Neighborhood Council To Discuss Possible Grant Spending Limits

The will on Thursday evening address a longstanding topic of debate head on--how to spend their limited annual funding allotment.

The agenda includes a motion by neighborhood council member Trisha Gossett, which would set a spending limit of $1,500 on any single funding request.

Gossett's motion also calls for neighborhood council funds to be "equally distributed among [Highland Park] schools, taking enrollment into account."

The discussion comes nearly two weeks after the window for requests for neighborhood purposes grants for the current fiscal year closed and as the council prepares for a coming year in which their budget could be significantly reduced.

According to Treasurer Mark Reback, the board had slightly more than $88,000 to work with this year, a result of about $40,000 from the previous year's budget being frozen due to the misspending of past board members.

While the budget for neighborhood council's has not yet been determined for the coming fiscal year, Reback said it was almost certain they would have a budget of no greater than $45,000.

In , Gossett has argued that the board has allocated too great a portion of their annual budget toward sports programs that benefit only a small portion of the neighborhood.

Earlier this month, the council approved a motion to give $5,000 to the Lincoln Heights Youth Association Football and Cheer Team for the purchase of new helmets. Students from Highland Park are eligible to participate on the Lincoln Heights youth team.  The council also voted in favor of giving 5,000 to a community group that is trying to establish a wrestling team at Benjamin Franklin High schools.

In February, debate swirled around a $2,200 request from Richard Ledesma of American Legion Post 17 to send three Franklin High School Students to Boys State/Girls State leadership seminars from  June 18 through 25 on the campus of Cal State University in Sacramento. The request was eventually approved.

Janet Dodson, who has been one of the most vocal opponents of many of these funding allocations, has said in recent meetings that while she sees the benefit of many of the programs, she believed that the council's money could be better spent on community outreach and supporting revitalization of the business corridors on York Blvd. and Figueroa St.

In February, Dodson said the council's sponsorship of a pair of letters that will be relit on the Highland Theater sign as well as the trimming of trees on York Blvd. are the kind of quality of life improvements that the council should be putting their limited resources toward.

Other board members and community stakeholders have defended the allocations, though, saying that many of the young people who benefit from neighborhood purposes grants develop into community leaders.

According to the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE), "A Neighborhood Purposes Grant must provide a demonstrable benefit to the community. [It] should build community through the implementation process and enhance the neighborhood once completed."

Luis Antezana and Erik Duarte, the two youngest members of the council, have said they are both evidence of how the community can benefit from investing in youth oriented programs. Antezana and Duarte both attended Benjamin Franklin High School and participated in team sports. They've both also spoken in favor of financially supporting sports and academic programs at the high school.

Treasurer Mark Reback told Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch that, while he agreed the neighborhood council should work to ensure that funding is equally distributed across the community, he also didn't think they were in a position to be turning down groups that made the effort to request funds.

"Our budget must be spent before the end of the fiscal year, or we risk losing the funds and having them go unspent, which would be a loss for our community," he said. "We’ve been really working hard on outreach to engage the community and let them know we’re here for them and to urge them to bring us their concerns and projects, so it’s my opinion that we shouldn’t turn away the people who do make the effort to come to the neighborhood council for help with funding their projects."

The council is scheduled to meet on Thursday, April 21 at 7 p.m. at the Highland Park Senior Center, located at 6152 N. Figueroa St.