City Council Meeting Consent Agenda E – Changes to Fiscal Year 2022-2023 Budget Calendar

The City is proposing some shifts in the budget calendar:

• Canceling a previously planned Council Budget Work Session on March 8 and scheduling an additional Work Session on April 26.

• Presenting the City Manager’s Proposed Budget to City Council on May 24.

• Holding a Public Hearing on the Proposed Budget on June 14.

• Adopting the FY23 budget on June 28.

We want to make sure that folks know about these shifts in the schedule, especially the Council Work Sessions, since it is so important that we advocate for community needs while the budget is being drafted.

City Council Meeting City Manager Report – Neighborhood Grant Program

The Neighborhood Grant Program is a grant-matching process, which is already underway, to support neighborhood-based organizations in funding improvement projects.

We are concerned that this presentation doesn’t reference any kind of racial equity lens in the administration of this program. We wonder whether one has been applied or if there is any collaboration between the Community and Public Engagement (CAPE) department that is overseeing this program and the Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI). In previous years, OEI ran a similar project, the Racial Healing Mini Grant program, which we are disappointed that the City decided to discontinue. The Racial Healing Mini Grant program had a very explicit racial equity lens, and we would encourage this new program to adopt some of those same parameters.

American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) Work sessions

Council and City staff met this past Tuesday and Wednesday to hear presentations from 24 community groups petitioning the city for funds from the ARPA, also known as the COVID-19 stimulus bill. The process for distributing the significant remaining funds (about $10 million) is outlined here. The meeting was covered in the press here.

While not included in the list of proposals that went through the process described above, Councilwoman Antanette Mosley and Vice Mayor Sheneika Smith are advocating for ARPA funds to be used for a track at McCormick Field, in the East End/Valley Street Community. This initiative is covered in the press here.

We appreciate the leadership of Councilwoman Mosley and Vice Mayor Smith on this issue, lifting up the racial equity aspects of this situation, and urging the City to honor promises made to this community.

Follow Up: County Commission Meeting (2/1/22) – New Business: Budget Amendment for Additional Funding for Low-Income Energy Assistance

Last week, we expressed the concern that there was no demographic data for this program, and so no way to evaluate whether it was being handled in a racially equitable manner. We have since learned that racial demographic data was collected and reported on at a Buncombe County Department of Health and Human Services Board Meeting in June of last year. According to this report, 19% of the 8300 households that were approved for assistance at that time were Black households. 41% of eligible Black households that applied were approved (in contrast to 14% of eligible white households).

We appreciate that the County is collecting this data, and that it appears to show that the program is being administered in a racially equitable manner.