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ST. CLAIR SHORES — On April 17, the St. Clair Shores City Council approved the Community Development Block Grant budget plan from the Planning Commission in a vote of 4-2.
Councilmembers John Caron and Candice Rusie opposed it. Mayor Kip Walby was excused, and Mayor Pro Tem Chris Vitale conducted the meeting.
The CDBG budget was given $879,172 this year, according to the Planning Commission minutes. This is an $8,107 decrease from the previous year.
This program allows funding for community development. Some of the organizations and charities funded under the city’s grants include the St. Clair Shores Senior Center, Gilda’s Club and the Homeowner Rehabilitation Program.
Organizations can put in a request for an amount of money they want to receive, either by attending the public hearing in person or by submitting a written request, according to Liz Koto, the city planner for St. Clair Shores.
“You do not have to be present at the public hearing in order to be considered for funding,” Koto said. “We all recognize and understand that there could be extenuating circumstances that wouldn’t allow somebody to be able to be present at a public hearing.”
Two separate budgets were brought forward: one set up by Koto and one set up by the Planning Commission.
Koto said each organization requested a certain amount of money and the city would not be able to give them what they wanted because it exceeds what they are allowed to fund. First-time organizations are allocated $1,000 to get a feel for the rules and regulations for the next year, when they will be allocated more money.
Koto said she made a plan for the remainder of the organizations where all of them are knocked down by a percentage.
“For the remainder of the public service organizations that we have funded in the past, we then knock them down all by an equal percentage so that everyone gets sort of knocked down equally, and that is the budget I recommended to the Planning Commission,” Koto said.
The changes the Planning Commission made were to reduce the amount of funding for Care House and to give an extra $2,000 to the Hockey Enablement Fund.
The second recommendation was to reduce the amount Gilda’s Club received and give an additional $2,000 to the McWarm warming center.
Councilwoman Candice Rusie disagreed with the Planning Commission in reducing the amount Care House gets, stating that they need that money for the services they provide.
“I really don’t want to reduce the amount we give to the organization that does forensic interviews of molested children for St. Clair Shores … to give a sports association more,” Rusie said.
Rusie said that, every year, it is difficult choosing which organizations get the funding.
“That’s the hard thing every single year. This is really difficult,” Rusie said. “I mean, it’s not always difficult. It’s really good when we have exactly the amount to give that we have to meet all the requests (that) were made, and unfortunately, this year we can’t do that because we are not getting as much money as we usually get from the federal government.”
Councilman Dave Rubello said he felt the same way as Rusie in this respect.
“To make these types of choices…there’s (a) need for all of this stuff, that’s for sure, in (this) type of world,” Rubello said. “I mean, we have a lot of good in our world, too, but there (is) some awful stuff that goes on.”
Councilman John Caron said the formula Koto made was a good way to go.
“Just having a kind of a straightforward formula base for here’s how we’re going to do it is definitely a fair way to go,” Caron said.
Rusie made a motion to accept Koto’s recommendation as planned.
Councilman Ronald Frederick wanted to keep the Planning Commission’s plan, stating that Care House receives funding from other communities. This answer was provided by the representative for Care House when asked about other funding at the Planning Commission meeting the public hearing was held at.
“I always want to err on the side of helping our programs that help the kids here in the Shores,” Frederick said. “And I know Care House does do stuff with kids in the Shores. They also have $120,000 coming from other communities that they spread around.”
He also pointed out that the Hockey Enablement Fund doesn’t have any extra funding to turn to.
“I don’t think hockey has other funding,” Frederick said.
Frederick also said another reason he would like to see the Planning Commission’s plan come to fruition was to help McWarm, which he said was packed.
He originally moved to amend Rusie’s motion to restore the four recommendations in the Planning Commission’s plan, but St. Clair Shores City Attorney Robert Ihrie said that would completely supplant the other motion.
Rusie said she doesn’t want to create the appearance that money is being given to certain organizations because a member of the Planning Commission or City Council is involved in that organization.
“Just do it fair,” Rusie said. “Do it fair and proportionally. I think it removes any sort of appearance of impropriety, a sort of concern that anything is happening that shouldn’t be happening.”
The council did a roll call for Rusie’s original motion, to approve Koto’s plan, and the vote was 3-3, with Frederick, Councilman Peter Accica and Vitale opposed and Rusie, Rubello and Caron voting yes.
When they did a roll call vote for Frederick’s motion, the Planning Commission’s plan, the result was 4-2, with Rubello switching his vote to approve the plan and Rusie and Caron voting no.
