea patch, you know, Everything.

It's pretty amazing and just really grateful for the work that you all do.

So I just wanted to give you all a shout out.

And also too, I've been telling constituents about your food equity money that has opened up now and you all are starting to collect applications and stuff and how important that work is.

So anyways, I think you all do a lot of great work.

I just wanted to give you all some love today and just let you know how much I appreciate everything that you all do.

And you're just right on the fourth floor, right?

Is it fourth?

So yeah, fourth floor.

So anytime, I always run up to Director Chow's office when I need something.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Council Member Rank.

Thank you, Chair.

And just to echo what Council Member Hollingsworth said, just expressing the deep appreciation for the work that the Department of Neighborhoods does.

So thank you both for today's presentation.

Thank you, Dawn, for coming out.

I'm excited to continue to connect and bolster and support the work that you all are doing.

I know I was at a Squire Community Council meeting just, what's time?

It was a week or so ago, maybe last weekend.

And the Department of Neighborhoods folks were out giving a presentation talking about this program with that council and having a really great dialogue.

And so just being able to see that firsthand on in action talking about this program was really fantastic.

And so I want to just name that and commend you all for that.

And building off of Council Member Solomon's question around how much money is in the pot, I'm always curious how much is being requested and how that maps to how much is available.

So the request, at least how much is being requested, is going to vary from cycle to cycle.

But typically, we are able to move most of the dollars out.

I know that during COVID, we had a couple of down periods in which there was less community work happening.

But no, I think that our 2.1, we receive at least, I think, $2 million-plus worth of applications for the CPF, the Community Partnership Fund.

And then small smarts, I think we get upwards of $150,000, $200,000 a year.

So we receive a lot of requests for the dollars.

At one point, we used to have three rounds.

So that kind of cycled a little bit differently in the sense we would have a winter round, a summer round, and a kind of fall round.

But now we have two.

But we've built the two in a way that we feel like it can cover the whole year.

So now there's a lot of requests for dollars, and people are asking us for the total of our budget, which is roughly a million dollars of CPF funds per round.

Does that answer the question?

Yeah, I'm just trying to get a sense of demand for the program, as I imagine.

Again, the amazing things are brought to fruition for this program, so just trying to get a sense of how much.

It sounds like the demand is kind of meeting what's available, approximately.

Some it's both hit or miss like there's most of the time I think our demand we have more demand then I feel like we have awards to give at least in our community partnership fund dollars But sometimes in small sparks we're still trying to bring that up because there was a period during COVID when we paused it and that's the piece that we're trying to shore back up so Occasionally we're able to pull the dollars from small sparks to community partnership fund But we're getting to a point now where we're not gonna have that ability to do that So we're getting to the point where we're going to be pulling all the dollars from both rounds, or excuse me, both funds.

Awesome.

Thank you for walking me through that.

And my final question is, how can council offices best support and amplify your work?

I think there's a couple of ways.

First is pushing the neighborhood matching fund out to community.

I think that when people hear it from their council members, they react to it a little bit differently.

Sometimes it becomes more real, right?

Like in a way than when we send it out and we don't have connection with with the individuals who are receiving it.

So I think amplifying the message is helpful.

And then I think another thing is really highlighting the projects that you see in your districts, because we'll send out, you know, awards and they will have projects in your district and really amplifying those in community shows what can happen with the grant.

It doesn't just say, hey, here's a grant that's available.

It's like this grant actually did this for this particular organization in your community.

So I think both of those ways are good for amplifying the neighborhood matching funds.

Sam, I don't know if you have others.

And I think also just helping amplify the new community review team and how people can get involved that way and helping determine what goes on throughout the city and what gets funded.

Cause as Daniel said, that's one of our tenants as a department is really investing in community driven solutions and making them part of the process and actually letting them take the lead many times.

And then I think also just helping people understand and help them help us remove the barriers to understanding Neighborhood Matching Fund.

Because it is a more complicated grant than some other grants.

It requires a lot more organization and community building work that's built into the work itself.

So anything you can do to help people understand how it functions and to not be afraid of the different asks that are required.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rank.

I accidentally got kicked off.

Just one more question.

Council Member Salomon.

Thank you.

Sorry for jumping back in again, but I remember in years past, groups could apply for a Sparks funding to support their night out against crime event.

And that would be something that the PD would advertise on their night out registration page.

Is that still doable?

It is still doable, yes, for that partnership between PD and Neighborhood Matching Fund for Night Out support.

Yes, we would love to do that, actually, and partner on that effort.

I think, again, during the period of time in COVID, that we didn't do as much of that promotion, but any connection piece, because in the past, we've done it with Neighbor Day, we've done it with Spring Clean, we've done it with Night Out.

And I think it's a great way for a community to enhance that event.

So if SPD is willing to continue that partnership, we'd be willing to re-engage and cross-promote the program and make sure that as they're advertising night out, they're also advertising an ability to enhance that event through the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

I can bring that to my former colleagues to see if they'd be willing to make that happen.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Salomon.

Any other questions colleagues right then I will close it out by just thinking Department of Neighborhoods for being here again, you know, I felt Really strongly like I said earlier that we have programs at the city We need to make sure we're reviewing programs to make sure they're having intended outcomes here is a program that I took a look at it is very much having the intended outcomes it is really a great program it's one I've known about for some time now and one that really shows its value across the city and you know very grateful that the program exists and for all your work and all of your work as part of the program so I can't say enough about neighborhood matching funds and for anyone watching if you have a project in your neighborhood that you'd like to see come to fruition, this is a really great way to make that happen.

And you can go to the Department of Neighborhoods website and there's a whole page dedicated to all things about neighborhood matching funds.

And as council member Collingsworth, you said earlier, the team is always available at Don to help our community navigate all parts of the city.

not just neighborhood matching fund, but any help that folks need in community, they can call Department of Neighborhoods and you have a great team who really wants to engage with residents and help them navigate city government.

So thank you for that.

Thank you, colleagues.

If there are new other items of business to come before this committee.

None, all right.

Okay, seeing no further questions or comments or items of business, this concludes the February 13th, 2025 meeting of the Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee.

Our next committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday, February 27th, 2025 at 9.30 a.m.

If there's no further business, this meeting will adjourn.

Hearing no further business, it's 10.31 a.m.

and this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues.