Meeting Minutes State College Borough CDBG/Citizen s Advisory Committee February 7, 2017

Transcription

1 Meeting Minutes State College Borough CDBG/Citizen s Advisory Committee February 7, 2017 The State College Borough Community Development Block Grant/Citizens Advisory Committee (CDBG/CAC) meeting was called to order by the 2016 Chairman, Mr. Jay Meashey, on Tuesday, February 7, 2017 at 12:08 p.m. in the Borough Municipal Building, 243 South Allen Street, in Room 242. Me mbe rs P re s e nt Jay Meashey, Chair; Rebecca Misangyi, Selden Smith, and Shawn Bengali. Othe rs P re s e nt Ed LeClear, Planning Director; Jenna Wargo, Planner; Elizabeth Eirmann, Planner- Housing Specialist; Sarah Smith, Staff Assistant; Steve Mower, Susan Venegoni, David Stone, and Mark Huncik. Ap pro va l o f Minute s A m o tion wa s m a d e b y Ms. Misangyi to approve the September 6, 2016 minutes as submitted and Mr. Bengali seconded the motion. T h e vo te wa s u n a n im o u sly in favor. Election of Officers Mr. LeClear opened the floor to nominations for the Chair. Ms. Misangyi nominated Mr. Meashey and Mr. Bengali seconded the motion. The vote was unanimously in favor. Chairman Meashey asked for nominations for Vice Chair. Ms. Misangyi nominated Mr. Smith and Mr. Bengali seconded the motion. The vote was unanimously in favor. Chair Report Chairman Meashey noted that he had nothing to report. He was unable to meet with the House of Care. He reminded the Committee to submit the Financial Interest Report once they were received from the Borough. Public Hour No one was in the audience who wished to discuss items not on the agenda.

2 Amendment Proposed Amendment to the 2016 Consolidated Annual Action Plan. Mr. LeClear s overview included: Proposed amendment to the 2016 Consolidated Annual Action Plan for the reprogramming of $52, in FY2016 CDBG funding remaining from the 2016 CDBG Infrastructure Project: Streetlights College Ave. (from Fraser St to Atherton St.) to the 2017 CDBG Infrastructure Project: Streetlights College Ave. (from Garner St. to High St.). The 2017 HUD budget had not yet been approved so there was no fund allocation available. Staff can put together a pre-award cost in advance if there is a public hearing for projects. The public hearing was tentatively scheduled for March 6. Any plan would have to show how the Borough would handle any cuts in federal funding as well as how any money over the estimate would be spent. The Lighting Plan is being completed by Borough staff and it seems that the project was being completed less expensively than estimated. Money would be taken out of the Lighting Project and put into a contingency fund. If there was no cut to the funding, then the funds would be redistributed to other projects. The recommended budget would be submitted to Borough Council on March 6. If HUD allocated more funds than expected, then there would be an increase in each of the categories. Mr. Bengali made a motion to recommend the amendment to reprogram the CDBG funding as per the recommendation from staff and Mr. Smith seconded the motion. Mr. Huncik noted that the Lighting Project was set to run from Garner Street to High Street and he inquired how the construction of the Rise would affect the project. Mr. LeClear stated that the Lighting Project was not scheduled to go all the way to High Street with the money that had been allocated for the project in He explained that the Rise is required to replace the lights on the street adjacent to the location. Ms. Venegoni inquired if the money that was suggested to be set aside in contingency could be used for another purpose. Mr. LeClear stated that the contingency money would only be used for the human services agencies if the Borough received more money than expected from HUD. Ms. Venegoni inquired how many more years before the Lighting Project was complete. Mr. LeClear stated that he would have the Borough Engineer attend the next CAC meeting to present the projection and report on the project. He stated that the Borough had been using Public Works staff to install the lights rather than contractors. The vote was unanimously in favor.

3 Questions/comments from Board Ms. Misangyi inquired if having money in a contingency fund would cause problems for awards in the future and Mr. LeClear stated that it would not. Revised 2017 Consolidated Annual Action Plan Reviewed the 2017 budget data for HOME and CDBG. HOME had $341,765 in the allocation, but it had not yet been approved. HOME funds had been twice previously proposed to have been removed from the Federal budget. The Borough had started to track Borough staff time for administration and planning. Staff time exceeds the amount permitted to be allocated for this category so the Borough has been subsidizing the housing program in this category. The HOME funds were typically split between the State College Community Land Trust and the Temporary Housing Foundation. In recent years, HUD had been increasing the requirements for these agencies. CDBG had approximately $500,000, but it had not yet been approved. There was a cap of 15% that could be allocated to the human services agencies and these funds were allocated to each of five human service agencies in town. $250,000 was allocated for the Lighting Project. $37,000 was allocated each for First Time Homebuyer and the Owner-Occupied Rehab Program. $52,000 was allocated to the Contingency fund. If there was a shortfall in the HUD funds, then the human service agencies would receive the full 15% that was allowable and administration would receive the full 20% while the remaining categories would be decreased accordingly. Ms. Venegoni inquired if the $37,000 for the Housing Program was where the gap loan was funded from and Mr. LeClear responded in the affirmative. Ms. Misangyi made a motion to recommend the Consolidated Action Plan as per the recommendation from staff. Mr. Bengali inquired what safeguards were in place to ensure that the human service agencies were using the disbursed funds for the intended purpose. Ms. Eirmann stated that the Borough had a monitoring program in place where staff visited the agencies twice a year. Mr. LeClear noted that HUD conducts a monitoring of the Borough every few years to ensure the money was distributed appropriately so the Borough needed to have the records to be able to prove this to the HUD auditor. Ms. Eirmann stated that the agencies were also required to submit quarterly reports to the Borough with demographics of the recipients. Mr. LeClear stated that the Borough submits a report on the beneficiary data to HUD every year. Ms. Eirmann noted that the data that is received from the agencies is only for Borough residents and that the agencies had other funding sources for residents outside of the Borough. Mr. Bengali seconded the motion. The vote was unanimously in favor.

4 Ms. Venegoni inquired if there was a contingency plan in place if the funding would be cut for the human services agencies. Mr. LeClear noted that the issue had been raised with the Borough Manager. He noted that CDBG and HOME funds were often under threat of being cut. He stated that he thought that the Borough would assist in some way, but he was unsure what way the Borough would be able to Meeting Calendar Mr. LeClear requested that the members review the meeting proposed meeting calendar in the agenda and stated that there was one proposed change to move the March meeting to February 28, He stated that staff was hoping to make this a needs hearing meeting in order to make the deadline of March 17 for CIP proposals. He stated that if any member had any other suggested plans for funds then those could be proposed at the needs hearing meeting. Mr. Bengali inquired if there would be a meeting on February 28 and on March 17 and Mr. LeClear stated that the March 17 date was a deadline for him not a meeting date. Chairman Meashey inquired if the public members found the change acceptable and there were no objections. Chairman Meashey inquired if the July 4 meeting date would be changed and Mr. LeClear stated it could be moved to July 3 or July 6 at noon. Mr. Smith made a motion to adopt the proposed meeting calendar with the two changes to move the March meeting to February 28 and the July meeting to July 6. Mr. Bengali inquired if there was a problem with holding a meeting on election day and it was decided to move that meeting to November 9. Mr. Smith amended his motion to include the change of the November meeting to November 9 and Mr. Bengali seconded the motion. The vote was unanimously in favor Conflict of Interest Policy Memorandum Mr. LeClear noted that the Conflict of Interest Policy was included with the agenda for the Committee members. Other Matters of Interest Mr. LeClear stated that the next meeting would be to discuss the CIP and that the CAPER would be presented later in the spring. Mr. LeClear informed the Committee that he was still in the process of hiring for the open Senior Planner/CDBG position. He stated that it would be open until the end of February in the hopes of getting more applicants, but there had been two applicants that he wished to interview at that point. Ms. Misangyi inquired if the members needed to sign the Conflict of Interest Policy and Mr. LeClear stated that they did not, but that it needed to be distributed to the

5 committees every year. He noted that he would investigate the process for the Financial Interest Statement and inform the members. Adjournment With no further business to discuss, this meeting was adjourned at 12:46 p.m. on a motion by Ms. Misangyi and seconded by Mr. Bengali. Respectfully Submitted by: Sarah E. Smith, Administrative Assistant