CRA Meeting - 5/12

Things got a little "testy" last night at the CRA meeting. It was pretty much business-as-usual for all the items on the agenda - if you have a question about anyone of them (agenda is in previous post) let me know and I can catch you up on them - either on here or through an e-mail. The item that created the most controversy was a grant application for Phil Spinelli and the Rum Shack.

The application was for money that is for facade improvements to commercial properties in the CRA district. It is based on a 50/50 match - with a maximum award being $20,000 of CRA money. If the grant is awarded, the applicant proceeds with the project and submits receipts for the completed work and is then (only then) reimbursed. This is a program that has been around for many years and has helped improve the appearance of buildings in the downtown area and along our major commercial corridor - Dixie Hwy. Mr. Spinelli's application was for paint and repair of the exterior of the building, new awnings, new front door, alley improvements etc. Refer to the previous post on the 5/12 CRA meeting - there is a link to the back-up information if you'd like to check it out.

The board asked the usual questions, looking for more detail regarding what was proposed, the bids, what can be done about flooding in the adjacent lot, etc. My question was, since more than half of the $43K project was painting related, what the CRA's record has been in approving projects that were primarily painting of buildings. The answer came back that there have been many over the years that were mostly painting. I also brought up that it would be a good idea to for to two funding cycles per budget year. That way we could rank various projects against one-another, rather than just be looking at one project and making a funding decision that way.

Time for public comment came up. Here I would encourage you to listen on line once the audio file is up so that you can hear it for yourself. Mrs. McNamara gets up and talks about how Mr. Spinelli has been on the Planning and Zoning Board for 15 years and insinuated that this was some sort of inside deal between the CRA and a member of the Planning Board. She also said that Lake Avenue is not a blighted area and money shouldn't be spent there. Mr. McNamara got up saying that this represented "gorging at the public trough", questioned the bids as being high base on his experience with painting and the grant shouldn't be approved.

Again, I urge you to go the audio file once it's posted since I was not taking verbatim notes and that would be the most accurate record of what actually was said. This became an issue later on between Ms. Materio and Mr. McNamara.

Then Commissioner Jennings, who was sitting in the back of the room and was in and out during the entire meeting, came up and said that there needs to be a "needs" test (she might have said "means") to these applications. That we are going to go through severe budget cuts and that we need to treat money carefully and make sure it's going to the most worthy projects. She didn't think this met that test and urged us to deny it and "change the process for this application" if we needed to.

I thought Ms. Materio - CRA board member - was going to leap off the dais after those comments and she expressed her outrage at the suggestion that somehow this was a backroom deal and that this is a volunteer board that devotes a lot of time to the review of these grants and to be accused of that is an insult. Again, I am paraphrasing here - please refer to the audio. Commissioner Jennings thought that she wasn't being treated with respect, from her seat in the back of the room. You really must hear the exchange for yourself.

After Ms. Materio finished, I said - calmly - that it would be unfair to change the rules for only this applicant and that the board had talked about going to a funding cycle approach that could consider projects' merits against the merits of other projects. Doing so would allow us to consider need and other factors.

Motion to approve the application was made by Mr. Grimm and seconded by Mr. Marcinkowski and the vote was unanimous.