This is the update the CDBG committee got on the day center last night. This update is from the city’s point of view, perhaps a bit different than you hear from Lynn Green or Joe Parisi.
Jim O’Keefe, the director of Community Development for the City says there are a few things the committee should be aware of. The county daytime resource center, a facility intended to provide services and a venue for those services in the daytime for those people. The county, for three years has been attempting to locate a facility. Last summer they purchased the old Messner’s property on E. Washington and I think everyone thought we were moving in the direction of finally getting a resource center open, but that process has gotten wobbly for other reasons. Number one, tho the county now owns the property, its use as a resource center requires a conditional use permit request from the city and there are a number of things that city staff/plan commission will need to consider and approve such a request. Most of that is about management of that facility and what happens within it and who operates it and how, so that is very much an open question about how that plays out. Very much related to that is the county’s search for an operator of the facility has run into a road block. They issued an RFP, they got a single response and I believe they have formally declined that response. In part because it called for a budget considerably above what the county had anticipated to be available to support it. To the tune of 25 – 30%. They proposed $450,000, the county has said, though it is a side issue, where the money comes from that they believe they have, he has heard that described as $300,000 – 360,000, in any event, not enough to support the proposal in response to the RFP. And that . . .nevermind.
Alder Maurice Cheeks says that that $300,000 is unclear where that money comes from.
O’Keefe says that is a perfect segway to the third point, and issue that needs to be resolved is the scope of services that is going to be provided there, and the budget for those services. This thing was launched in manyways in 2013, three years ago, there was a report by county staff that described a whole host of potential support services to be available, but as is often the case when a project like this plays out over a long period of time, think neighborhood center study, everyone’s hopes and dreams about what could possibly happen at the facility accrued to that project and personally he thinks there is a disconnect between what alot of people are thinking (policy makers and decision makers) about what can be done at that facility and what the real ability to deliver on those services is.
5 words. COMPREHENSIVE. PERMANENT. DAY. RESOURCE. CENTER. See the first word. If people still have to run all over town, without bus passes, to get services, we haven’t solved the problem. If there is no storage, and not enough laundry facilities, and it doesn’t serve food . . . its only serving half of one of the three basic needs (food, shelter, clothing)
There is some conversation going on, he is hopeful it will turn into a full fledge discussion, hopefully with some public participation, transparency, to reset expectations about the scope of services and try to get a better handle on a realistic budget on those service and then to get a better handle on where that money is going to come from.
Giggle, he said “transparency”.
He thinks part of that conversation is going to have to include who is going to operate it and how the county is going to find an operator to make it successful. There are a lot of internal discussion about how to proceed with this and we, the city, certainly would hope and expect to be part of that discussion as it plays out. That is his perspective of the current situation. The Tenney Lapham Neighborhood is very much engaged in discussions with the county and there is a good deal of opposition to it. A good deal of confusion or hope and questions about things I talked about, will there be an adequate budget, not just in the first year but on-going. Is there clarity on the scope of services to be provided. What kind of management plan will be in place to protect against impacts on adjacent residents and property. Those are all linked. He says there is a sense by many that this is humming along, and its moving toward opening. He thinks it is clear that there will not be a center open in 2016, not in the fall the way we prepared our budget. Probably not at all, so we might find ourselves for a while longer trying to cobble together the best level of services we can in this population. Not happy news, but if we’re going to do it, do it right and that means revisiting some of these issues that have been glossed over in the last couple years.
Ricky Hunt says it sounds like a failure to plan adequately.
O’Keefe says that “it is what it is.”
Alder Matt Phair asks if it is a chicken and an egg thing as far as what kind of services. You get the operator who tells you their expertise and what kind of services they can provide, but at the same time, what kind of services do you want.
O’Keefe says he thinks the county would very much like an operator to be on board to be a part of that conversation, about the range of services, the configuration of the facility to accommodate those services. I think that was their intent when they released an RFP, that they would find an operator to work with to prepare a plan for the city, the conditional use permit request. This has become a difficult thing in this community to find an organization that has both the ability and the desire to take this on.
Colin Bowden asks if it is possible that the amount of resources that is being offered may not be enough with the services that we are asking for, we are asking for a lot of necessary things.
O’Keefe says it is another chicken and egg, do you set the budget first, or do you just have an operating plan first. There is a lot of ambiguity and cross signals, failure to communicate well between the primary players that are commonly perceived to be the funders. That being the city, county and United Way. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the county assign at least $100,000 financial contribution to the city, but there hasn’t ever been a commitment made, that question has not been put to the council and the mayor, but what the council has done, so I kind of understand where that comes from, the council in two consecutive put in $50,000 in anticipation of it opening mid year, but the question of $100,000 has never been put to the council and mayor. His sense is that those numbers are disconnected from any real budget. What does $300,000 provide. There needs to be work done to decide what are the essential services, what will they cost and who will pay for them. The county has long believe or hoped that an operator would bring resources with them. The suggestion that whatever money the city, county and united way would provide would not necessarily be the full amount of resources to support a center, but those are fundamental questions that need to be addressed and there has been a lot of talk around them and we need to sit down and take them head on. Start with the 2013 plan and discuss what has changed if anything and how realistic is that as an operating plan.
Dan O’Callaghan, the chair of the committee says that this would be comical if the consequences of failure were not so dire. It’s been 4 years really, so it leads him to ask, with due respect and a great deal of seriousness, but does the county have the capacity necessary to develop this piece of real estate and provide this service. That is a serious, sincere questions.
O’Keefe says this is a task that the county doesn’t ordinarily take on, the other thing that is true is that the longer we have gone without completing this process, without completing the center, the more pressure has come to bear on especially county officials and sometimes that brings with it or causes decisions to be made or courses of action to be taken that maybe are different than what would happen if there was . . . I think they are under severe pressure to make something happen.
O’Callaghan says he can understand that they are under pressure to make something happen, but that is their job. It has been a long time. All of World War II was fought in the same amount of time.
O’Keefe says that they struggled to find property, they thought on at least one occasion that they had solved that problem, to be turned away by the Town of Madison. The city tried to assist, the property that they ultimately selected and purchased was not a property that we recommended, but we gained an appreciation for the problem to find a property that was affordable and for which a use like this would be appropriate and acceptable use, but this is not something that they typically undertake.
O’Callaghan says, so there is no operator, and therefore no program, and therefore no way to put together an application to the regulatory authority to develop the center. There is no timeline for any of that to happen, all of which takes a great deal of time in and of itself. And then, once all that work happens, there would be construction of the facility. O’Keefe says “renovation”.
Ricky Hunt asks how long it has been sitting vacant?
O’Keefe says it has been a while. He thinks there is an internal struggle within county government between those who want to move forward with a conditional use permit without an operator and those who think it makes more sense to procure an operator prior to the request. The input he has heard form planning staff is that the management plan for the facility would be 70% of what will turn that decision and we need to know what they will be doing there, how they are going to do it and how it will work.
Someone asks who is the operator who responded to the RFP?
Several people say Stepping Stones.
Ben Van Pelt asks if they came back with what they could offer for the budget that the county has set forward.
O’Keefe says the city was not involved in writing the RFP, we were not involved in doing the responses to it and we were not involved in the decisions behind that proposal. Despite what you might have seen or heard.
Ahem. That may have been the nicest, most polite way to call Lynn Green a liar I have ever heard. Giggle.
Alder Matt Phair says it is sad its a mess and this might be an oversimplification but, he has said this and he’s tired of saying this but, if there were better coordination at the top, all the way at the top, including the executives, it would go a long way in this effort. It’s not the only reason or excuse for this not working. If we are going to jointly fund this, what about a joint RFP, basically saying here is what we want, get everyone in the room and lets figure it out as a community. The community yelling at us, and they should be yelling at us to get this done. As far as he can tell, that hasn’t happened. We have county board and council members and executives involved and everyone having its part and no real vision that is unified, in his opinion that has been the problem. Its frustrating because as an alder he doesn’t know what his role has been in this, except to just say that over and over againa nd urge people to come together, maybe our committee could do something to make that happen.
O’Callaghan asks if they have a role to play, is there a role to play on the part of the city? Is there a greater role we can play to bridge that.
Matt Phair says I think so, because we need to be involved in the planning process.
O’Callaghan says he doesn’t want to sit back and point fingers and say gosh, can’t these guys get it together, its important, is there something we can do aside from that.
Samba Baldeh says he agrees that the Mayor and County Executive had to sit and talk about things and everybody is talking about their issues and working things out. If they operate the together, this belong to the people are live in the city and county, so whatever differences they have they should put that aside and work out their problems. As far as this committee, we have a role to play, we should say this is what happened, we need to work with it, we have a role to play in it.
Phair says it would be the Health and Human Needs Committee that would deal with it. Others say Homeless Issues Committee. Isn’t there a city-county committee. Lots of people talking all at once throwing ideas out.
O’Keefe says the other thing that is worth noting is that the model of a publicly owned and financed facility like this is somewhat unique. Where there are resource centers that serve this population they are driven by private or non-profit entities, churches in many cases. So its a new thing. One of the early decisions was it was going to be a county owned facility. He has sensed no willingness on the part of city officials to change that, so he has sensed a bit of an arms length.
Phair says he doesn’t know how the decision was made.
O’Keefe says he doesn’t know either.
Phair says there has never been a comprehensive discussion about this, if this is going to be a unique model, maybe we should have done some work in the beginning, what model are we talking about.
O’Keefe says this had its roots in several efforts, mainly county supported, along E Washington Ave, locations set up for one year to provide rudimentary shelter and services that people can power together.
O’Callaghan says its hard to know its been so long.
O’Keefe says that this is where it started. The county did to the work Phair suggested. They looked around the country, gathered information about them and discussed and described the range of services they wanted and released a report. From early on the county has felt some obligation to take the lead on this and the city has been ok with that.
Ricky Hunt asks if we need to look at other models as opposed to reaching out, this is our problem, lets get together.
O’Keefe says its a way to find out best practices so we are not re-inventing the wheel. To see if someone has a good model, its kind of how we got started on our Affordable Housing Initiative, but looking around and talking to other communities. Sometimes its helpful.
O’Callaghan asks if O’Keefe has any recommendations.
O’Keefe says “I don’t” this is really more of a point of information. This is an issue that is front and center, its related to issues you all have and since its been percolating it seemed relevant to share with you what I know about what is happening.
O’Callaghan says that we should have some more dialog on it because something has to be done to change the dynamic.
Cheeks says that it is so hard to see that we have a role in changing that dynamic. O’Callaghan says, we the committee? Cheeks says yes, O’Callaghan says he didn’t say that.
Cheeks says that part of the structural failing of this effort is that so much of the initiative is discussed in these committees, this is an initiative put forward by part time elected officials that had a good idea and no capacity to execute on it. And no political will to get it done in a timely fashion, or no capacity. For as much as there is strong pressure and our community is outcrying, its not. It’s not. We keep not doing this over and over and the community doesn’t do it. For as much as the city and county – organizationally we do good
work and there are multitudes of things that he could point to of good work, but this is such a clear example of the inability to take something that seems like a good idea and make it real. We are good at passing resolutions that have our ambition intention or our desires or hopes about the world, but this is a glaring example of when the rubber hits the road, do we actually have the structural capacity, the political will do get this thing done? I think there are several examples of other things like this, where “are we going to break ground on this” – maybe next year, maybe next year. The bus barn, the police station, Monroe St., there are just so many things that when it comes to getting a thing done, our community is really slow and for some reason that is politically acceptable, we have elected officials that don’t feel threatened by that. He doesn’t know why, the more the number of things like this of just true failure pile up, it really is disconcerting, its disconcerting to be a part of the sytem as it clearly fails over and over. I’m sorry, I’m ranting.
O’Callaghan says, ok. Let’s do this. Let’s not give up, anybody. But lets continue with the updates we have.
PREACH!