Ann Land and Bertha Henschel Memorial Fund Commission Special Meeting

The Ann Land and Bertha Henschel Memorial Fund Commission met in a teleconference-only special meeting on Thursday, October 29, 2020, beginning at approximately 3:59 PM. All eight commissioners were present and a quorum was established. The sole agenda item was review and comment on a draft regulation regarding grant award procedures, with direction to staff. No consent calendar items were considered.

Consent Calendar

• None. No items were listed on the consent calendar.

Public Comments & Testimony

• No public comments were received during the meeting. The dedicated public call-in phone lines were down, so no callers could participate; the commission noted that public comment could be submitted through the city's eComment portal.

Discussion Items

• Draft Regulation on Grant Award Procedures (Item 1): Staff and Senior Deputy City Attorney Joseph Cerullo presented a draft regulation that consolidated documents previously approved by the commission in November 2019, including commission priorities, updated grant guidelines, application form, grant evaluation matrix, and funding awards matrix. Staff stated none of those documents had changed.
• Commissioners raised two clarifications to the draft standard funding agreement: (1) a reference to the city manager would remain valid regardless of the upcoming strong-mayor ballot measure, and (2) the "separate accounts" language should be clarified to mean separate accounting records, not separate bank accounts. The city attorney agreed to make this change.
• Mandatory applicant attendance: A commissioner proposed removing the requirement in draft regulation sections 6.2 and 7.2 that grant applicants attend the funding meeting in person or virtually. Supporters argued the requirement is burdensome for small nonprofits, especially during the pandemic, and that attendance should be strongly encouraged rather than mandatory. Opponents argued that mandatory attendance allows commissioners to ask questions, prevents funding ineligible uses from escaping scrutiny, and that applicants can easily attend by Zoom or phone. The commission also discussed whether to retain semi-annual report requirements (section 6.6) and considered revisiting both issues following the next funding cycle.
• Roll call vote on removing mandatory attendance: A motion to remove items 6.2 and 7.2 from the draft regulation did not pass. The mandatory attendance requirement was retained.
• Zoom meeting procedures: In response to a commissioner question, staff explained that, for the November funding meeting, applicants will be invited to join the Zoom meeting, the chat feature will remain off for accessibility and documentation reasons, and commissioners can use the "raise hand" feature to communicate with the chair.

Key Outcomes

• The commission voted to forward the draft regulation to the City Council for approval, with a change to the standard grant agreement's item four to require separate accounting records rather than separate bank accounts. The motion passed 7-0-1, with Commissioner Bonnerwell abstaining and all other commissioners voting in favor.
• The motion to remove the mandatory applicant attendance requirement failed, so the regulation continues to require attendance at the funding meeting.
• The commission deferred further discussion of the semi-annual report requirement and attendance policy to next year's process review.
• The meeting was adjourned at approximately 4:36 PM.