This is 15 minutes.

There you go.

7 o'clock.

Good evening, everybody.

It is April 20th, 2026.

We are holding a meeting of the Human Affairs Committee at 7 p.m.

in the Aldermanic Chamber.

And duly noticed in two places, including the city's website, in accordance with the requirements of RSA 91A, colon 2, Roman numeral 2.

So let's start by taking a roll call.

All right.

Alderman Senate is here.

Alderman at large Morgan.

Alderman Woman at large, Oshana Kelly, Vice Chair.

I'm here.

And Alderman Lopez, Chair.

I'm here.

We have three in attendance also joining us this evening is uh Matt Sullivan, Community Development Director.

Mike Jungers Urban Programs Manager.

I also saw Director Liz Hannem, Economic Development Director, and Alderman Paula Johnson also with us.

Okay.

And Alderman Morgan had reached out and said there's an illness in the family and that she had to take care of her child.

So all right, so starting out.

We have public comment, including comments related to the development of the FY 2027 HUD annual action plan.

Members of the public, please feel free to approach.

Just identify yourself and the agency you're with, as well as your address, please.

Uh hello, I am Kristen Wilson.

I'm here on behalf of the Mary Sweeney home at 50 East Pearl Street in downtown Ashua.

We had filed a CDBG request, uh 2027 request, and I was unable to attend the uh early March meeting, so I wanted to take advantage of tonight.

So if anybody had any questions about our grant fund requests.

For anybody who is unaware of what the Mary Sweeney home is, we're uh residents for low-income senior ladies from the Nashua area.

Um we have 31 apartments, and all of our residents are between the ages of 65 and right now.

I have a lady about to turn 93.

Um so our request this year was for new windows.

Our building, part of our building is from 1975.

The other part, which was originally the convent for St.

Patrick's Church, that was dormitory style at the time.

They converted it into apartments.

Um, and then the other part of the building, which is on East Pearl, uh was built in I think 1984.

So the windows have not been replaced, so they're 40 plus years old.

Um the ladies have trouble lifting them in their apartments.

Um it's the same windows throughout the building, and that's what the funding would be used for.

Okay.

Um how have your other projects gone?

Um, we have several projects that we are still waiting to receive the funding to complete.

Uh we haven't gotten our funding from 2025 yet.

It was approved, but we're waiting for the actual money to complete the projects as well as last year's money.

And that was the automated ADA doors, if I remember right.

Uh last year was the actually several projects.

We're still waiting for the money for uh the handicapped doors for the uh front door and side door where the ladies come in with their groceries from the parking lot, as well as um the money to refurbish our kitchen, um the money to do run the Wi-Fi to the uh three floors above um to re-key the doors because the apartments are so old and they've uh throughout the years they've changed locks on some of them.

They're unable to say whether like one key opens several apartments, so we had asked for funding to re-key for safety issues.

Um the other thing was to replace uh 50-year-old uh air conditioner for our community room, the HVAC system.

So we have been approved for all those.

We passed the rate on and we're just been holding waiting.

Okay.

Um this is public comment, but if the committee members have any questions, I think there was an intention to present last meeting, but they didn't know that there was an invite.

Does anyone have any questions?

Alderman Johnson.

Thank you.

Um when you say that you're waiting for may I ask questions?

When you're saying you're waiting for the money from the last year.

You were approved how new on the on the we're waiting for um the 2020, I don't know if it's 2024 or 2025 funds.

That got held up because of the radon testing.

Okay.

Our radon testing came in last uh spring, early summer, May ish.

Um so we've just been waiting for that, as well as we were also approved for funds last year, which would have been the 2026 funds.

So there's two projects outstanding, and then this year you're applying for the window replacement.

Correct.

May I ask a question to you?

Sure.

Chabin?

I guess one of the things I'm concerned about that you're waiting on the money for is the ADA doors that uh Yes.

So I guess through the chair, can we find out when those are going to be uh put in?

Because that's under you know, ADA.

We don't need any, you know, the feds coming in and questioning anything because they're not doing it to make it ADA accessible.

Yep, I think when the departments come up, we can ask what the time frame is and what you know we can expect.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Anything further from other members of the committee?

All right, thank you for your time.

Laurie Ortolano, 41 Berkeley Street.

The integrity of CDBG process depends on clear, documented, consistently applied selection criteria.

And on transparency that allows the public to verify that those standards were met.

This evening I'd like to raise several questions.

I hope the committee will press urban programs to answer fully and on the record.

On the selection criteria, does the city have a formal written policy governing how CDBG applications are ranked and selected?

If so, when was it adopted?

Has it been amended, and where is it publicly accessible?

What is the objective scoring methodology used to evaluate applications?

It can the department demonstrate that it was applied consistently across all applications received in a cycle.

What internal controls exist to prevent discretionary subjective selection in the absence of a standardized publicized criteria?

On procurement and contractor vetting, can the department provide a complete list of contractors utilized under this program, including contract amounts, procurement methods, and award dates?

Have any contractors had past or present affiliation with city employees or officials?

And if so, how are those conflicts of interest identified and mitigated?

And can we get scoring sheets or written selection justifications to produce be produced on the awards that were were given out?

On environmental review, a topic discussed a few days ago.

Who specifically prepares the certified citywide tier one and tier two, which is site-specific environmental reviews, and on what dates were they completed relative to contract execution?

These questions matter because federal law prohibits the obligation or expenditure of CDBG funds before environmental clearance is obtained.

On closeout compliance, can the department confirm with specificity that the CDBG closeouts for fiscal year 24 and 25 have been completed and submitted to HUD, including the submission dates.

The city website under community development does not have those years of closeout, the last close out with 2023.

The committee should understand clearly that failure to complete required closeouts can expose the city to audit findings, repayment obligations, and future funding risks.

I raise these questions not to be obstructive, but because the public has a right to know that federal dollars allocated in this room are being managed in full compliance with the federal requirements.

I'm going to close with a concrete example.

The Mary Sweeney home we just heard about is listed on the funding spreadsheet that you have before you with a request for a hundred thousand dollars for window replacements.

It was stated that we could click on the FYCDBG application portal to review their application and supporting documents.

But the only application not present in that list is the Mary Sweeney home application.

It's missing.

The committee is being asked to allocate a hundred thousand dollars to an applicate, an applicant whose application is not publicly accessible on the portal.

And this is precisely the kind of transparency gap that these questions were designed to address.

My time is up.

I asked the committee to require a complete response and look at and consider these things when you're voting on these projects.

Thank you.

Any further public comment?

All right.

Seeing none.

We do.

Uh CDBG update and request for the committee to provide recommended awards to FY2027 CDBG grant applicants.

All right.

So community development director Matt Sullivan and Urban Programs Manager Mike Youngers.

Good evening, Mr.

Chair Matt Sullivan, Community Development Director for the City of Nashua.

I just wanted to offer a commentary on one application not referenced so far this evening, but you may recall at the last meeting of the Human Affairs Committee, one of the presentations was on the Ledge Street Playground project.

And I think the group had a very good discussion.

And therefore access during the day would be limited to school children.

We reviewed CDBG guidelines and specifically Mike Jungers did this and consulted with me.

And we do not feel based on the uh lack of uh the restriction related to public usage during the day, we do not feel that the project would be eligible at this time for CDBG funding.

And again, uh that's because despite very good reasoning uh for you know restricting access to school children only, unfortunately our understanding of the requirements at a very general level is that the facility would need to be open to the public during regular or normal uh use hours.

And therefore, we've spoken to the school district and we'd like to request that the $50,000 relative to the Ledge Street playground be removed from the list of contemplated projects of CNA.

And just wanted to offer that before you get into your scoring process.

Is there a plan for that playground which would prohibit the public from using it?

Because as you know right now, they do use it.

Yeah, Mr.

Chair, the my understanding is that the school during the again during the school day, they want only children to be able to access the playground at certain times.

So if a member of the public were to walk up and say, I want to I want to come into the playground and there were school children using it, the school district would prefer to restrict access to the general public when there are school children out there.

Um I don't think it's intended to be exclusionary in any way, shape or form, but I think it's more just about uh the safety and security of the kids that are out there at any given time.

So I've I think it's in their best interest to maybe forego this $50,000 right now and allow for a more formal conversation to take place about how to move the project forward using the $70,000 that's been contemplated by the Board of Alderman, obviously, and then maybe some other funding sources that might come along the way.

Okay.

I think committee members know that the HUD guidelines, the CDBT fundings do have restrictions on them.

Um and this is essentially the precedent that we wouldn't be expecting any applications from the school district for any playgrounds.

Because they would have the same criteria?

That's my understanding, yes.

I mean, if there if there are going to be you know, if if this conflict exists between the school usage and the general public, then yes, I think the same conflict would exist for any of the playgrounds.

Okay.

Um was there any coordination or communication with the PTO organization?

Uh to my knowledge, there was no coordination with the PTO before the site the uh tonight's meeting.

We just came to this uh conclusion today, Mr.

Chair.

Uh but we're certain we're certainly going to reach back out to them uh because of their level of engagement and passion for the project.

That's not to say we're not going to try to find another way to move this forward uh through DPW or some other city department.

Uh but unfortunately I think CDBG just may not be the right fit.

Uh but certainly I know that there's a new set of project advocates on the city side that would like to move this forward, including myself and others in in community development as well.

I think the project is is fairly self-evident in its need and its value.

Um I would ask that community development communicate things like this in a more timely manner in the future so that we're not surprised.

And particularly if there are members of the public that were very much coming tonight expecting this to be before us, that you don't set us up for that.

Yeah, understood.

And I I take full responsibility for that.

This uh this interpretation was something that came to us very late when we were thinking about the project and this and this evening's meeting.

Uh so that that communication issue was on me solely, Mr.

Chairman, uh, I take responsibility for it.

Okay.

Well, I think we have some questions based on the public comment um that were made, but before we go to that, do any committee members want to comment on the playground update.

Okay.

So the um the references that were made earlier about Mary Sweeney's projects not being done and then also not being available on the website.

Sure.

Are those two connected?

Do you want to give us an overview of what your officer urban programs is experiencing?

Sure.

So I think um as the representative said, we were delayed for a year or thereabouts due to the uh nebulous requirements from POD related to radon testing.

And you you're all aware of this, obviously.

I think I we came at least once to talk to you about this.

We had to make some amendments to our action plan, in fact, to deal with those criteria.

Um additionally, so that that was a significant delay.

Additionally, you may recall that we received our allocation extremely late in this most recent year, uh, resulting in even more significant delays to the process of rolling through the action plan.

And then without getting into significant detail, um, we had laid out a process internally with our building safety department and based on some um some changes within the building safety department.

Ultimately, the project was delayed more.

Uh but obviously Mary Sweeney Home is a is a very strong partner of ours.

Uh it sounds like it's going to be a night of me taking responsibility for delays, and that's absolutely fine.

Uh, but we are very, you know, very interested in pursuing the project and moving it forward.

Um it's no reflection on their ability to complete or perform the projects that they've been awarded funding for.

Uh we're happy to try and make those work moving forward, and I think uh one commitment we can make is we can make it a top priority to ensure those projects are implemented after tonight's meeting.

I will tell you that I spoke to uh folks in the department today.

Uh they were aware that Mary Sweeney home may come up this evening, and I think there's an acknowledgement that the project needs to be moved forward sooner rather than later.

Uh but again, you know, I take responsibility for not doing that myself.

Oh, in the interest of addressing the concerns about liabilities, are there liabilities at the city's, I guess, administrative hurdles uh slowing the introduction of ADA compliance, and then additionally are there any does this affect Mary Sweeney?

Are we driving their contract rates up, increasing their costs, that kind of stuff?

Yeah, those are I think I see two questions there, make sure I hit these.

But um one relative to the relationship between the timing of funding and ADA and the risk to Mary Sweeney home.

Um I suppose it's conceivable that if an ADA complaint were filed, that there could be an attribution of that ADA complaint to the City of Nashua.

I have to say I don't think that would be a fair attribution, if I'm being quite honest.

Um again, we accept responsibility for the funding being delayed, uh, but I don't believe that we're directly liable in any way for ADA compliance issues that exist at the Mary Sweeney home.

That's not in any way.

It's possible.

And that's in no way pointing you know any responsibility to Mary Sweeney home in any way, shape, or form.

It's simply saying that I don't believe we're directly liable for ADA issues that exist on their on their property.

That's that's my only comment.

But certainly, as time goes on and the project doesn't get done and ADA issues persist.

Obviously, that does open up liability for the Mary Sweeney home.

So it would be unfair of me to say anything other than that.

Um the second question relative to uh I think general liabilities of the city, Mr.

Chair, is that what you're asking about?

Yeah, like I said, I think I poorly worded that by asking you uh hypothetical, but um it seems clear that we understand we need to move this project forward.

Um but in terms of cost overruns or that kind of stuff.

This is well outside our ordinary time frame.

Is that fair to say?

Um it's it's fair to say in some regards.

I mean, we've had we've been years behind in other projects for the entire time that I've been here and before, to be quite honest with you.

And I'm not saying that's right, but that is not unusual.

Um I'm also on the CDFA advisory committee board for CDFA in Concord, where we work with the same type of funding, and we're often dealing with funding that is years behind.

Uh and there are a variety of reasons why that happens, and a lot of it has to do with the relationship between the federal government and the recipient organization, in this case the city of Nashua, or in Concord's case, CDFA.

That's not that's not unusual.

Um what I can say though is that based on the radon changes, we did have a sort of um we had several projects stopped, halted immediately at the same time.

That is a bit unusual for us.

And so I think we have a more significant backlog in some ways, but what I can tell you that is while we had that backlog, we were working working very diligently to improve our processes, our digitization, something we've been working very hard on, and the manager has as well.

Um so we we stayed busy throughout that time.

And I know there, you know, there are several several items mentioned tonight relative to compliance, tier one reviews, environmental reviews.

Um, you know, Ms.

Lano has made several requests of my division uh for 91A's.

We're working on filling those to provide her records so that she can conduct her own assessment of whether or not she believes we're compliant.

We talk regularly to HUD about whether or not we are compliant with our programs.

I am going to completely accept responsibility for documentation that she's referenced, perhaps not being posted on the website.

Again, that is on me, no one else.

But the idea that in some way we are not compliant with our environmental review process or something of that nature, uh, I'm not aware of that compliance issue.

Um, and I'd welcome knowing more more about it.

Uh I will say that as folks know, our department, the urban programs department has had significant staff turnover the last three three to four years.

I think we've done an incredible job of keeping the the department's work going in light of those changes and in light of a changing landscape at the federal level.

We've worked very closely with this committee to prioritize and score and award funding to CDBG applicants.

You all have been great partners in doing that.

It has not been seamless, and I'm the first one to acknowledge that.

Uh but I'm really proud of the work that we've done.

Uh and I do think, you know, specifically to the member of the public, there are some very good questions in there about how this committee ranks and scores projects.

I think that's something that should be discussed tonight because you all know that you participate every year in a scoring exercise right here at this committee about what meets the community objectives.

And you know that we use the consolidated plan to do that and the action plan to do that to determine what the community priorities are.

But I think what the member of the public raises, that's a really good issue, frankly, is the fact that we don't always come back in these sessions directly to those priorities and make sure that our our selections align.

But I think you do a great job of doing that regardless of maybe a deliberate effort to have that conversation.

So I I could go on for a long time tonight, Mr.

Chair, but um you know I obviously am sensitive to the criticism of the department uh and I accept a lot of responsibility for it.

And I I don't want to I don't want to take us astray.

Well, I'm gonna let other committee members open on this, I guess, but I would also point out that there isn't an effective maybe indexing mechanism other than looking at the consolidated plan and looking at the the priorities that we do do in these meetings.

And without being able to point to this meeting, this meeting and this meeting other ones where we talk about this, you have to watch all of them or be regularly attentive.

So it may be something we could look at in the future is as how to label more effectively the different discourses we have on this.

I couldn't agree more because you know, truly when you're sitting in the public and you hear the comment, of course, my my initial reaction is I want to be defensive and say, of course we have a conversation about how we score projects.

The reality is there's a there's a good point there, and that is that when we get done with the process or leading up to it, Alderman Lopez, to your point, we don't necessarily have a nice index, as you said, as to how we reached the decision that we did.

We do all the work.

That have absolutely happens, but we could be maybe doing a little bit better with how we talk publicly about how we got to the project awards that we do.

Especially where federal projects and guidelines like CDBG are extremely complicated.

So the public has trouble navigating that.

Yes.

Um something to share.

Okay.

All right.

Do we want to move to the um unfinished business?

The We have a communication exempt, do we?

Yes, we do.

Oh, I'm sorry, we have a communications of that.

Uh uh Director Sullivan says you're gonna be here for most of this.

Do you want to have a seat or um Mr.

Chair, may I make an unusual request?

I'd be surprised if you didn't.

Um would it be would you be willing to entertain taking up the pieces of legislation this evening before the scoring exercise for transit and the fire department?

That does not seem unusual.

It is our unofficial custom to make sure city staff aren't sitting here getting paid for uh no I mean spending their evenings with us longer than they have to.

I just know that the fire group behind me would be upset with me if I didn't say something.

So why don't we accept the communication, but then we'll move straight to the uh the legislation part too of the committee's uh amenable?

Okay.

Uh communication has been received from Mike Younger's urban programs manager regarding fiscal year 2027 CDBG slash home grants and sub awards.

All right, without objection, we will accept and place on file this communication.

Umfinished business.

There is none.

New business resolutions.

Uh in front of us we have R26018.

Relative to the acceptance of an additional 377,874 dollars from the State of New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services into Transit Grant Activity, Federal Transit Authority FTA operating grant.

And at this time I'd like to make a motion to recommend final passage.

All right.

Do we have National Transit here to present?

Uh good evening, Mr.

Chair Matt Sullivan, community development director.

We meet again.

Yes, we do.

Um selfishly, I just wanted to get back up here again.

That's really why I wanted to move things along.

Uh I'm just kidding, of course.

But uh here relative to R26018, uh, this is a grant that we accept from uh New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services every two years uh for operating services.

This is actually the grant that allows us to do free passes for seniors over 60 years old, uh a service that we obviously offer and continue to offer after the fare increases that were recently approved by the board.

Uh the amount of this request is 377,874.

And again, that will last us from um July 1 all the way through June 30 of 2028.

Uh so we're really excited to keep this program going.

It's really wonderful for senior citizens in the the city of Nashua.

Um I don't I don't think you can find someone who doesn't love this program and the access that it provides.

Uh and again, we're really just happy that this can continue in light of the fair changes that we had to move forward.

Uh happy to answer any questions that you might have, other than the question that I thought I might get, and that is how many of these rides do we give per year?

I was thinking as I was sitting that someone might ask that, and I do not know that answer.

Uh so I can sort of the number has changed because of the fare increases.

Did we reduce the number or is it this amount?

I I don't I don't know, to be honest, Alderman Lopez.

I I just thought the Alderwoman Johnson may ask this question, and I don't I don't know how many folks uh take this kind of of ride.

Um we also just recently went through an audit of this program with DHHS.

Um they were really pleased with the result.

The only comment that they had is they they wish we had sort of a barcoding system that made senior IDs a little easier to scan.

Uh so that's something that we're we're talking about internally and trying to find a way to do that.

Well, the senior ride program is that's separate from paratransit, though, right?

That's correct, yes.

Okay.

That's correct.

Um any questions from the committee.

And this uh uh Mr.

Chair, sorry if I may.

Uh this was contemplated as being accepted in the fiscal year 26 budget as well.

So no need for an appropriation, just acceptance of the grant.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Without objection, we will recommend final passage.

We had a vote.

We have to vote.

Vote.

Yeah.

We will have a vote because it would be silly to have it without objection.

Um all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Okay.

Motion carries.

Next we have R26024 relative to the acceptance of 41,600 from the State of New Hampshire Department of Safety, Homeland Security, and Emergency Management.

It's a fire grant activity, hazmat planning and training FY2026 grant.

I will make a motion to recommend final passage.

All right.

You'd like to present.

Good evening, Steve Buxton, Fire Chief.

Um, this grant will be utilized for some long-term planning for our hazardous materials team.

Uh as you may be aware, we provide with a host community for uh 19 uh communities within the Sohegan Valley.

We provide hazmat coverage for them.

Uh so this grant will allow us to do some long-range planning.

Uh it'll also provide funding for members to attend the uh International Association of Fly Chiefs Hazmat Conference.

It's a conference we go to annually.

Uh it's where we find new technologies and uh we'll do our due diligence in uh interviewing potential vendors to help us with that plan.

Right, and like the interviewing potential vendors part.

Um, does anybody have any questions?

Is there a match to this grant?

Sounds like it's one we've done pretty regularly.

It's very familiar to it.

Can you answer that for you?

Um there is a match, but um it's it'll be used through a Jazar payroll line.

Okay.

And it's already contemplated in the existing year, or is it this an upcoming one?

It's in our existing year.

Okay.

Any further for questions by committee members?

All right.

All in favor of recommending final passage, say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Next.

Next is R 26025, relative to the acceptance of $678,300 from the State of New Hampshire Department of Transportation, State Fiscal Year 2025, and 425,000 from the State of New Hampshire Department of Transportation State Fiscal Year 2026 into transit grant activity transit capital projects.

I'll make a motion to recommend final passage.

Uh sir, could you identify yourself with the record?

Uh yes.

My name is Tom Lopez.

No, it's not now.

Um good evening, Matt Sullivan, community development director uh for for R26025.

Uh this is uh this is a capital grant from the state of New Hampshire for for uh purchase of in fact five medium-duty paratransit buses.

We're receiving two separate grants, one for six hundred and seventy-eight thousand three hundred dollars um from state fiscal year twenty twenty-five and four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars from state fiscal year twenty twenty-six.

So the way that this works is we apply to the state on a yearly basis for these monies.

They have capital money for equipment upgrades, and it's a competitive process, and sometimes we get lucky.

We actually get lucky fairly often, uh, and we get we receive funding.

Um in this case, over a million dollars, in fact, to replace these five uh vans that we provide paratransit services and some fixed route services with as well.

Um we did expect this to some extent within the fiscal twenty-six budget, but I just want to make everyone aware that uh we're actually sort of repurposing an appropriation that we anticipated in the in the grants section of the fiscal twenty-six budget.

So there's no appropriation here, but we're repurposing another grant that we thought we were gonna get but didn't ultimately get.

So just a note there for the future.

Uh and then finally, I just wanted to mention that the way that these work is um we receive the funding from the state, and then we ultimately uh match using our surf.

Uh so when we're talking about surf allocation and the operating budget uh or even past surf allocations, we actually get our match percentage from the capital equipment reserve fund, and our our vans and our buses are in there for replacement, so we're getting funding uh to ultimately replace these.

Uh happy to answer questions that you might have.

We don't know today what fuel mix these are going to have, and I know that might be a question that comes up.

But um I've said I think consistently that uh while it may seem to a look great to electrify, uh we try to have a diversity of fuel options over at NTS because we have literally had issues where a fueling source goes down and we need to have other options available to us.

And so I think you're gonna see a mix of um maybe one electric here, two unleaded, maybe two CNGs.

We haven't figured out how exactly we're gonna do that yet, but we'll make sure to let the finance committee know when we're up for replacement.

Probably explains how that one diesel truck keeps coming up every time something's down.

Um how many do we have uh for paratransit right now?

That's a great question.

Expanding capacity or replacing aging fleet.

Uh so this is not an expansion, but um I can get back to you on your question.

Usually I have that answer, but it's escaping me right now.

But this is just replacing existing.

This is no there's no new here.

Uh frankly, the way we're pretty constrained at NTS, not to say that we're more so than other departments, but we can only replace once they get to a certain useful life or age or mileage, and we're not allowed really, we're not really allowed to get new funding to expand our fleet.

Uh it's much more challenging to do that.

It's much easier to get replacement monies, and that's how we've typically pursued this.

Uh so hopefully that answers your question.

Is that what the grant that is being replaced would have been for?

Yes.

Any questions from the committee?

Uh other than Johnson, sorry.

Thank you very much.

Question to the chair.

Do you know about how many miles you put on them every year?

I could get that for you, Alderman Johnson.

Yeah.

I'd appreciate it.

I may even be able to get that tonight, but let it just it'll take me a minute.

Um, but I can get you an answer on that.

I can get you an answer on that.

You know, how many miles and um and how often do you turn them over again?

But the age, the mileage.

Yep, seven to ten years generally.

Seven to ten years.

And and one of the I mean, maybe this is intuitive, maybe it's not, but one of the things that's interesting is as they get more aged, we use them less, right?

We keep them as backups.

We keep them as spares, uh, we deploy them when absolutely needed.

Sometimes they're used for uh for driver changeouts, that kind of thing.

Um our newest fleet are running all the time, and then we sort of we sort of age them out, if you will, and they slowly get retired.

Uh so the mileage on the ones that are being replaced is would be lower.

Um, but what I can get you is a general sense of how much mileage do we put on a bus every year?

And I can I can get that for you.

That's not a problem.

Can I ask another question?

Thank you.

And these vans, they go Nashua, Hudson, are they around the area?

So if anybody needs another community, and these are are these the ADA vans mostly?

They they are all ADA accessible.

Um they provide a variety of different services.

They provide service to Merrimack to Hudson within Nashua, and then for Sohegan Valley Transit Collaborative as well.

It's another contracted service of ours.

Um and then ADA paratransit in the region as well.

So they honestly, Alderman Johnson, on any given day, they might be doing something completely different.

Uh but those are kind of the that's the full scope of services that they do.

Uh they are frankly our most versatile piece of equipment.

More than our more than our buses, to be honest.

So we use them a lot.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Um all in favor of recommending final passage, uh, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion carry.

No favor.

Thank you.

That concludes our good business.

All right, our new business is concluded.

We had the ranking.

Uh is that the community.

Do you guys want to come up and join us first?

Um I think now you're on the um the discussion presentation.

Oh, gotcha.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

You too, sir.

Oh, you guys are doing me a huge favor by being over there.

No, I can just look in that direction.

All right.

Uh, do you want to present?

I think Matt's gonna put a screen up, right?

Yes.

Oh, I'm sorry, you guys are working on tech support?

Yeah.

In the meantime, Mr.

Chair, if I can introduce a few a few issues here, a few comments, actually.

Uh Mike Jungers Urban Programs Manager.

I apologize for the rather odd sequencing of events this year related to these allocations.

I I recognize that in past years we have introduced legislation.

It's been referred to the committee, and then we've gone through this process.

For several reasons, probably both strong and weak.

That's not how we wound up where we are today.

And as soon as these allocations are completed, we'll be drafting the legislation and submitting that immediately.

So this uh these allocations may be will be returning to the committee for the final approval.

Um thing that's been brought to my attention, and it's certainly I've been remiss at uh lately is updating the committee on the progress uh for the projects that we've we've had.

I I thank Director Sullivan uh for his kind words.

It has been a challenging time in urban programs, but that seems to be the nature of work within uh municipal government.

Um the good news is is that these physical um our public facility projects are moving again, uh and that has really started up within about the past 45 days.

There are four projects that were stopped dead uh when our original radon issue came up, and those were uh the National Children's Home, Nashville Soup Kitchen, uh the Mary Sweeney Home, and the police athletic league, all of which have received grant awards for both FY25 and FY26.

Um there was a bit of a juggling act with the anticipated costs of radon mitigation.

Um delaying how the testing went until funds were put in place last year.

There was a significant amount, I believe it was 75,000 placed in the uh radon testing and mitigation program.

And part of the delay was waiting for those funds to be in place to be able to fund mitigation immediately without having a repeat of the circumstances that really brought this whole issue to the surface uh with another nonprofit having to pay out of pocket immediately to uh correct a dangerous situation.

So that's not by way of making an excuse.

Um, but I do want to say that in order to move quickly, sometimes we have to slow down and help get our processes correct, and that's been a huge endeavor uh within my department uh over the past months, and we're now moving quickly uh in regards to delivering these projects.

Uh of the four that have had two outstanding uh awards, the Nashville Children's Home is uh awaiting bids.

That's uh next Friday.

The soup kitchen has a contract waiting for one more signature on it, which I'm very happy to say.

Uh the police athletic league is going through some final tweaks on the scope before their bulk project is launched.

And interestingly enough, the Mary Sweeney home, or unfortunately enough, really, has been the recipient of a lot of misfortune and timing.

Uh the largest delay over the past couple months has been seeking another determination from our building department about the need for ADA accessibility within their kitchen improvement.

Uh, when this project was originally put up, um I received a determination that ADA would not be required.

However, I'm not uh a building code expert.

And knowing with a significant delay in time, I put this question in front of our acting building department manager uh just a couple weeks ago and within I'd say the past week received a response that ADA will be required as part of that project.

So it is very much on my mind to deliver these projects fully in compliance uh with all of the regulations that we have in place.

Uh the HUD regulations for procurement, for timing, for contractor selection, um, but also satisfying the building department and trying to satisfy the needs as best as possible of the recipients themselves.

Um I have and I take responsibility for this.

I have prioritized uh some of our HIP projects to get those moving a little bit faster and cutting into what has been severely limited time available to direct towards these projects.

Um yeah, I stand by that decision to prioritize these.

We've received some very good outcomes recently by by doing so.

However, um we're going full steam ahead now with trying to get these projects delivered.

Wilson was still here, so I could apologize to her directly.

She's been uh patient beyond any reasonable expectation uh with waiting for this stuff to get going.

Well, it kind of goes without saying she has to be patient because she's waiting for that project, and where any organization is advocating for the needs of its constituency, there we shouldn't be in the way of that.

We should be facilitating those needs, especially when this committee and the board of aldermen approve the urgency of those needs and the program.

Um your department is in charge of the priorities and how you spend your time, definitely.

But I do think that it goes without saying communicating to community organizations is a given, but then it would be a good idea to more regularly update us as to how these projects are proceeding so that we don't suddenly realize that we have program applicants that are still waiting on the last two programs.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I fully recognize that.

And uh in the communication, I included a link uh for a portal that links directly to the system we're using to manage our projects and really the entirety of the CDBG process.

So it's my intention to put all the cards on the table uh while still respecting the areas of privacy required for the work that we do.

Um so that portal is going to stay in place, and that is live information.

The statuses that you see in there are the ones that I'm working at or using at my desk trying to get these projects moving.

Sounds like a recognition of some of what was said in public comment.

Um and then I would definitely invite you to come to the Human Affairs Committee and present at least on a quarterly basis, so that we can, if there's any additional support we can offer, we can offer that to you as it's going.

And even if it's just insight that we should be aware of, we can direct people to the right places.

Understood.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, for that.

Mr.

Mr.

Chairman, I add what just one comment that Mike may not may not.

Um it's important to understand that over the past two years, we have continued to receive diminishing HUD allocations for CDBG and home.

And we telegraphed years before that that we would ultimately get to a point where, based on the administrative cap spending, aka what we can spend on staff and a lowering allocation that we would ultimately perhaps no longer be able to afford the positions that existed in the urban programs department on the CDB Gene home side.

We have reached that point.

And so what Mike is not acknowledging is the fact that we currently do not have an individual in the former project administrator role that was responsible for all of the project delivery.

And so Mike is taking on the roles of the manager and of the project delivery staff person.

And so I'm not here to cry poor about resources because it's a it's a it's a reality for us.

We knew was coming based on that diminishing federal award.

But the reality is that this department is down a staff person that we cannot fill right now.

So I just want to make everyone aware of that.

And and we're trying to figure out ways to continue the same level of service despite that change.

But the reality is that the Urban Programs Department cannot fill its vacant project delivery person right now in good faith because it does not have a full year of funding to support that position at what it would be paid.

So I just I want to acknowledge that because I think Mike is perhaps not going to say it because he's trying to do the best of what he has.

Uh but that's a decision we had to make uh because we were continuing to receive those diminishing allocations.

I just want to make you aware of that.

Yep, and I think that is something you presented in previous years for anybody who might be newer to the committee.

I think it's also why it's so much more important to communicate effectively and use the committee for what it's meant to be.

Yeah.

I have lots of comments, but um so I have your application portal up, which I told you last time I was very excited.

This is probably the nicest that we've seen when we've done these allocations.

Um it was suggested during the public comment that we don't have any clarity around the scoring, but you do have scoring in here specific to the applications.

Can you talk to that, please?

Yes, thank you.

Um our remit from HUD is to evaluate the applicants based upon uh a handful of um a handful of criterion basically aimed at us being comfortable that the organization is going to be able to deliver what they're receiving the funds for.

Uh this includes uh them providing a board of directors, umerous things that we I'm sorry, I don't mean to cut cut it short, but it could go on for hours.

Basically, we're required to be able to document our confidence in the sub-recipients that should they receive these word awards that they'll be able to accomplish what they say they're going to accomplish with the funds.

So the scoring that is within that portal, and the only scoring that we do is strictly on those areas required by HUD for us to evaluate as the grant recipient.

In no way do I see that as the responsibility of the urban programs department to make these decisions.

And if there's anything that I can do to clarify that what we're providing is only technical compliance recommendations, I'd be happy to receive that feedback.

No, I'm good for now.

Alberman Johnson.

Thank you.

So when we grant them these awards, we go back and we um make sure that these awards are being properly used.

Do we do a check-in or we don't do a check-in after this is my first time with all this, so that's why I'm asking to be get familiar with all this.

Certainly.

So we're required.

Um let me collect my thoughts here for a second.

Try to convince them.

Yes, there are reporting requirements from the subrecipients, all of them, whether it be for public services or public facilities, where they quantify who's benefited and in what way.

Um with the public facility awards, basically anything that has a physical impact.

Uh, we're also required to make sure that what we're delivering to them as a public facility improvement matches what they've asked for, matches what this committee has recommended.

Basically, everything has to line up.

Alderman Johnson.

Thank you.

So, do you actually go out and do a site walk after?

So let's say let's use Mary Sweeney, for example.

They order the windows or the ADA, you know, the doors and everything.

So after do they report back to you, say everything's installed, or during installation time, you go out and you do a site walk to make sure what they asked for it was delivered and you make sure it's installed properly.

Okay.

Um so every project that involves a public facility improvement, uh, with the exception of city awards, say for the Department of Public Works, uh, where they have their own personnel that actually handle that project management stuff.

Um all of our housing improvement program, rail improvement program, and the nonprofit public facilities are managed end to end within my department.

We conduct bidding, um, we make sure the contractors are qualified before the contracts are awarded.

Uh we work with the nonprofit departments uh to develop those scopes of work and require their sign off before we move forward to contracting.

Um we write a contract that actually includes the city in the middle as uh kind of an arbitrator of everything and final decision maker, with with the goal being that it's the city's job to make sure these contracts move smoothly.

Um we integrate the building department when necessary for permit requirements.

Uh there are site visits during the work.

Um I visit the sites after the work, in addition to the building department when required, to make sure not only that we've met the building code requirements, which are an effective minimum, but also that we've met the letter of the scope as it's been delivered.

So there are no circumstances with which a awardee orders materials, performs work on their own, none of that.

In fact, HUD procurement uh the federal procurement rules require that we keep control over this process to make sure that only contractors that are um are have not been disbarred and have all their controls in place can be used, etc.

And historically, I've discovered at this department's response has been instead of trying to oversee external project management, we've taken it in-house, which I personally think is remains a good idea.

So if I could just summarize the comprehensive oversight of these projects that you provide for the city, maybe a factor in what was being brought up because you're understaffed.

So where you are trying to make sure that after a delay of a year and a half, the building department still has the same opinion of the ADA, and we don't go halfway through a project and find out we did actually need ADA compliance in a kitchen.

That communication is somewhat ponderous if we had money fall out of the sky for additional staff members, then it would only make the situation better.

But as it stands right now, you're making sure that all your ducks are in a row.

Mr.

Mr.

Chairman, that's been my priority since I've taken this role as manager.

Uh I was the I was in the project administrator role prior to this, and that was my full-time job is to deliver these projects.

Um, yes, my background, my my entire professional background is in construction and construction management.

I actually owned a contracting company.

And I believe that these jobs that we deliver as the city should be delivered at a level that we would be proud of that are done professionally and that don't have uh cost overruns, failure to meet the expectations.

I I think that I believe personally in getting it right, and I know that the price to be paid for that is frequently it just takes longer.

There are contractual deadlines for how soon these things are executed, though, right?

There's not like a well, you have the award you can take as long as you want to get it done.

Um Mr.

Chairman, yeah, our really our hard guideline is timeliness with HUD and uh under the CDBG guidelines.

We have to make sure that that at a testing period, which is I believe relatively soon to the end of the fiscal year, that you have less than 1.5 times your prior grant award in unexpended funds.

Um so that's our hard, that's our hard deadline uh for spending these things.

However, functionally, the goal remains, in spite of recent evidence to the contrary, to get these projects delivered as quickly as we can.

Where out of the four examples you gave, the soup kitchen is pretty much ready to go, they just need a signature.

The um the children's home has their project and they're out to bid this Friday.

Uh Mary Sweeney knows exactly what they need to do, but they need that inspection, and then um PAL is is circling back, I guess reconceptualizing something.

Are they all going to get it done by the time that they're required to, or is anyone running up against the deadline?

Uh Mr.

Chairman, yes, we're we're going to be absolutely fine.

As a matter of fact, uh I recently had a conversation with our HUD representative about our timely expenditure of CDBG funds, and I was very happy to report, and I believe she was happy to hear that we're getting these projects uh launched.

Um just uh to make sure that the record is is clear on this.

Yes, the the children's home uh bids are coming back, that will go to contract immediately.

Uh the soup kitchen is under contract.

In fact, they start May 4th uh for their work.

Um PAL, I'm awaiting a bid for their radon mitigation.

Made a uh radon was discovered in their property, and it's not an easy property apparently to mitigate.

Um and then Mary Sweeney Home.

Um I need or I will be communicating uh as soon as possible uh with them with an updated scope of work about what's going that includes our building department's requirement that the kitchen be ADA made ADA compliant.

So I will be communicating that scope of work to them.

We will then work to clarify that until they're satisfied and we're satisfied that it meets this committee's recommendation for funding, uh, and then we'll move forward as quickly as possible.

I know that in some situations we've when we've had unexpended funds or projects that didn't work and we had previous, in fact, I think the radon project was probably one of them.

Um if it does turn out that our needing our requirement that they have ADA into their um kitchen, would they be able to do a supplemental grant appropriation, anything like that?

Do they have options?

Uh Mr.

Chairman, thank you.

Yes, under the current citizen participation plan, which uh we've spoken about that would be either a minor or possibly a substantial amendment uh uh under the citizen participation program or sorry policy.

And that funding would be available uh from this committee to award at your discretion.

Okay, well, that would definitely be something we want to make sure we include as part of that transparency documentation so that we're showing the soup to nuts progression of these projects for people in the public that are looking for them.

Yes.

And that's sorry for making that even more content, but I think it is helpful overall in establishing that trust.

Alderman Kelly?

So I'm gonna talk some process stuff, but I do want to ask a quick question here.

Um oftentimes when we're doing these allocations and looking through, I've always wanted like a historical, like how many times have they come or gotten a CDBG allocation and like that?

I don't want to put more work on you guys, but I do think it would be helpful for us, because sometimes we try to decide, you know, everybody gets a little bit, or if someone has gotten four years in a row, should we consider you know that as part of our criteria in terms of who we fund and unfortunately we are unable to fund.

I would in fact what we've what we've already set up is the the bare bones, the basic starting point for being able to deliver this information literally by uh a committee member being able to make a request and us making the changes within the system to have that information available.

Uh frankly, anything's possible.

We can deliver graphs, all sorts of things.

Um however, I didn't want to take a shotgun approach and throw everything out there because that in my opinion that can be less useful than uh succinct information.

But after the the last meeting we had, it was suggested that more information be made available.

So I've I've opened things up, and this will remain an uh an open invitation to the committee to give me feedback on how I can set this up to really best serve you.

I'm just thinking it it helps us with this discussion if we have a lot of this and I I absolutely love this dashboard.

I find it very easy to use, and it's better than when I chaired it, we would literally had an Excel document.

We're trying to figure it out, so this is really helpful.

But as we talk through how do we do, how do we continue to improve the process because it has improved year over year as long as I've been on this committee, um, I think that would be interesting information to have.

I will make a note to put together some view in the near future.

It doesn't mean to me every, like maybe in the last five years have we got a that will contain uh organizations and prior award, prior requests and prior awards.

That would be helpful.

Happy to do so.

And then unless other board members have I wanted to kind of talk about overall process and my thoughts on that, because I think you go what you're putting into the system makes a whole lot of sense, and then when we vote on them, we're kind of like, hmm, you know, what is the you know the biggest issue in the city right now?

We we all know what that is, right?

But um, is it worth it for this committee to have a general guideline in terms of we think we shouldn't be giving more than 25% of a project cost or um you know things like that that can help us in a more like standardized way look at some of these projects?

If if I may, I mean I think we we are always in favor of more predictability and specificity because of the nature of the jobs that we do.

That said, we would not want to put in place a system that creates unanticipated consequences and constraints for this committee and its consideration of the projects.

So I think we're we will do whatever this committee would like as far as creating a guideline or a rubric for scoring projects if you want something that would help you do that.

Although when Kelly, having gone through the housing revolving fund process with you, though, a rubric is only as good as you know, is only as strong as you want it to be.

And so, you know, I think we'd be hesitant to develop a strict scoring system.

That's not anything that's fine.

We need more guidelines.

Yep, but guidelines based on the consolidated and the action plan.

I think that's something that we could we could strengthen the way those are articulated.

I mean, I think Mike does a really great job, including it in the documentation that's provided to you all.

But maybe we could develop a rubric that takes that and aligns it with when the committee is making motions, perhaps.

Um then relative to the idea of you know, a limitation on 25% of cost or something like that.

Uh I I'm a little bit concerned that may that may just be difficult to apply on a project by project basis.

But um we're happy to do whatever the committee would like to make this process easier and more predictable, I think.

We just don't want to unnecessarily constrain you and then we're end up in a situation where you're having to modify or break the rules that you've set up in the same year.

But maybe we can find a middle ground.

Yeah, I don't think I was looking for a rubric, just more of a like what do we think?

Like, where do we start?

How to is there a general sense of even when we look at our action plan?

I think that the action plan feels like it's weighted evenly, but it's not necessarily weighted evenly as a community, right?

Like what is most urgent may not be all four things in the action plan.

There's even a sort of you know, priority within those action plan priorities, I would imagine.

Yeah.

So I'm just voicing like when we do this process, it's generally very organic.

Yep.

Okay.

Good input.

Mr.

Chairman.

Yeah, Mr.

Chairman, to your earlier point about um needs and goals.

Uh we do track, we actually we use the same system uh for the development and our um community surveys and nonprofit surveys to request uh better input on what our needs are for the action plan development.

So one thing that we have to do internally uh once they're historically once grants have been awarded to nonprofits is align their application with specific needs and goals and several other indicators that HUD requires uh for uh quantifying and qualifying uh these accomplishments.

However, it can be set up so that uh during the application phase, you can see what these needs are, and that can be set up with the ranking as we've determined through our community outreach during the year as well.

So another opportunity I I hope to try to give you better information.

Great.

All right.

We want to move forward.

Something to put up?

Yes to do.

Yes, sorry about that.

All right, and I'm gonna apologize.

It's it's based on the resolution, it's a little bit tricky to read, but I'll go ahead and put this up.

Bear with me for two seconds.

Oh, perfect.

Perfect.

So um I'm gonna ask Mike to maybe walk through this just to explain how this thing works.

Um it's similar to what you've seen in the past, but a little more automated.

Uh so maybe Mike, I'll I'll start from the top.

Maybe you can walk through just how the how the totaling works, maybe uh certainly.

Uh so just coming from the top of the spreadsheet, um, for the CDBG, uh, that's 644,619 is our actual uh FY27 award recently received from HUD.

Uh project delivery is estimated at 100,000, but we'll uh will vary by project.

Uh the put the administration, CBG administration is a 20 percent cap.

And to be frank, we need every penny of that 20 percent.

There's no elasticity in that to give us the sum administrative expenses of 288, uh 923 and 80 cents.

Um moving further down, both the uh public service requests and then lower the public facility requests function in the same way.

Uh we start with that top line number for the public services, that's a statutory cap of 15 percent, which is 96,692 and 85 cents.

So the yellow spaces uh below are for the committee's uh suggested allocations uh for each of the recipients.

Um there is uh a sum below that uh bolden and to try to hone in on these numbers a little bit better.

Uh I have a variance listed at the bottom that'll turn red uh if there's been over-allocation beyond funds available.

Um the the same process repeats uh for the public facility request below, and then uh at the very bottom is the home um funds received, which uh are set aside entirely formulaically.

We don't have a uh home project in front of us right now to try to assign those funds to make Kelly.

I remember having a contingency line in previous years.

Did we take that out and why?

The uh contingency line has been present in the spreadsheet.

However, I have not been able to figure out how a contingency can be spent outside of the public participation plan, which requires everything to come back before this committee.

So I didn't see that it served any point to hold those funds back.

Okay, if I may, Mr.

Chair, it was it was functionally an unallocated category uh that was then you know deployed to other projects throughout the year if something came up.

Um so we haven't we haven't included it in in recent action plan years.

Thank you.

Okay.

And so just to maybe I I just I was sort of dem demoing what Mike was saying.

So in the event that the committee is interested in, let's say awarding $80,000 for this and $40,000 for this, you'll quickly notice that we go over our cap right here.

We're $23,000 over.

And of course, the objective tonight, as you all know, you've been through this process is to ultimately decide on a set of awards that total the $120,000, sorry, the $96,000 that's available uh certainly in public service, and then down in uh public facilities, you have $319,000 out of $771,000 requests to allocate this evening.

Um Director Sullivan, the Financial Empowerment Center.

Yes.

I noticed that an RFP was announced looking for a partner for that already last year.

If I remember right, we did not fund that.

Can you tell me a little bit about what's going on with that program?

Uh Mr.

Chair, I I may need to get additional detail.

Um admittedly, I'm not directly involved in this project.

Uh, but I do think an RFP is out.

Uh I know that Director Hanum is very passionate about trying to start this project, whether at a pilot level or with the fully requested allocation here.

Uh, you know, she believes strongly that this would be transformative for uh small and minority and women owned businesses across the community.

Uh but I believe that she would be, you know, if she were here this evening, I think she's listening online, she was here just a few minutes ago.

Uh she'd like to at least get this off the ground.

Um so I don't want to advocate on her behalf for less money than what she's requesting, but you know, I think she's looking for something to get this thing started and try to prove or get some proof of concept done.

Uh but that's that's all I can really say to that, Mr.

Chair.

Okay.

I was just curious.

There was another Okay, Alderman Kelly.

I believe when she came for her interview, we asked her who the um partner would be because we thought that was important to whether we allocated the funds.

Sure.

So if I remember correctly, her step was to go then find out who that person is.

But yeah, yeah, okay.

I think that's what we talked about.

That's why it's out.

Okay.

I wasn't sure if she had a different funder and we were matching it or no, we asked her and she didn't have the answer yet, and we said, hmm, that's kind of important.

Okay.

All right.

Any thoughts of the committee?

Where to start?

Everybody's favorite meeting of the year.

I personally would just want to start with adding that warming station and I mean maybe not 50,000, because if I'm reading this right, we have up to 96.

Um, but at least putting 40,000 in.

Yeah, that was gonna be my suggestion that we know that that is a high priority.

Mr.

Chairman, may I just ask the manager to talk a little bit about the restrictions that apply to the warming station funding that would go to public health, what those monies can and can't be used for.

I know from here.

Correct.

Correct.

Just because I know we've had hopefully I'm not surprising him by well, I am surprising him a little bit by asking this, but I know there were some questions in recent years when we awarded funds.

Buying supplies versus operational costs versus other things.

I wonder if maybe he can just speak generally to how these monies can be used as CDBG funds.

Uh yes, Mr.

Chair.

Um for public services, uh there are some ineligible uses, uh, and those would be the purchase of equipment, things that can be taken essentially that wouldn't be uh permanent fixture.

And there are recapture requirements for anything that would be purchased as a supply.

So it has been our uh practice to recommend to public service applicants that they apply for support for staff costs, uh because that is directly in the in the line of what uh is eligible under public services.

And that's what I believe the warming center has done.

I'm inclined to give them the full allocation, just knowing that the how much need there is in that area, but we're just talking Alderman Senate.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Yeah, I was just going to note that um in conjunction with Manager Younger's um comments.

I did have in my notes that um that was the intent of the um request for the winter warming station was their total funding would go towards staffing for that um for that project.

Um if I could continue.

Sure.

So with the contemplation um that was just put out there of the 40,000 dollars for the um overnight warming station, I too had I have my own little uh scratch spreadsheet in front of me uh just to follow along.

I had had them originally at funding uh full funding um as well as Nashu Appel with um the um uh family promise of Southern New Hampshire uh receiving the balance of 34 30507 uh I'd be just as happy to see you know, if we did reduce the overnight warming station by 10,000 um boosting Family Promise of Southern New Hampshire's ask by that 10,000 to bring them to 4430507.

Um and the only project I don't have funded in here is the Financial Empowerment Center.

But as was noted earlier, I think that there are a lot of questions still on the table before that could be contemplated fully.

Alderman Son of Sullivan, do you mind just typing in what he said because I didn't follow it?

Um everyone's coming.

I think I think I've got it.

So have and then we're gonna go zero here.

Uh keep your 40,000 for overnight warming station, and then the balance goes.30507.

Uh it is in there.

I'm not sure why it's not showing.

Mr.

Chair, if I may just note for the record, I'm not suggesting this is a bad thing or uh inserting any value judgment.

I just want everyone to be aware that uh the city received what are referred to as home Air P dollars from U.S.

HUD, and we recently granted subgranted home ARP dollars to family promise for their homeless prevention program.

So they they do have some city funding currently, uh but that it's not a it's only um it's fifty thousand dollars of capacity building and fifty thousand dollars of supportive services.

It's a finite amount of money, uh, but I just want to make you aware that they do have another grant with the city for that work.

The I mean, and yeah, I'm being very fair as far as I can as much as I can be to the warming station.

They also have access to the opioid abatement fund, but I don't think it's a good policy for us to keep pulling on that the way we have been.

I think we do need to actually start integrating actual city contribution systemically into that warming station concept because it does serve a need.

Um I think the Family Promise program is an example of a program that hits way outside of its weight class when its results come into play.

Because I I can't quote you the exact source, whether it was continuum or whether it was right here in the Board of Uh Alderman, but I think they they reported at one point that they did something like three to five times the volume of placements that they were expecting, um, which is what we need.

Like these are two ends of the same problem.

How do we keep people alive in our city when it's really really cold?

But then how do we prevent people from being in a situation where they're housing insecure in the first place?

So I I mean I I would be amenable to however the board wants to go with that.

I wanted to start with what I thought was a strong uh push for the home the warming station, but I also recognize the need, obviously.

Alderman Kelly.

I I still feel very strongly that we should fully fund the overnight warming station.

If there's anything that has been more topical the last six months, we've talked to them about extending their hours, being open longer, and Bobby is doing Lowman's work by doing as much as she possibly can with the least amount of resources.

So I really feel strongly about that being a full fund.

Um I I would argue that particularly looking at staffing costs, having the effective number of staff to intervene and manage that makes the program successful versus having it not quite enough people because I was volunteering there last year and I saw when we were first pulling it out and we didn't know exactly how many we would need.

Yeah versus this year it was much more effectively managed because you had enough people to do all the things you needed to do when things were very complex.

I would like to still see a pr a good allocation to homeless prevention because as people who are working this know, like if we can keep them in their homes, that is an extremely effective way to work on the homelessness issue.

So I liked your original the 50 and then the 34, and then that zeroes us out.

Okay, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh thank you.

Yeah, I I was going to say I I do have a preference for my original calculation, which would fully fund the um the winter warming station and um and offer that balance to Family Promise of Southern New Hampshire.

Uh I I tried to take pretty diligent notes during the um the presentations and um tip of the hat to uh my colleague Alder Woman Kelly who asked most of the um the organizations, you know, if you were not able to receive your full amount of funding, where's that leave you?

And you know, um again to to the to the credit of Family Promise really punching outside their weight class, um that their response to that was that their hiring would move forward regardless of what they received for CDBG funding, um they will just continue what they do every day, which is seeking outside and private donations.

Um that said, I I still would like us to see uh like to see us offer them something here because the the work that they do is invaluable.

Well I also concur that there's a a kind of a an imaginary contract, not a legal one, but an understanding in any community that when you have a bunch of charities that are gonna throw themselves at a problem 120 percent as a community and as a city, if we're gonna try to steer or manage any of these situations that we're also responsible for, we really have to put something on the table.

Yeah.

Any other thoughts?

Other than a deep apology to Director Hannem for once again defunding or not funding the um financial empowerment.

I I will say for myself, I understand what she's trying to do, and I do see that it's valuable.

I wish we had a different funding source than C D BG, particularly, because I I've seen what the small business startup association can pull off.

And that we just recently had a business opening up that's you know locally owned.

It it does a lot for the community.

Just think we have a lot of really competing needs right now.

Uh Major Youngers, do I see hand?

Uh no, Mr.

Chairman.

Oh, okay.

All right.

So do you want to move forward with this configuration?

Uh Director Sullivan, would you like to have those numbers reflected up there?

Sure.

So we're gonna put this to 50,000?

Please.

And this down to 34,000, if I'm not mistaken.

Yes, correct.

Is that correct?

And that should leave you with a zero balance.

Perfect.

Okay.

Do we need to take a um So we do them line by line, but I'm what do you want to do at all?

And then go back line by line.

I I would I was just gonna throw out there.

Do we want to vote on this portion and then move on to the next one?

That's fine.

Yeah, I want to take these apart in sections.

I think that's I think that's a good idea, yeah.

Motion?

Yeah, I would I was going to um front of me.

Mr.

Chairman, I'm so I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

Just in the middle of a motion.

This well the this this comes back to to something that that uh manager said.

So we're we're doing the process a little bit differently this year.

So you don't have a piece of legislation in front of you right now.

You you are welcome to make a motion.

I just I just wanted you to know it's not binding in any way, shape, or form.

This will literally be the will just give us uh a sense of direction for when the legislation ultimately comes back.

Perfect.

Okay, I just want to make sure you Okay, perfect.

Just sorry.

I will not say anything else.

I I was bringing them forward.

That was a point of order, I get it.

I didn't mean to do that.

I apologize.

I was going to use the um request that CDBG had put before us and make a motion to provide a recommendation for the uh public service requests as allocated.

If you like that.

Okay.

Aye.

Aye.

Oppose.

All right, I think we're good.

Okay.

Now the tough one.

Yeah.

Well, I have I'm gonna start with my questions.

Alderman Kelly.

And thanks for announcing that because I'm looking through my telephone.

Well, I should probably have asked this, and I am sorry.

Um I'm on the stoop kitchen board.

I don't remember if I've recused myself from line items in the past.

Do you remember?

I don't get paid more as a soup kitchen board member.

No, but I am also doing work with gateways, and they did pay me.

So that I don't know about that one either.

That one I would recuse yourself from.

Okay.

Just all right.

It's been it's on the record.

I would recommend that you recuse yourself even as a board member.

From that line item.

I feel like that's how we're I would recommend I would recommend if you if I'm recusing myself, we don't have a quorum.

I mean we can't talk about that.

I feel like that's generally the recusal.

I I is yeah, I would financially gain something from it.

So may I just provide maybe uh uh an example of and just tell you why I'm saying this.

Go ahead.

Um I mentioned I sit on a I sit on the state board for making recommendations for C D BG allocations for CDFA.

The way our process works there is that when there's an individual that uh works for a municipality that's submitted an application, even if they don't have any financial interest or they're affiliated with an application, they actually leave the room for the entire consideration of the category.

I'm sold sorry, Roman Kelly.

No, no, you can.

You can.

You can, you can recuse yourself and the meeting can continue.

But if we want to request clarification, again, you're not voting tonight.

We're recommending, yeah.

But I do think when this actually comes up for the committee's consideration as legislation, I think we should seek clarification for exactly your your questions, Alderman Kelly.

I think it's a great question.

I think we should proceed with great caution, and I can work with council to get an answer on that, basically.

But you're welcome to participate, I think, in a recommendation discussion.

I would just be careful.

All right.

So before us is 325,000.

Sorry.

I think they've only been up to the 50 nine years.

Like what, twice as much as we actually need to do?

I have not filled in these numbers.

Other than it's already been advised to us that we could zero fund the request for the Lead Street playground given the restrictions of the award.

It's a great place to start.

See there's already a zero there.

Yes.

All right.

Um Boys and Girls Club, Front Door, Nashua Pound, Mary Sweeney.

Now there could be an argument that we should look at the ones that have not applied previously as first dibs on full funding.

Do you have that information?

Is there anyone who's not been allocated?

Not in front of me.

I don't actually see any that haven't.

Except maybe Nashua Center doesn't seem like they're here that often.

Mr.

Chair, I can speak to that if you're not sure.

Uh Mr.

Youngers.

Yeah, the Nashua Center has not been an applicant uh in the past, I believe, three or four years.

Uh they were awarded funding.

I believe uh FY21, perhaps, but uh accidentally ran afoul of uh CDBG regulation and they were not able to receive their awards, right?

So I would say they also applied twice.

So we have to decide maybe full roof, full door, but maybe not both.

Um then trying to figure out which of these things are more optional than others is a stretch, but the full building backup generator is a second plan versus a elevator repair replacement.

Or I mean I think I I think roof replacements are very important.

Um I'm not entirely sure.

Is the water intrusion issue uh a roof issue, or is that on the ground issue?

Uh Mr.

Shimmer, is that for police?

For a PAL.

That's uh water and drainage against the side of the building issue.

I remember the pictures were pretty wild.

Anything that causes water damage and might potentially make something mold eligible or that seems like it's an urgent issue.

Although, knowing my lot, the power will go up for the soup kitchen as soon as I say that.

Um Director Sullivan, the city has emergency capacity systems for like when when there's a power outage in a block, things like that.

Is that a resource that would be used for something like that if there was a regional outage, like as a food distribution center or something like that?

Um I I don't know, Alderman Lopez.

That's a great question.

I don't know if we have the ability to deploy it in that way, but I could look into that.

And I'm sorry I don't have the answer.

I just I'm not familiar with that, how that works.

If I'm being honest, I remember we were talking, I don't know, as far back as Justin Cates, but we had uh emergency generators that can power a city block, and but I don't know how they're deployed or what city blocks are urgent and which ones aren't.

We we do have mobile generators that are a bit aged at this point in time, but I don't know if they're adequate to actually power a full city block.

Um but we did have emergency generators that were procured by Justin during his time here, and those still are on hand.

In fact, they're stored at the transit garage.

And the purpose of this would primarily be to avoid food waste.

I would imagine in the warmer months.

Mr.

Chairman.

Uh Mr.

Youngers.

If I might make one one comment in the interest of fairness.

Um the uh Nashua Center did submit two separate applications for two separate projects.

However, Gateways Community Services submitted one application that would cover two different locations and really be conducted as two separate projects.

I don't have the exact uh numbers in front of me, uh, but I believe uh the two locations are uh Upstone and Atherton.

And uh one was 48, let's say 48,000, and the other one was 57,000.

Have they has anyone indicated that partial funding would not be enough to continue their project?

Tim, how are you not?

Yeah, um I I did have at least a couple of those.

Uh bear with me.

National soup kitchen and shelter without the funding, the project would likely not move forward.

Um in regard to the Nashua Center, um, we had asked a similar question.

Their primary concern was the roof, and in the event of a partial funding situation, that would take precedence over the um the entry vestibule.

Um National Police Athletic League, uh lack of funding would sideline the camera project, they would prioritize the concrete rework.

Um they have not received external funding yet.

Boys and girls club has $18,000 lined up to supplement their project.

Partial funding would prioritize the funding.

Um if partially funded, they would prioritize uh finding uh additional sources of funding, they would um de-escalate the scope to exclude the outdoor play area.

Um gateways would require further grants if they were only per partially funded.

Um I don't have a split between the two projects.

How I was gonna ask how close to the dollar do you think that is?

Yes, Alderman.

Um one was forty-eight thousand uh as a rough number, and the other one was fifty-seven thousand.

Uh I don't remember the exact numbers.

They're they're connected in the portal.

You can actually see thank you.

Yeah, the actual uh bids are in there when they were were available.

I don't have a note on Nashua Children's Home.

Um the decks are in there as two separate Yeah.

I was just looking at them.

Just as a starting point, do we want to put the elevator for um the front door agency and then the um roof replacement for Nashua Center in is fully and then work down from there if we have to so far full what I had punched in just based on the notes I had just shared.

I had punched in uh full funding of the roof replacement for Nashua Center.

Um I've just punched in at Alderman Lopez's recommendation full funding for the um elevator work at the front door agency.

And based on the comments I had um punched in full funding for the uh backup generator for the Nashwa soup kitchen.

That leaves me with a balance of $93,707 and 35 cents.

Yeah, I'm a little bit more I and I understand that the project wouldn't move forward.

Um I'm a little bit more hesitant about the soup kitchen's backup generator only because it is a backup generator.

Um I don't want them to lose food, obviously.

I would recommend they give it away right away.

But I also think that if this is plan A for most of these, and that's plan B for them, we might not want to look at that as full funding.

And if we take that out, just I zeroed it out right now, that leaves us with uh 1767 to work with.

Might I suggest we also put in the HVAC improvements for the Gloria Timmins Community Center?

And can I speak to that actually?

I was um I I was going to make a similar recommendation not only just because the Arlington Street or Gloria Timmins uh community center is located within Ward 7.

Um I feel a special attachment to it.

But um this is a a building that the city has well kind of sort of invested in, and we kind of do what we can with it, but to the best of my recollection, most of the work that's been done to upkeep that building, which this board has really emphasized is a priority with city buildings, has been through the CDBG process.

Um actually the I believe it was last year's or the year prior, that building got a nice uh envelope reseal and some window work um through this project.

And I only say this because they don't ask for a whole lot, but they again another project that really punches above its weight.

The volume of um programming that is done there for families, adults, children, um who don't have many other places to turn is um certainly worth $9,500 of HVAC improvements to keep that building comfortable and safe to be in.

So I I would certainly uh advocate strongly for that.

I would definitely support that because if we just did the envelope and and resealing, then we should probably make sure the HVAC system is making full use of that.

That's saving taxpayer monies while the Gloria Timmins Center isn't there just for fun.

It's be it's performing a community need in an area that needs it.

So I definitely would agree with that, especially when we're looking at much larger costs uh among other agencies.

So we're still uh eighty-four left.

No, that's with the soup kitchen in there.

Oh, yeah, soup kitchen is still at full funding on uh director Sullivan's sheet.

We know that the Boys and Girls Club can also take uh a little bit of a hit and they'll continue working on their projects.

So I'd say maybe put them at like thirty percent funding.

So thirty thousand.

The children's home I I don't want to like leave them empty.

They do come pretty regularly, but uh the boilers was presented with pretty elderly.

Um and we do want to make sure that we're not making a potential transitional housing program unlivable, especially if the boiler would be used in the winter.

So I want to put some funding towards there.

Maybe I don't know how much is too little though.

One of the things luxuries, I guess, that we're ex is extended to us is if we make recommendations that are completely out of whack, uh we have time to hear from the agencies that would be able to say that absolutely won't work, or this is how close you need to be for us to make it work.

Is that fair, Manager Youngers?

I I had a question actually to um manager Youngers, if I could.

I just drilled into um the National Children's Home Project.

The their project budget is 83,923, but their request is 92315.

They're uh requesting 110% of the project.

Uh yeah, it is my standard recommendation that uh bids they receive uh due to just pricing volatility over the past few years that uh they request 10% more un unless there's a reason to believe that the uh quotes can be held tighter.

That's interesting.

That's fair.

They're the only ones that did that.

Uh we can't control uh Alderman and the responses, only the requests.

I just think it's interesting.

Yeah.

Well, we can definitely take that part off.

I think I'm still kind of in the same place that um well, although I would also add that the uh trying to do some funding for the entry door um for Nash Rad Center is I mean a worthy goal because there are probably security issues and and that type of thing.

Um I still think that the soup kitchens backup generator when taken against these other things isn't as high a priority.

Matt, can you zero out that line item so we can see what's left?

Zero out which the soup kitchen one?

Just completely zeroed out.

Yep.

83,000.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yes, of course.

What else does gateways working on?

The replacement of residential programs.

You said there's two different sites.

It's just two different sites.

It's a deck at each other decks on two of their support homes.

That's correct.

Yeah, 45 and 47 or something.

No.

Okay, but those aren't something that would affect the livability of them.

Good question.

There is I believe at the Atherton location ramps built in to that deck that I was told from staff that they use as part of their accessibility.

The other one I I don't believe is the case.

What's the amount of the Atherton project that was going to be my question.

I was trying to find it I'm I'm going slow, sorry.

Oh Mr.

Chair, while we're on this uh topic uh I have informally approached uh Nashua Habitat for humanity had didn't receive anything committed but I did receive enthusiasm for uh hopefully assisting gateways with these needs I think in several of these situations because we aren't able to do it they that there's an argument that could be made that somebody you know for example with a soup kitchen maybe somebody can donate a generator that is a high profile donor or some such so I definitely I definitely see the value there.

And I know that as much as Habitat is I've built several home ramps with them they're not even the only ones in town who do it so I had just answering the Atherton project the breakdown for just Atherton was 47814 is it I have a quote for Atherton in front of me for 57214 another two weeks Alderman Synth that you have to scroll scroll down and whichever number you're looking at is at the bottom of those oh is it oh it breaks it into like three pages.

Yeah.

I see.

Yeah it is it's 57214 thank you.

I didn't scroll my bad the AP specialist in me knows better.

They're in my ward so I know I'm gonna hear about making this observation but for now I would be willing to forego the Mary Sweeney project in terms of priority because while it's difficult to open the windows we did also just try to install a bunch of air conditioners.

So I don't know then it needs to get done but that doesn't necessarily mean that we can find the funding at the expense of a boiler or an elevator or things like that.

Mm-hmm I think the water intrusion for PAL is also worth really looking at and at least partially funding because Powell is not a new building but I don't know um we're we're talking about the 58 Ashton right or 54 Ashton correct question so they actively use the lower area as uh a classroom performance space hopefully that's not where the radon was detected that in the bathroom it was uh yes uh chairman that's where the radon is tested is in that that ground uh basement level okay well then they have two problems so director Sullivan could you punch in uh 57214 for gateways just to see where that would leave us two fourteen given the fact that PAL is also under still working on a project right now necessarily want to approve the next one in line if if literally that might be something that affects that that specific space um because I don't know that they can't build they can't add something to it or you know find somebody to augment once they start working on the radon part what what is involved with the radon treatment the radon mitigation uh very likely or or by far the most common uh way of doing that is uh uh drilling some small holes in the floor and testing for where the radon is most highly concentrated and then installing a uh three or a four inch PVC pipe that comes up out of the floor it'll exit the side of the building uh it'll have a fan and then it'll run up the side of the building to above the roof line and it just creates a negative pressure that pulls the radon out of the building before it can seep in other ways.

I was thinking more because they're working on that project.

I mean, can they just add additional PVC piping to redirect water away from the edge?

Or you know, different standard, Mr.

Chairman.

And uh the radon mitigation has to be installed uh per it's a um it's a licensed um position in the state of New Hampshire, so it has to be installed according to a certain set of guidelines and can't be uh a multi-use system.

Okay.

Still got 80,000.

Doesn't go as far as you think.

No, not really.

Especially when you look at what's left on the table.

Yeah, we have an allocation for uh the National Center's roof, but we don't have anything for their doorway.

Um boiler replacement for transitional living.

That does have a 10% drop, so it's we I think we'd be looking at 82,000 manager youngers.

Their um I had it.

Their actual project budget was you are on the right track there.

83,92350.

Will you put that in there just to track it?

Can you give that number one more time?

83, 92350.

We're on children's home, right?

Yes.

One more time alterman sent them, so sorry.

Thank you.

Should I say faster?

No.

I'm so glad this isn't my job anymore.

Thank you for your patience.

So hard.

So we have a variance of 3,000.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Bearing in mind I had asked for one of the porches and gateways just to see what that would look like.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Uh I feel like, and I'm going out on a limb here, for the front door agency, if we give them 45,000, they're not going to be like, nope, we can't do it.

Um so that might put a little bit back something more in there that we could at least do something with PAL for water intrusion.

That's another one I don't think we can meet the full amount.

And then looking back at the the effort to put some for boys and girls club for their security, I mean it was an effort to put something in there, but at the same time, if it's not going to be enough to do for them to use it, maybe we reallocate that and they'll have to work on something else.

I know we're doing a lot of quiet contemplation, but I just will point out that we are putting in the legislation and it'll come back before us again.

So we do have an opportunity to reconsider and adjust when it comes back to us.

Although, do you want to talk?

There's usually like a certain amount of time we have to do it within the people feel about just taking the 30,000 off the boys and girls club and putting it onto the PAL.

It would get them closer to their project.

Sure.

Maybe just putting the last.

Oh, that's not we need less, nothing more.

No.

All right, then I I would say maybe just take the variance out of the elevator project, because again, I think they can make that much up.

There's a way to do it with math.

So we're you're suggesting taking the variants out of the front door agency.

Okay.

The three nine sorry, just pasted it to the wrong place.

Control Z.

Yep, I just pasted it to the wrong bear with me.

Sorry about that.

So you have eighty-three nine twenty-three fifty for children's home.

For the Nashua Center for the roof, fifty-seven two one four for gateways, which is one deck.

Yeah.

Um I would actually just ask if possible.

Do we know that that's actually the cost of one of the decks?

Or have we just split it?

We've just split it.

They would haven't just split it in half, I hope.

No, we looked at the MT.

Yeah, that's right.

They did they did identify this.

Correct.

So all the extent.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that is something that I could clarify though.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Just just a just a thought because it's very 30,000 for PAL, 4606985 for front door agency and 9500 for Gorya Timmons.

FKA.

And then zero for the remaining five projects.

I don't have a better idea, and I I really don't like the um the optics of the Mary Sweeney home taking that project off.

But I also when we look at the projects that we've been supporting ADA access and and security issues.

Um I can't see the windows being the exact same level, so I mean I don't want them to think we're penalizing them for bringing up the rightful fact that they're trying to complete projects, but those do seem very unconnected.

I I'm very much of the same mindset that I don't have a better idea.

Walderman Johnson, any thoughts?

Do you have somebody who can donate the rest of this?

When you have to do with ADA compliance, I think that's a very important thing.

Um because people, you know, who would disable can't get in and out.

Um I um there's a lot of projects here that need that really um, you know, could work, but you've got to, you know, pick and choose which is the most important ones, right?

Now you know a lot of good projects.

But um I mean roof replacement boiler, those are things that you have to have.

I agree, you know.

It's it's said that the Mary Sweeney, you know, where they're senior citizens and windows mean a lot.

Yeah.

Um it's but there's a lot of projects here.

Yeah, I I really agree with the uh the boiler in particular, looking at the notes and seeing that that's uh a 22-year-old uh unit at this point.

I would also say it's worth observing that the um transitional program for National Children's Home is a pretty specific program that we don't have any other like really any analogous programs.

We kind of had the beginnings of one when Stepping Stones was operating, but even that program showed how exactly difficult it is to address this.

But if we look at like when do we not want to need a warming station and how do we really tackle homelessness, children's home is is hitting the right on the head with the some of the most at-risk population.

So, you know, ensuring they can continue to do that, I think is is the investment here.

And then largely what was guiding most of my other priorities is will their boot building get ruined by a roof or leakage or something along those lines, and can people get into it?

The only saving grace for me with the um Nashville Center is I think they identified the entryway as more of a security concern than an access.

So that's what they said.

I don't feel better about that, but Mr.

Chair, one comment, please.

Uh just in case anyone notices the omission, the housing improvement program and the rental improvement program, we're not asking for any additional funding, the remains funds in those two accounts.

So I just left it off the score sheet.

Okay.

I was actually thinking that.

Seems to well, barring any um further discussion or amendments, I will make a motion to provide a recommendation of the public facility request allocations as allocated by the human affairs committee.

All right.

Alderman Johnson.

No, thank you.

Oh, I will abstain as well.

And seek clarification before it comes to the case.

Should we do my roll call just so we can get your abstention on the uh I don't care?

I just wanted to say it.

Sure.

Go for it.

Okay.

So you're the one to do it.

All right.

Uh Alderman Senate votes yes.

Uh Alder Woman Kelly.

Abstain.

Alderman Lopez.

Yes.

We have two yeses and one abstention.

All right, so stating the obvious manager youngers, if further information comes to light, if anybody says, oh, well, we did find another way, or we could finish our project for a fraction of it, then we would definitely look forward to that information.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

I can copy down that later.

Um do you want to just proceed through the rest of the idea?

Yep.

I think we've got a whole lot of nuns.

Yep.

We already did it, right?

Uh yeah.

I knew that's true.

Uh there is none.

Table in the committee.

None.

General discussion.

Maybe we'll do that another time.

Uh public comment.

Oh man.

Laurie Ordolano 41 Berkeley Street.

Um, just a couple things.

Uh I see how intensive the process is to try and really pick and choose what you gotta do.

Um I am concerned by some things in uh community development, um, being able to track what's going on.

Um Director Sullivan mentioned that he takes responsibility for the 24-25 reports at closeouts not being online, but what I didn't get an answer to is are they done?

Are they available?

And um I and I notice he's not even looking up, but do if I put a right to know in, can I get those tomorrow?

Are they available?

Would you like me to respond to that, Mr.

Chair?

Uh yeah, if you want to.

I believe Ms.

Lano is referring to the CAPER.

The consolidated performance report.

I believe that's what's being referred to.

And the 2024 Caper is complete.

The 2025 caper, I believe, is in process with HUD right now.

It's the very last report on the website at the very bottom.

Yeah, I believe you're referring to the Caper, Ms.

Ordalano, and that that report, the 2024 report is absolutely available in the 2025 report is in process with HUD right now.

Okay.

Yep.

So um the other thing is I know you mentioned that I put in some right to know's.

One of my concerns is that when I think there's an instant action record, like I wanted the lead grant, the $7.7 million grant that was grant but that was given out.

I put it in like a week ago.

That to me is a document that's probably a couple hundred pages, maybe more, maybe double that.

I don't even know.

But it's a big document.

To me, either that's online or I should be able to I don't think that has to be edited.

I mean, um redacted.

I would think that's a public document of awarded.

And you know, I'm still waiting for that.

I couldn't get it.

The other thing was Thursday after the hearing on Wednesday in the public hearing regarding the um the um uh lien or whatever the process is we use for the three-year recapture period when we do let abatement.

I was looking to see if we actually had done a document like that.

Put that in.

That to me is another instant record.

If you've done it and it didn't get filed and you it's sitting somewhere in a file, I would expect to get that.

And the only reason I say I want to get it quickly is because you're voting quickly.

This is all happening immediately.

And I'm not of course, you know I'm not a supporter of what went down here, but I'm not alone.

I mean, I know Derek Thibault would lead you to believe I'm the only one with that opinion.

But I am not alone.

And uh so when I put these things in, I'm looking for, yes, some response.

I understand things that have to take a month if there's redactions or two or have to be done in batches.

But some of the things I'm looking for, I'm frustrated by because your time frame is so accelerated that I think um, you know, uh I'm trying to get records to be informed uh based on what you're doing.

Um also turnover within that department.

I think the board as a whole, not just this, but the board of aldermen should really address the turnover in there with human resources.

What's the reason?

Not just say it's turnover.

What if you have a management problem?

We don't consider that because we have management here and it's too offensive, maybe, or it's not comfortable or it's not good.

But how do you get it out?

I mean, you have to have that discussion.

And I think we just gloss right over that.

Um, I heard a lot of I take responsibility, that's great.

Um, but I think there are other concerns.

And you know, I followed up with a settlement agreement in there, and yeah, I'm I'm concerned about what I read in those records.

I mean, I got all of the records from the Department of Labor.

I'm concerned.

Thank you.

All right, thank you very much.

I will ask the question for form.

Is there any other further public comment?

There's no one else in the room.

Umderman.

Why is everyone looking at me?

I'm just looking at that direction.

Everybody's on this side.

Um I will share my pithy observation uh to what was uh just said about the turnover in the department.

I think the community development department and uh Manager Youngers, if you could just sort of ear mouse a little bit here, keeps getting better jobs.

So that's where manager Julian went, that's where Director Um Marshant went, that's where Julie Tismus went.

When you're a developer in this area, you can make more money in the private sector or another institutions.

So that's my two cents.

I don't think it is a management issue.

Mr.

Chair, may I comment?

There have been several statements made about turnover in community development, and I I actually wish Ms.

Orlando had maybe she's here still.

There's a misunderstanding of what departments are in community development, if I'm being frank.

There are six departments constituting nearly 40 staff and an additional 30 staff that work for a contractor of community development.

Community development is not 19 individuals, it's not 18, it's not 16.

Inaccurate.

We have had turnover.

We have had several retirements, we had a death, we had interns that were counted within the number that was presented to the Board of Alderman.

We've had seasonal interns.

We have had very limited turnover in community development, with the exception of low-paying minimum wage jobs that exist at our front counter and our transit department.

That's a fact.

And I'd be happy to prove any record to defend that.

Okay.

I am not a perfect manager, but the idea that we have some systemic issue with turnover and community development is frankly just inaccurate.

And I only bring it up tonight because I'm going to address it during my budget review meeting.

And I'm not I'm not speaking to the board here, but I am obviously frustrated by the comments that have been made.

And the people that work in my division are frustrated by those comments.

And I feel there's an obligation for me to respond.

And again, I'm not suggesting that we are not without our staffing challenges from time to time.

I think I've actually spoken openly about that.

But I I do reject some of the information that has presented to the been presented to the board, and I'm happy to clarify that during the budget review process so that folks have the facts.

Thank you.

Well, for my part, the comment that I was referring to is only the three that I've observed over ten years.

No understood Alderman Little Pass.

I just no no no thank you and I'm sorry for being a bit of a seem to be earmuffs please they do seem to be finding better jobs which is a reflection on us as well.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Seeing none can I get a motion?

Oh sorry Alderman Kelly move to adjourn.

All those in oh Alderman Johnson.

No I'm just ready to go.

No objection we are adjourned.

We didn't vote.

9 p.m on the dot you didn't have to do that.