Gov Ops Committee recommends Project HOPE funding, defers Together Place decision

[0:07] Michael Beck: All right, we are live. Okay, it is now six or seven p.m. This is the government operations committee. I'm the chair, Michael Beck. Before I begin to interrupt introduction, we're missing counselor Dean tonight. I'd like to appoint councillor Leonard in place of councillor Dean [0:22] Joseph Leonard: to serve on the committee for tonight. I will begrudgingly accept. Okay, mr chair, although I'm not on this committee, I do want to point out that in agenda item number three, which is the ARPA distribution update and organization where I do serve volunteer a member of the board of directors is listed, and I feel strongly that means I have a [0:44] Michael Beck: conflict of interest with that. Okay, since you're not a member of us three, you can vote. I hear him soon. He was planning just to leave the room at that [0:53] Joseph Leonard: time. I guess what I wanted to make very clear to everybody here, let me do [1:00] Michael Beck: introductions and we'll come around to a motion to be able to solidify that. So I've got committee members comes with fish, counselor Mallor, also god joining us, council chair Hawes, I've got the city manager Lear joining us, I've got councillor Carson with us, a newly appointed member council letter joining us as well as councillor Faloon. So the question is whether or not councillor Carson and council walk around, I'm so sorry, yes, and a member of council Walker, question is whether or not councillor Carson has a conflict of interest on agenda item number three, the arbor distributions. Get a motion or thoughts. I mean, I'll I'll [1:45] Joseph Leonard: make the motion that our council Carson has a conflict of interest. I will say though that I'm not gonna vote in favor of that because we're not making a decision on this tonight on anything. This is just an update. So I just don't see that you have a conflict of interest here. Because in the past, when we had ARPA discussions where people did have conflicts of interest, when a decision was being made, they would vacate the room. But whenever we were getting updates on those ARPA items, when no decision was made, no counselors would leave the room because no decision was made. So I don't see an issue here with you staying for the discussion to, participate. [2:27] Michael Beck: We have a motion through a second on the conflict. [2:32] Carolyn Fish: I second it. I leave it up to council Carson that if he's comfortable, it's just an update that we're not going to be participating in conversation. So I don't see that there's a conflict, but if you feel more comfortable leave [2:45] Joseph Leonard: in the room I may go to you, but I don't see an issue with it. Second, there is a [2:50] Michael Beck: Conflict since it is zoom we'll do roll call vote starting with Councillor Walker. [3:00] Joseph Hartel: I'm [3:06] Angela Walker: voting on whether this is a conflict for Carson. Yes, I will vote yes. [3:13] Michael Beck: Yes. Okay, Counselor Fish, no. Okay, Counselor, I'm sorry, Counselor Meller, no. Okay, and I will be a no, and Counselor Winner, no. Okay, so it is one yes or no. Thank you. Okay, so there's no conflict on this particular item. All right, now the other thing before the committee is I have a conflict on the very first item. I'd like to ask the committee if we can move number one to the very end so that way when we do the temperature and everything else I can just hand it over and the objection to moving the discussion on together place to the end. Okay, no objection. Okay, so that brings us to the what is now the new first item, accepting and appropriating up to three hundred thousand dollars from Main Housing with that one hundred twenty six thousand dollar from Bangor Opioid Settlement Unspent Funds to support Project HOPE, and joining us at the table is Bangor Public Health Director Jen Gunderman. [4:18] Carollynn Lear: Thank you, Archie, good to be here. I came and spoke to you a few weeks ago about this project and about their proposal. At that time you had two specific questions, one about if you were to implement Exhibit E from the Opioid Settlement Funds Memorandum of Agreement, And I have provided in this order, resolve, reference to where it does align with Exhibit B. The other question that you had for me at that time was the exact number of people that we plan to serve. And that is listed just like Portland Project HOPE aims to serve 90 individuals and households in the Bangor area and successfully place at least 45 into stable housing. Say so there's those were two questions that you had at that time and I've addressed those and put [5:10] Joseph Hartel: them in there and saw any [5:16] Michael Beck: other questions before I have a few myself. The only question I have is [5:23] Wayne Mallar: I didn't understand, I guess, that this is all being controlled by Portland. Yeah, well, that's what it says as I read it, they're the administrators, they're facing the director. No, so what I provided [5:35] Carollynn Lear: for you in the overview was an example from Portland. The funds would be given directly to us, the city of Bangor, by Maine Housing. We choose the coordinator. We work with the other organizations. We control the funding. So I guess that gets me to the follow-up [5:56] Wayne Mallar: Question. That leads me to, well, what else can't we believe in this that you gave us? Because that's very definitely spelled out that I don't know the question well it says Portland will assume the role of program administrator and will hire the program coordinator. So therefore what faith do I have and what else is in here? This was we're mirroring the Portland program. [6:20] Carolyn Fish: And Jen provides you a copy of the foreign program to show you what we would be mirroring. My apologies if it wasn't clear, but did you have to be harsh to assert that it was not [6:34] Wayne Mallar: credible? Well, for me, it was not credible. So I did assert it, yes. And I find that if we're giving information to the council, we need to have it written as if it were coming to the council, not it was going to someone else because it gets very confusing. [6:51] Michael Beck: Sure. I mean, I took it as to be, there's an example, was it our plan, like this is where Portland is and then we would have to adopt it. Did you have any other follow-up questions? That's it. [7:00] Susan Faloon: Thank you. I'm not on the committee but just a question. This is a one-year program right so after one year what would be the next step? It would just and, or you'd come back and if it was successful, then ask for potentially funding to continue. [7:26] Carollynn Lear: This being a pilot year, this is the opportunity to understand what works for us here in Bangor and what our sustainability models, the city of Portland decided to use, we'll get settlement funds to continue with that match. This would also be dependent that main housing would want to continue providing their part of the funding as well. So this is really seen as a pilot program to understand if this model would work well. If it didn't, would we need to end it? Would we need to modify it? What could that potentially look like? [7:59] Susan Faloon: Yeah, sure. So what happens to the people who are housed if after a year we end the program? [8:06] Carollynn Lear: Great question. Whenever we go into something like this where we're supporting individuals, we're always looking at contingency planning. So we would either be focusing on referring them over to a case management agency that was much in line with them. If we were coming to the end of the program and there wasn't gonna be any additional funding, we would make sure that we're not taking on new clients. We'd really be having an ongoing conversation to make sure that we didn't leave anybody in the lurch. [8:33] Speaker K (unidentified): Mr. Wunder. [8:34] Joseph Leonard: I have a question and a follow-up comment. Comment. So the last thing when we talked about this, the idea came up about using unassigned fund balances potentially for this as well if we weren't going to be using Opioid Settlement Fund funding. Would that be an issue at all for your department if we were to use those fundings as opposed to Opioid Settlement Fund funding? [9:00] Carollynn Lear: The only thing that Maine Housing is requiring is that there is a match that comes out of new funding. We couldn't sort of leverage another position or other funding that's in use, so that would be a decision up to you to decide if you wanted to support this for that matter. Sure and [9:17] Joseph Leonard: may I make a comment? So I don't, I'm not against this at all. I feel like we as a council, if we do want to go forward with this as a project, I think it's actually important for us to go forward with some of our own skin in the game, because I don't want us to develop a pilot program with the potential I did and to piggyback off what Councilor Falunza point was, for it to be something that we deem to be not worthy of continuing as a program. Like I want that pilot program to be a stepping stone to an actual successful program, and I fear that using opioid settlement funds for this potentially gives us that safety net that we could institutionally prepare ourselves mentally for the pilot to fail, and I don't want that to happen. And so I would rather we utilize the opioid settlement fund money for something else as opposed to this pilot project, because I actually do like the project, but I think it's, if we are gonna do this, I think it needs to be a recurring program that we are guaranteeing is going to be here, not just for one year, but for the foreseeable future. I think as a council, because we don't know what council is gonna change over the course of the next couple of years or not, I don't want citizens to become attached to something that's only going to be replaced after a period of time, because we use one type of monies for it and then once those monies run out we don't actually have institutional skin in the game anymore. So that's my comment. So I would approve of this with unassigned fund balance money, but I'm not really a huge proponent of using opioid do it yourself and find money for it. [11:23] Carolyn Fish: How are the individuals, the 90 individuals, going to qualify for the birth qualification? [11:32] Carollynn Lear: The birth qualification is that they need to be living outside or in their car, that they are truly experiencing homelessness. And we'll work on a little bit more of the eligibility specifics because some of the funding is coming to us, to Bangor Area Homeless Shelter, to Preble Street and Shaw House. The idea is that because there'll be a position in each one of those places that they've already started to build relationships with a lot of their clients or community that come to their space. So the idea is that those people who meet that eligibility of being homeless will be people that agency's already been engaging with for a while and have been building the relationship. The one thing that's important about this program is that there's going to be a lot of nuance to it because we want to really make sure that it's people who are on a good path to progress to housing, that have a little bit of housing readiness, and then just need that sort of wraparound support. And that happens with first just relationship refilling. So the most important criteria is that it's someone who's been experiencing homelessness. homelessness. So the next criteria is that there's been that relationship building with the organization. Yeah. [12:46] Carolyn Fish: So, and I understand that this is going to be administrated through the city. So, I'm for the funding, especially on the onset to be used from the opioid settlement. I think that it qualifies under that. And, I think where we have the homeless this committee would be really to me advantageous to have them look at this program and participate perhaps in how this goes forward as a as a pilot program and I think too that even though the city's a partner I think one of the things we failed to do in the past and maybe could have been better at putting some I don't know restrictions but some things we expect in there for reporting and accountability. So we have better, you know, once we approve it and it's gone, we don't have any updates. We don't know where it is until someone comes in and says, well, it worked or it didn't work. So, and I think for decades, maybe we could have been better partners and maybe made better decisions if we had more, just been more on top of it, I think. So I think this is great. I think the service providers you mentioned Two are all ones we're familiar with that are working very knowledgeable in this, so that's in, because they're already engaging with those service providers locally. I'm, I feel more confident that they would be out of our own framework community service, so those are [14:20] Carollynn Lear: my comments and thoughts, and I appreciate that. I think one of the things that I've heard the council say quite often is where's that coordination happening, and I think one of the beauties with this funding is that because we are overseeing it, we can, for lack of a better word, kind of force that coordination. I don't think that'll be a problem with these partners, but we'll all be working on the same goal, all be working under the same expectations that we can have that accountability and coordination. [14:48] Michael Beck: So I just had a few follow-up questions. Of the 90 households that we're targeting, do we know what percentage that we're targeting that are going to have documented substitutes? [14:59] Carollynn Lear: That's tricky. We can set a percentage if that's where the council felt comfortable. The challenging part with that is then we dance this delicate dance about asking people to disclose sometimes information that may take some time to gather, so in many of our programs we gather a number of pieces of information like our rental assistance program, and so we don't have a goal set on the percentage of people who are experiencing substance use disorder, opiate use disorder, one of the things that's important in thinking about using opiate settlement funds, if that's where you wanted to go, is that homelessness can make addiction worse, and it can also be a risk factor for addiction. So even if somebody says that they're not experiencing opiate use disorder or substance use disorder now, the fact of being homeless can set them at high risk for that. That. So we'll be looking to models of how we collect data with our other programs to collect data appropriately for this program. [16:02] Michael Beck: Sure. And I'll follow up to that. So it sounds like your prevention pillar is where this [16:07] Carollynn Lear: would fall under. It kind of falls under two different pillars. It can fall under prevention, but can also fall under wraparound services for people experiencing opiate use disorder or at risk. [16:18] Michael Beck: Okay. And then regarding the organization, I know the portal one seems like it's heavily [16:25] Carollynn Lear: So Portland equally distributes the funds between Preble Street, Common Space, and Milestone, and they all equally work together. [16:38] Michael Beck: Okay, and that's kind of what we're setting up here. [16:39] Carollynn Lear: That's exactly what we're setting up here. Okay. [16:42] Michael Beck: And then, are we in a place where we can say who the organizations are, or is this kind of one of those things where like... [16:48] Carollynn Lear: It would be, so Maine Housing was very clear that what they're interested in is the model where it is the e-shaps providers, so those are the emergency shelter providers, so it would be Pebble Street, Shaw House, and Bangor Area Homeless Shelter, and I've already met with [17:06] Michael Beck: them. Okay, I get to the one place, I guess I'm, I'm having pause not about the program, but just the funding has been brought up, just because, you know, the where this came from was, you know, it was basically under duress, crisis, you know, hey, HIV, no one's filling the space, no one's doing this work, and that's why I was given outside of the process they ended up coming up with. And so now this money's taken out of that crisis situation. I just worry about the optics for the community as far as, you know, can we find a way to go back and get that input from the recovery community on this $126,000. So there's a lot of good programs out there that possibly could have gotten some funding, but just missed that cusp. But then now here's this swath coming back. Just hypothetically, and I don't know who to answer this question, but if we were to say, hey, we like the program, but we wanted different funding sources, is that a matter of amending this order? Order, if we wanted to do that, or how do we get that discussion? Because in my mind it's two discussions. First discussion should have been, okay, the money's coming back and here's why, and then okay, now the discussion, okay, what do we do with it, which that's where we've landed. And I just, if I say yes to this, what am I saying no to? That's what I'm missing here, is what am I saying no to? And right now I have no other alternatives to go with this. That's, that's my two cents on this. [18:46] Carollynn Lear: Can I just offer one thought just to start, is that this money, as I've described, comes out of the unspent funds that was given for intensive case management. What's interesting is that what's proposed here in this project is of the same model, it's intensive case management, but the focus is from the HIV outbreak. And the predominant priority is around homelessness and housing. So it's a pivot from what that funds were originally. But I just want to maybe add that perspective to it. And I hear everything that you're saying, particularly when there was a process. I think there's multiple ways of looking at how to spend the city's opiate settlement funds. But I just wanted to clarify that we are straying a little bit from HIV being the driving factor for the service to homelessness, but it's a very similar model on that intensive case management. [19:40] Carolyn Fish: So to answer your question about we could certainly if the committee's will is to support the program about funding in a different way, that was the vote of the committee. We could prepare an amended order to include in the packet for Monday to vote on. I think the one thing I would raise as someone who wasn't I didn't create sort of the opioid settlement fund process so I'm not invested in that particular model so one observation I have just sort of seeing it through is that the committee decided to limit the award amounts to fifty thousand dollars per applicant and what that means is that a project like this would never have even been proposed and I worry that this is not the only example of that from the pot of proposals that we've seen. That because the committee made the decision to break them down into such small chunks of funding that some of the bigger more impactful meaningful proposals actually just didn't even get proposed because you know the community knew that was going to be far in excess of fifty thousand dollars to do it so I think my head I have hesitation about comparing it to the pot of what we already saw because it's just in a different scope entirely I mean it's triple the size or even more because I mean. Our match is triple in total it's you know exponentially larger than any project that someone could have. [21:15] Michael Beck: Another follow-up one of the things I heard moments ago I liked is by having the homelessness committee kind of weigh in on it and I guess a clarification is are we thinking you know them you know doing the program and then weighing in and see how it goes and participating or what do they think ahead of time and then and then decide whether or not to go with this program I guess that would be my clarifying questions which would be the two ways to go because I like that direction I like having. That extra input, you know, I think both will work, but a good question. If we wait for their answer ahead of time, I think we mentioned this is a kind of time sensitive thing where, you know, Main Housing not going to wait forever for us to make a decision. So I guess I don't know what all the implications there. How do we factor in their input? What's most appropriate? I [22:06] Carolyn Fish: don't have the answer. I do agree that it would be difficult timing wise if you were to want proactive committee input. It probably wouldn't be received until early, just based on the agenda that they have and they're stressful for meetings, so it would delay probably for about a month to do it. Correct? Come to learn, I was just going to [22:33] Joseph Leonard: say I think the way I see our relationship with the homelessness committee right now is to be active participants and partners in solving it together. We're the action-oriented body of this problem and they are the brains behind it. Right now, I think we need to play a bit more proactively in how we assist them through our actions. So I'm actually completely fine going forward with supporting this program. If staff really does think that this is going to be helpful to the city and potentially also helpful to the homelessness committee, but if I were to make a motion, I would make a motion to go forward with this by changing the funding source at the end of the day. [23:25] Carolyn Fish: Mr. Fitch? Where would other funding come from? So the only other funding that I have identified would be from unassigned fund balance. [23:50] Michael Beck: I guess the one thing, if there's some way to put into this project of just making sure we are putting the emphasis on substance use disorder and making sure, because I know there's a lot of thought of, you know, I guess a lot of people who are homeless also have substance use disorder and they absolutely agree that this is also going to help with prevention, just making sure that, you know, everyone, the whole public, understand substance use disorders on the forefront of this decision one way or another, how do you know you went that and preventing those from getting substance use, you know, disorder. So with that being said, I mean, so when your program is, you know, helping a lot of families and if we can make that emphasis, funding sources opioid settlement in the front, that makes sense as long as we're making that the emphasis, not just oh by the way, you know, not saying no one's doing that, but the stomach can feel that way. Oh by the way, you know, if you happen to have substance use disorder You know, so be it, but that's where I land is I'm okay with this as a funding source as long as we're putting the emphasis and when the program rolls out of you know it's about substance use disorder and getting those folks housed and preventing those folks who are vulnerable to, you know, developing the disorder from getting. Councillor Flink. [25:12] Susan Faloon: Not on this committee, but my concern with sending it through the Committee on Homelessness is that it's, you know, all right, it pushes it back a month. This could potentially get people into housing before winter, right? But pushing that back, it's going to take some time to make that happen. And then I just feel like we're going to be right back where we were last year with trying to find a place for so many people when this could get moving pretty quickly. So while I can't vote in this committee, I would be in favor of it. And I agree with what Councillor Beck said too, [25:51] Joseph Leonard: regarding the fundings. Councillor Fish. [25:55] Carolyn Fish: Where it's a pilot program, I can think we should use the opioid settlement funds and then see where we're at. And maybe after we are the committee and we're the council this goes council for coho so I do think we have to make the action because this could help people before cold weather and then maybe still have them look at it we've made the decision it's after the fact but it would be good moving forward is this might continue how it might be tweaked or better used and you know general assistance funds I just think that you know yes this is a major crisis we have but we have a lot of elderly we Have you know mental health we have a lot of people that have severe mental health issues too and I just want to be more mindful of other people and families that have serious you know mental health issues outside of substance use addiction so for now I would agree that I would be in favor for this program to be open at once and I and I understand their leaders concerns I think that it would qualify in my opinion Yeah can I add to we through the award process that happened last year there were projects that were approved in this similar vein where it wasn't sort of directly treatment it was sort of wraparound services and the ask that we had of those grant recipients was to be able to report back on a proportion of individuals who were assisted who had opioid or substance use disorders so I think we could talk about how to make the reporting consistent so that you could compare program to program what Was sort of the biggest bang for your buck as far as reaching people. [27:52] Joseph Leonard: all impacted chair may i make a motion yes chair i would like to make a motion on accepting and appropriating up to three hundred thousand dollars from main housing with a 126 000 match from the unassigned fund balance to support project hope i think the motion would have to amend the original sorry you're absolutely correct i 'll say it again i would like to amend the current council order to accepting and appropriating up to three hundred thousand dollars from main housing with a one hundred twenty six thousand dollar match from the unsigned found balance to support project. All right, and so just to be clear that would be [28:38] Michael Beck: making the recommendation of the full council because full council would actually have to do. Yes, full amendment. All right, well that's the motion. Is there a second? Okay counselor Walker seconds. Does everyone understand the motion? Okay, we'll do a roll call vote. Counselor Fish, no you're not the walker. Yeah, I think you're muted. So the motion's been made in second and do you vote yes or no? Counselor Walker trying to figure it out she [29:43] Carolyn Fish: has to click it on her side. [29:45] Michael Beck: You have to click Demi on your side is what they're saying. We'll let you, would we accept a vote in chat if she's able to type it? It has to be verbal. [30:07] Carolyn Fish: Maybe if she goes in and out of a meeting. Do you want to do the rest of folks and then maybe we'll come [30:13] Michael Beck: come back. Okay councillor Mailer. Yeah councillor Leonard. Yes, I'm actually going to be a no. So that would make it three. Whether she votes or not they would still be defeated, but if she does come around you know just for the record. So the motion fails. So we're back, still need to make a recommendation to full council. I'll entertain another motion. I [30:41] Carolyn Fish: make a motion that we move the council appropriating 300 000 from the housing with 126 000 match from the bingo opioid settlement unspent funds to support the project. Okay. [30:55] Michael Beck: Is there a motion? We have a second. I'll second it. Okay, we have a motion in a second. Any further discussion or would be good for the roll call vote here. All right. [31:08] Joseph Leonard: No she comes back, we technically believe him to do a roll call though right? Yeah, we wait to see. [31:14] Michael Beck: Okay Councillor Walker, can you hear us? Yes, all right. So how did how do you vote on the first motion that was in front of us from Councillor Lennar that you seconded using unassigned fund balance? Yes, okay. So that was a two yes, three no on the first one, so that's defeated. All right, so the motion second in front of us now is to recommend going forward as is with using opioid settlement funds as the source with the program, and we're doing a roll call vote on that one. Counterfish? Yes. Okay, counselor walker? No. Okay, councilman? No, I'll go under [32:02] Joseph Leonard: I'm gonna have to be a gnome. Okay, yes. So that motion passes three to two, so the recommendation I'm sorry, I'm a yes and you and Councilor Fischer are yes by Pelser Maller Councilor Walker [32:18] Michael Beck: myself or gnomes. Okay, no, my apologies. Okay, so that fell, so it's not to pass [32:24] Carolyn Fish: so well I think it would just go without recommendation. Yeah, yes, without. Okay, well that covers that item and what will happen is we always do I'll amend this narrative to explain what the vote was here, so it will explain it was a discussion of funding source and then what the [32:48] Michael Beck: vote was. Okay, I appreciate everyone catching that very much. Okay, and that brings us to our next [32:55] Carolyn Fish: item which is the arpa distributions update. Yes, so as some of you most certainly recall, the city received over 20 million dollars in arpa funds from the federal government and through an arduous and years-long process awarded that money to various applicants, and since that time we've been tracking their spend of that money, and so how it works is if you're an organization that received an allocation of money, we didn't just send you a check for a million dollars, you submit expenses for reimbursement and then the city reimburses those expenses through the end of june of this year, 13 million or approximately 64 164 has been dispersed. However, just to be clear, counselor walker had her hand or that about [33:57] Angela Walker: the previous item? I just missed it. No, it was it was for this item that we're going over. I just have a conflict of interest for the arpa going over the arpa funds, so I can log off this and then I can have Courtney let me know when you're on to the next item. Okay. [34:17] Joseph Leonard: Chair, just a point in order. I think we should, because of previously we dealt with the Chancellor Carson, we should make a motion on that. Then go through that, is that appropriate? Sure. So I'll make a motion that Councilor Walker has a conflict and then I'd like to follow up with a comment. That's okay. [34:38] Michael Beck: Sure, we have a motion that Councilor Walker [34:45] Joseph Leonard: I would also have a conflict on this item because I am part of the board for a pink was cap. And so if we decide that counselor Walker has a conflict of interest, then we also have to determine that I have a conflict of interest as well. So in the past, if we haven't been making a decision on these items, then there is no conflict of interest. interest if there is a decision that's being made on the appropriating of funds for these items then as we've done in the past like a previous counselor foreigner did with the ymca or myself with panquist cap we would walk out of the room and not participate in those votes so i 'm going to vote that council walker does not have interest because we're not taking any action [35:34] Wayne Mallar: on this how does it matter I agree with you to a point but you've fully expended your funds for Penquist she has funds outstanding for the bands for bond so I think we need to know what's going to happen with those extra funds so potentially we could be giving them to someone else [35:56] Michael Beck: well I think they should sell and give them to someone else but your point though if we're discussing about their status and everything I agree you know part of it is having a substantial discussion on these items vote or not so we do have the vote that there's a conflict here and this particular item that we have a second and second okay and we'll do a roll call vote on that can we have a clarification this is a conflict [36:26] Wayne Mallar: of interest for just counselor walker or is it for both just for council okay bye okay [36:35] Michael Beck: okay roll call vote councillor fish yes councillor maller yes councillor leonard no and i will be a yes just because there's unspent funds that's part of the discussion so that's three one all right so there is a conflict on this particular item so yeah if you wanted to log off and then we'll let you know when we're we've moved on to the next item [Angela Walker: them okay] any other business on that i think we covered all okay counselor or city manager okay [37:08] Carolyn Fish: i'll start from the top so the city awarded about 20.5 million in arpa funds to various applicants and since those awards were made they've been using the funds submitting requests for reimbursement and the city has been paying those 13 million approximately has been dispersed so far but 100% has been allocated so there's no sort of pot of money out there that we can allocate to something else when this was in the agenda I got some emails from various organizations saying hey you know if There's unspent ARPA funds we could really use. Those we had a deadline of December 31st, 2025 to make those allocations. At this point, if any unspent funds remain at the end of this year, that money must go back to the federal government. So it's really important that we spend that money, or that the people who received those allocations spend that money. So with that said, I was just going to walk through the list that was page two after the memo and talk through the projects that were highlighted in blue. Ask one question. And if I remember right, those remaining allocations have to be spent by December and December this year. That's correct. Okay, just a clarification. Okay, thank you. And so I was going to walk through the list of projects that are highlighted in blue, which are the ones that still have unspent funds. The first on the list is an amount awarded to Panopsta Community Health Center for an expansion of Hope House, which included a HVAC and 16 beds. As of the end of June, they had only spent just under 700,000 of their almost 2.5 million dollar allocation, but I'm in regular conversations back and forth with this grant administrator. Construction and work has really picked up, and I think over the course of even the last two months they've spent down some substantial additional amounts as I've seen those invoices. So at this point we don't really have any concerns about them not spending the bulk of their allocation. The next one on the list is an allocation of one million that was made to Habitat for Humanity for up to six affordable homes. They have spent 675,000 of their 1 million dollar allocation, but they have projects on Valley Grove and Sherman that are all in various stages of work that will be eligible for reimbursement, and so they will spend the remainder of their funds. No concerns there. The third on the list is the grant writer provider that we are funding at the Together Place through the end of this year, and we expect them to spend most if not all of that. 's one where they're going to spend right up to the end before they exhaust funds. Next on the list is Wabana Public Health and Wellness. They were funded to make improvements to their Center on Central Street, they have spent very little as of this. Was the one that sort of made me the most nervous, but I have gotten assurances from the folks a lot enough that work is starting as we speak and they are committed to being done by December. The barn similarly was funded for building improvements and I've been in contact with their executive director. The work is actually happening right now substantially, and so no concerns there with them spending down that money. Food and Medicine Workforce Navigator is next on the list. That's when we're paying someone's salary, so I expect that to come right down in here. And then the remaining three are actually city projects and the grant and homeless housing positions. I actually expect that we will send a little bit of money back, very little that we could do about that. The allocation was very specific to those positions and those positions had vacancies due to transition, so there were some months where we weren't paying a Salary to our homeless response coordinator, but it was too late to reallocate the money, so there was really nothing that we could do about that. It won't be a substantial amount that will be sent back, but the number won't be zero. The line that reads Interagency Housing, that's the Grand View housing project and it's specifically for the site work pre-construction that's going to take place and they are committed to completing that by winter, so no concerns there. And then the last item is sewer and Wastewater infrastructure and you've approved I think about a million here over the last month in contracts to start this work. This is the I-95 crossing and then the site work surrounding it. There's about eight hundred thousand dollars that will need to be contracted out and additional work, and I am on Jeff Davis, our city engineer, on a regular basis to make sure that happens and he's assured me that they'll be able to get contractors into like pipe and do things to spend the last 800 000. So I think although 64% in August, you know, initially feels a little panicky in my book, I think we've done all we can to confirm that the money is going to be spent or at least substantially spent by December. And there's no huge red flags that I would raise for you today to say, hey, we need to be concerned. [44:09] Joseph Leonard: If it's at all appropriate, and I accept your words of confidence, I think it would be appropriate though to request that representatives come from these entities just to hear from them directly, like what their plans are, especially considering some of the dollar amounts there. I mean, voters put their faith in the previous council administration that these funds would be appropriate and used accordingly. And I think the public has a right to know what their plans are at this point, since we're approaching that deadline. In particular, the ones that have the larger amounts. Like I for example I don't really feel like we need to hear from together place or we need to hear from like our own homelessness housing positions but certainly from Wabanaki public health that would be one that I think would be appropriate for us to hear from okay [45:20] Carolyn Fish: So would you say pchc wabanaki farm and habitat i [45:34] Joseph Leonard: I think that's a fair if the council also would like to hear the interagency wastewater treatment infrastructure i would be completely okay with that but i'm assuming we're going to hear from that anyway that's important in the future [45:50] Carolyn Fish: Sure yeah I mean that's that's the I-95 I'm not concerned about someone else's [45:56] Wayne Mallar: I have a question on HEAL was that did we take that out of interest in the end what's going on then because don't we have a are we looking for a refund from the insurance [46:11] Carolyn Fish: Company we are and a request has been submitted but I would need to go back and refresh my memory on where that is to answer any questions about it. [46:23] Wayne Mallar: Because here it indicates that all the money was spent. Is that really true? [46:28] Carolyn Fish: So, I mean, I think for our purposes, it's gone. [46:32] Wayne Mallar: But it wasn't the opera money, it was interest money. [46:36] Carolyn Fish: I would have to refresh myself before answering much of any questions on that. [46:42] Wayne Mallar: I think it's important to know because potentially it's, if we have to pay it back because they really, I know the last quarter they didn't pay [46:50] Michael Beck: So who's going to pay it well yeah i believe the heel actually got six hundred thousand dollars and this 387 is what they spend of it and it's that difference is that the difference yes it's confusing when you see it written this way yeah so yeah so we'll definitely get a follow-up on that insurance claim so we'll wrap with that any follow-up any other questions anything else on this side okay before we get into the item that we moved that's the one i've got the conflict of interest so you'll have to elect a temporary chair to get that last item. Okay, when do you want to make a motion and nominate somebody to counselor Fish? I don't know, I have to wait. Okay, welcome back counselor Walker. So this is the item I have a conflict of interest on, so the remaining members of the committee will need to nominate somebody to be the chair for that item and finish the meeting with that. [48:02] Wayne Mallar: I'll nominate councillor Fish. [48:06] Michael Beck: get one nomination for the count of Fish. Second. Okay, any objection? Okay, pass. Again, we'll answer Fish now chair. Appreciate it. I'll let you know when we're done. Thank you. That's appreciate everyone being flexible on the agenda. Have a good night everybody. So [48:38] Carolyn Fish: we moved item number one to the last, which is a follow-up discussion regarding the Together Place peer-run recovery center budget request. And I don't know if there's anyone want to hear from. Yes, and I will invite you up and let manager Lear also take it away. yeah, so we had talked about this item two weeks ago at gov ops and this is actually the reason why we have a special gov ops on the agenda because you had a conversation about the possibility of providing funding to help build the shortfall in the Together Places budget but did not make a decision and wanted to continue that discussion. And so we're really here to continue that discussion. I reached out to the Together Place this morning to gather what I but with the two most important pieces of updated information. I don't want to speak for you though. [49:49] Speaker K (unidentified): so if you want to. Yeah, so unfortunately about two weeks ago, could you just introduce yourself? Yes, my [49:56] Joseph Hartel: name is Joseph Hartel. I'm the director at the Together Place Bureau and Recovery Center. So unfortunately two weeks ago the board of directors decided to close our day space and our diner due to a funding shortfall. The amazing thing that's happened is the community is stepped up in a major way. So we've received about $156,000. We've got about $63,000 left to raise. We are exploring many different grants. We've got about $450,000 of grants out right now that are that are still hopeful about and we you know we're turning away like 50 people a day and those are people who are unhoused, we're struggling with active substance use and we want to invite them back into space, we want to be able to provide that meal, the connection and we really want to help people get back on their feet. So substance use services, case management, all those types of services, housing navigation, we want to provide those services. And with this $63,000, we'll be able to operate for a full 12 calendar months. And during that time, we've already put together a committee for the sustainability committee. We're working with some consultants and experts to really explore this braided funding model as you know that there's a big problem with untreated mental illness and substance use in the community and we do a lot to mitigate a lot of those crises that come up so emergency room visits and just meeting people where they're at so that they get the connection the support and have a chance at that recovery. So you could really use your help to keep the doors open. [51:56] Carolyn Fish: Does anybody have any questions? [51:59] Joseph Leonard: I mean, I don't have any questions. Just a thing for being here, guys. I just want to make the comment that a big reason why I personally didn't want to give Opioid Selling Fund money to the previous item that we discussed earlier tonight is because I see one that program I want to actually have the city have skin in the game so that it's not just a one-time pilot program it's something that can actually get the ball rolling on having that being a standing service that the city provides and I see right here, an institution that has a lot of connections in the community, has a lot of people that have put their faith in them, and they provide an existing service. And I can only speak from my perspective right now as a person who lives in downtown Bangor. There has been an increase of people that are frequenting downtown more. There are more people panhandling outside of businesses. There are more people in parks right now. There's more open drug use. Whenever I walk to the farmer's market, there are more people that are utilizing public cannabis smoking and other such things. And I'm not trying to denigrate anyone. I'm not trying to make any discoloring comments, But what I'm trying to say, though, is these are the consequences of what we're seeing right now by having an active space that people relied on. There's an increased amount of people now that we are seeing in downtown. It's affecting businesses. More people are using business toilets that otherwise they might be using together places toilets. toilets and we wish that's a service in itself and I'm not making a joke, it really actually is. And I see the distribution of opioid settlement funds for helping them even if it's even if it's not an amount that is going to help them meet their goal, just something, anything to help get them closer to their goal so that they can open their doors again, so that we can reduce the amount of people that are unhoused in downtown that are causing business owners to having to constantly interact with people that really actually need social services that you guys provide. So at this point, like I'm not even trying to make the moral argument, I'm trying to say economically, it is not in the city's best interest to continue to have them not operate Together Place. So I think it's really important for us to make certain that we actually look out for the city's financial and economic interests by understanding the services that Together Place provides, mitigates the amount of 911 calls, mitigates the amount of emergency room visits that people have for preventative issues. And also, it causes less negative interactions at the end of the day. I'm not again, I'm not trying to disparage people. That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm excited. I completely believe in the moral vision that you guys have 100% see eye to eye with you. But I'm trying to make the fiscal and economic argument that it is not a good idea to allow an existing social service that only needs a pittance of funding to continue services to continue to let them not function, even if they only function for another year, which I have full faith that you guys are going to be able to bounce back from this. But let's assume that they only are able to operate for another year, that gives us a year of breathing room to come up with a solution of how we want to handle this problem if it arises again. So I see this as an investment. I don't see this as a loss. [56:22] Carolyn Fish: Anyone else like to comment or ask questions? [56:28] Susan Faloon: Council Palumbo. I'm not on this committee again, but anyway. So can you, I know some of the funding was contingent on you raising the money. So can you clarify like how much you have in hand? I know I asked a similar question last time but sorry I'm a little confused because I know some [56:48] Speaker K (unidentified): of it was contingent on other monies so some figures so I think we've raised around twenty [56:54] Joseph Hartel: five thousand dollars from community donations we've had two anonymous donors step of one matching donation of fifty thousand one matching donation of eighty thousand okay and i think [57:08] Speaker K (unidentified): to 25,000 is an unrestricted donation, right? That's right, so that's what you have in hand, and then the [57:15] Susan Faloon: other funds you will not get unless you get the 63 you've got, right? Yeah, I just want one more comment. This isn't a question or anything, but just something, and it's slightly different topic, but we also have another facility that provides some similar services that has come to us because they have an issue and are in need of some funding to get back operating at full capacity, so I think that's just something to keep in mind as well, and that's Man of Ministries, and they're serving meals and helping people out, I think five, at least five days a week, I forget their exact schedule, so thank you. [58:06] Wayne Mallar: I have some concerns. I can see where Public Health offered to send staff in to help you three days a week and you refuse that. [58:18] Speaker K (unidentified): Certainly, it would seem to be unjust for our staff to be laid off when we're asking the city for help, but the city would send their paid staff in to run our closed down on center while our staff don't get a paycheck, that just didn't seem, but it's not, it's not [58:39] Wayne Mallar: the city's problem to fund your operation in general. You were able to do it yourselves, so you won't accept help unless it's money in hand, therefore I am opposed to anything for you. [58:52] Carolyn Fish: manager lear oh i'm sorry we have counselor walker sorry i didn't see your hand [59:02] Angela Walker: you have a question or comment you'd like to make yes i actually wanted to make a comment about together place and my feelings around obviously i think counselor leonard said it great about you know it's a year coming what's going to happen after a year i think i'm a little past that wondering what's going to happen i know that we discussed in workshop before about Together Place veering a little bit off from it being from its mission statement and what they have on their website as far as like It being a peer-run Recovery Center, I just wanted to read something really quick that it says, "Together Place peer-run Recovery Center empowers people living with mental health challenges and or substance use disorder to make informed decisions about their recovery. Members engage in intentional peer support with other members and staff who have lived experience of mental health or SUD." My only thing that I had, the reason that I read that was because some of the information that we had gotten in our previous workshop was that how they were looking to get clinical staff in there looking into main care funding for that for the center i just want to put it out there that yes i do think that we can we should move forward in helping to keep together place going i actually and i know that they help a lot of people with sud that would you know encompass a lot of the opioid settlement fund but i also want it known from me that i am a big supporter of intentional peer support and i think that center from the get-go, when they first got the state funding to run that, 's the passion that runs that, and I think moving past that into clinical is really a struggle. I think when you look at peer support and you look at this in that capacity, we are to resource out to people that are clinical so that we are utilizing all of, and I know Counselor Fish, you say this to the experts in these areas, we, that center resources out to them to help people that come to the Together Place and not have that service there. I'm really kind of on the fence about Together Place and it running in a different direction other than what it is, but that's all I really want to say about that. [1:01:41] Speaker K (unidentified): Thank you, Council Walker. I answered the council's concern. Yes, thank you, counselors, for having us here. So centering peer support is absolutely the core of our mission. So intentional peer support, peer recovery services. However, there is a gap when people walk out the doors to whether they access the clinical service at a different location. We have staff who are both peers and have certain designations. I, myself, am an emergency. I, myself, am a housing navigator. I, myself, am a certified recovery coach. So what we would do is start with that peer support model. It will remain front and center, and then other services would be seamlessly added onto it so that you would go from the direct experience of working with an intentional peer support specialist or the direct experience of working with a recovery coach and you would then be able to go right out into the case manager who would that could then hook you up to whatever other service you would need if you look at a lot of the other agencies in town the clinical agencies are adding peer support services but they're doing it from a clinical service first and then adding the peer recovery coaches we are starting from a peer model and then and adding in the clinical support there. That leverages our existing connections with organizations throughout the area. And it also leverages our existing peer relationships with our clients all throughout Bangor. So, you know, you're looking at people here with lived experience of substance use disorder and getting through it and recovering. You're looking at people with lived experience of overcoming mental health disorders. orders. And that, particularly when we talk about opioid settlement fund money, those of us with lived experience, those of us who paid for it with our lives, that money is intended so that we who know best how to get through this situation are able to provide that service. And we're not doing it from a top-down approach. We're doing it from an equal peer level. But we also do bring in some of that clinical expertise that can be leveraged. But it does not de-center the peer model. That remains the core mission of Together Place as a [1:04:14] Joseph Hartel: recovery center and a peer-run recovery center. And I would just add, I think it's only something that we're exploring because of this funding crisis. I think, you know, at the heart of it, I'm somebody who you know really loves peer services and peer support recovery coaching and certified intentional peer support so you know I don't think we've made a decision to go for clinical services I think we're discussing the idea and exploring options and looking at possibilities thank [1:04:51] Susan Faloon: you I'm sorry she didn't raise her hand [1:04:54] Carolyn Fish: Counselor Walker did you have want to come back to that yes I just wanted to say that I [1:05:00] Angela Walker: really appreciate you Shane and Joe for showing up for Together Place and to listening to some of these things and sometimes we have to have uncomfortable conversations and to get you know where we need to go so I appreciate you both being there I just wanted to put that on [1:05:16] Joseph Leonard: Thank you counselor. My [1:05:19] Carolyn Fish: perspective is a little bit different, having been a business owner and having to go to banks and ask for money and not coming from money and having to work from a young age. And I know when I go to the bank, they want accountability. I have to prove what I've done to keep myself financially stable, what my plan is. And I have to prove that my budgets and my priorities and my goal setting, my strategic plans have been successful. And you guys have been in business for 45 years, I think. And you've had a great service, so it just concerned me that at this stage that, you know, I just think you're planning and I understand you lost a huge grant that was a big blow and your financial ability, but at the same time I think your top priority since this is your livelihood should have really been keeping your eye on your grants and focusing on those grants. And, you know, coming to us as a city, you know, when we have only so much of a budget and we say yes to this, you know, we're not the bank. And when we look at this, I think it was, you know, I think what you've done is great and I agree with Councillor Leonard that we've seen an uptick from the people that did have a place to go during the day. Those people have been here, there's been some recovery as a result of their interaction with you over the years and that is something that we need to continue to support, but you know I was even tough on my kids about earning their financial keep and accountability and proving to me that they were going to be worth whatever they asked me for and I just think that this was more in your court of responsibility and now you've come to us and I don't think it's our responsibility. I do think that this is needed and it saddens me that you're closed, but I think that it opens the door for many. We've already had a number of other people that have had issues coming in and asking, so you know I just wish that as business people at 45 years that your top priority would have been those grants and getting that grant money or plan for a, you know, what happened, plan A, plan B, plan C, and you know and it just feels like it's too easy to come to the city and ask for help and you know being sympathetic. As we are with our own house and the situation, we shouldn't say yes a lot, but I think that it's kind of getting to the point where the star is going to break the camel's back, and the public wants more accountability, and you know, I don't blame them. So it's really tough as council people that your heart wants to say yes, but our fiscal responsibility, and I have to look at you kind of with tough love and say, it was your responsibility to make sure you weren't here. And after 45 years, you really shouldn't be here right now. And also personally, banks ask me when I go to ask for a commercial loan, they want me to put my personal property on the table. And I know there's a sub-chapter. I know it's a different entity. City, I did the same thing, I had a separate LLC in case my business went under, I could protect my bricks and mortar, but again coming back to you, I think as owners you have personal assets that you should go to first before you come to the city and ask the city for money. So I have great empathy for our own house and our mental health, and you know, my husband had mentioned just the other day, back in the day we go on occasion to together place, and he said it was a different world, but for that world Those people had a happy place for them to go, so I would like to see that continue, but it's really tough as a counselor who is decisions affect everybody and to say yes to this when we have so many other people, and I think the responsibility for this was [1:09:27] Speaker K (unidentified): More new court than our court. Thank you counselor, I do agree, we had, there were mistakes that were made that led us to where we are today, and we own that, we take responsibility for that. We are not the organization that lost that grant. We have an entirely different board structure now, we have brought in, we remain peers, all of our board or 51 or more of our board our peers who have experienced it, who are living it, and then we have brought in a much greater range of professional experience in order To make sure that we are never in this position that we find ourselves in now. You are a hundred percent correct in terms of if you're, if you're a business owner, yeah, it's your, it's your money on the line. My, when my parents had trouble in their business, they took themselves off the payroll so that everybody else could stay on the payroll. I myself, I'm a monthly donor, everything that I do, every service I provide, in fact in, we have been running for free a homeless day program for the city for many Months now unpaid. We don't do it for money. In fact, I donate so that I can do it for free because I want to see Bangor succeed. And I and I know that there's a pathway through recovery where we can solve these problems and we can reintegrate people into the community so that they are again contributing, so that they are able to go to a bank and convince them that they can get a small business loan because they've done the work to get from where they are now on the street struggling with substance use back on their feet into education, into job training, developing those life skills, developing the connection and the resilience. That's how we move people forward. You know, we have people who are reintegrating from the prison population. How do they move forward? They've gotta have some job navigation to help them get into the places that are open for them, because a lot of places are just gonna turn them away. And if they get turned away, where do they end up? They end up downtown Bangor doing those things. We're an organization that works on all of those things and we have done it for free and we can't afford to do it for free anymore. So that was a very painful decision, but we have been doing it. We have been here. I don't think we've done a very good job communicating all the things that we have been doing and not getting paid for, but we do them anyway because they need to get done. I spent many nights over this winter in the warming shelter keeping 45 people alive, keeping them fed, reversing overdoses. The city needed that and we said yes, we'll do it. 's a slightly different mission, but these are still the people that we serve. We are not a program from a different city. We know every single person who is here. We know their names. We know where they come from. They trust us because we've worked for them. It's very hard to get people to respond to a new case manager coming in from the outside. It's much easier, it's much easier to live together, to work with somebody that they already know. I would also like to emphasize that we are ready on day one to deliver those services [1:13:02] Carolyn Fish: so doors open up and would this monies be paid back? Are you proposing that this monies would be [1:13:11] Speaker K (unidentified): paid back to the city? We had not, it was not my understanding that was part of the discussion, but we are interested in continuing the discussion with the city and delivering the accountability [1:13:22] Joseph Leonard: And transparency you're looking for. I'm not trying to make a motion, but I would want to maybe suggest like a vision or guidance that this committee can take, which is regardless of what the action is. But thank you for that comment on wanting to potentially open the conversation on maybe this is a loan that you pay back. At the end of the day, does this council, does this committee right now want to pursue a direction that assists Together Place reopening its doors, or do we as a committee want to not be part of the process to help them open their doors? Because I think we do need to answer that question at the end of the day. So because we can have these conversations over and over and over again, but I think we do need to be very clear to Together Place and to ourselves on what our direction is so that we don't keep wasting each other's time. [1:14:27] Carolyn Fish: Well, I think maybe Manager Lear can give some input as to her ideas on this money that they're asking for. Yeah. So, and you don't have a proposal in front of you. Councilor Leonard had a council order before you, I don't know, two, four, six weeks ago that would have funded the Together Place out of unused opioid settlement funds. And so at this point there's not anything before you. I would be looking for your direction on where you would like to go with this. I think that there are really not many pots of money available. You've discussed those pots already on another item today, but if you direct me to draft something for you to consider, I will do so. I think I'm sorry, I think I would also be looking to you for guidance on either whether you would like me to make a recommendation on parameters and safeguards, or whether you have particular parameters and safeguards in mind. Because I think one of the things that has given me pause is just the overall financial viability, given the need to procure grants to stay open and just ensuring that if the city is providing funding for a resource that they're expecting to be open for a year, that it will in fact be open for a year. And so my biggest fear is if we find ourselves in a place where that's not the case. Go ahead, Councillor Palou. [1:16:21] Susan Faloon: Again, not on this committee, but we had talked in the last meeting about if we did move forward with granting some money, like the potential for dispersing it, like maybe on a monthly basis or something like that. So just a reminder of that piece of the discussion. [1:16:37] Carolyn Fish: And I think my question for you folks would be whether that would satisfy your matching [1:16:43] Speaker K (unidentified): requirement. A monthly disbursement? I believe it would. We will confirm that, but we both believe it will. [1:16:54] Carolyn Fish: So it sounds like we could have the funding from the opioid, we have enough money from there, and then maybe we could talk about other suggestions you might have for other concerns so it would definitely be an either or proposition so the amount of money that we have in opioid settlement funds is sufficient to provide the matching for the home for good project hope project that you talked about earlier or to provide for ongoing funding for the together places services but not both [1:17:36] Joseph Leonard: just a related but not related to the financial conversation regardless of what direction we go tonight I think it's incumbent on the city and I know I've said this a number of times but we have to start creating the foundation of our own health department to actually take on the responsibility of having our own day space is having our own warming shelters so that if this comes into a future issue we have the and i'm sorry to say guys but like we have the ability to say no in the future but the argument i'm making today is we actually don't have that option to say no it's actually more expensive for us as a city to have you guys stay close right now but regardless of what the decision we do here tonight, we actually need to start that process of creating a foundation for our health department to actually meet the needs of what is happening with our spectrum of poverty individuals. I don't think it's fair to rely on nonprofits and faith centers to do what is the city's moral responsibility at this point. [1:18:55] Carolyn Fish: Understood. And I believe that our homeless committees is supposed to you know we'll be hopefully looking at us as partners along with all of that and come back to the strategic plan and hopefully that will help address that issue i'm sorry i'm just wearing this screen i'm still walking thank [1:19:16] Angela Walker: you councillor fish i have two things that i have questions about together place and funding are you guys are we still looking into the day space on the rfp for together place and is that included in the funding that we're asking for and also towards the end of the year are we looking at funding also another warming center at together place and is that included in the money that you're asking for the next year thank you yeah i can answer that so we are so the grant for warming [1:19:52] Joseph Hartel: Warming shelters came out from HUD this last Friday, so we won't be asking the city for any dollars for the warming center. As far as the day space, we would love to have the homeless advisory Council consider that proposal. But in terms of what we could provide with this sixty thousand dollars, would be 12 months that we would be open, and that would be providing the Second Street diner, we'd continue operating employment connections, and then we'd also be providing the overdose response team and the day space recovery [1:20:30] Joseph Leonard: coaching probably well and [1:20:34] Carolyn Fish: Julia do you have a suggestion I genuinely think that we're at a place where it's really a Council decision on whether this is something you would like to fund, and whether you have enough information to make that decision and confidence in that investment. I'm not sure that there's anything more that I [1:20:59] Joseph Leonard: can give you on that. And so Leonard, if I were to make a motion on what is, I'm sorry, do you want to ask them a question counselor? What if we were to give monies to you on a let's say a monthly basis, like what is the minimum amount that you would need if we were to do a monthly based fee that we would then expect you guys to pay back at some point in the [1:21:26] Joseph Hartel: future. I don't think that I think the schedule of how the money is paid out is less important than the guarantee that you would be making the match to the other donors. So as long as we can provide the information to the donors that there's that we're getting the money from the city, how much you guys pay out would kind of depend on what makes sense. [1:21:47] Joseph Leonard: Okay. And may I ask a follow-up? So would you be amendable in this hypothetical contract to having this act as a loan, so that you would, once you meet the requirement of receiving all the other funds, this would be one that you would have to, we would create a plan and the condo for you to pay back in the for whatever time predicament that we want to give you guys, but is that something that would be acceptable if we were to make terms like that [1:22:25] Joseph Hartel: so the issue with a loan is that if we were to take on that debt that 63 000 we currently are currently have no debt and so if we were to be showing funders and folks that were writing grants to that we were in the negative at 63 000 it could make it difficult for us to continue to get funding so that 's why a grant or you know a payment to us would be more helpful than a loan but we would certainly be willing to explore what a loan could look like [1:22:59] Speaker K (unidentified): And we would be willing to explore also a contract, if it were not a loan, with clear transparency, clear accountability, clear expectations of what services would be delivered in exchange for that money. It would not just be throw it in the pot and see what happens. It would be this is what we'd like you to do. Now show us every month that you've delivered it. [1:23:21] Joseph Leonard: And we will quarterly reporting. May I ask a follow-up question? So let's say we've entered into a contract and we agree to give you that funding. Where are you in a place right now, assuming your doors open and you have the funding and we give it to you in a predicament? And but let's say if there's more fundraising coming in, we the city would decrease the amount of funding that we would have if there's more funding, all that considered, would you be amendable to also showcasing to the city via contract you will provide x service, x service, and potentially additional services as well? We would absolutely explore that, we would. [1:24:15] Joseph Hartel: Explore that, it's a board decision, but we would we would definitely entertain that, speaking as. [1:24:20] Speaker K (unidentified): The president of the board, we would entertain that. Okay, so. [1:24:25] Joseph Leonard: I guess if you don't think for. [1:24:27] Carolyn Fish: I guess a motion so that we can sign as a committee we want to move forward. I would make a. [1:24:35] Joseph Leonard: Motion that we but per the acceptance of the board's decision that we the council enter and draft a contract to work with Together Place to supply a monthly amount of money to the dollar amount that they need in order to meet their 220,000 funding goal, with the idea that they will provide to be determined in the contract what those additional services are and how they will continue to update the council on what they are doing and to notify us new incoming fundraising that they do to mitigate. The amount of fundraising that we do with them in the future. I know that was very complicated, I apologize, but I feel like we need to have more of a discussion on that, but I guess that would be my meandering motion. We wouldn't have anything to add to that. [1:25:46] Carolyn Fish: No, counselor Walker. [1:25:51] Angela Walker: Yep, I appreciate that, counselor Leonard, how you put the motion. I do agree, I'm not in favor of a loan to Together Place, but I am absolutely in favor of a contract of monthly accountability and giving us a monthly update and what the additional services are that are being provided at Together Please. Thank you. Okay. [1:26:24] Carolyn Fish: So these monies would come from, okay, we just, okay, and so where. Would these monies come from? So the two buckets of money that I'm aware of are opioid settlement funds or unassigned, excuse me, unassigned fund balance. [1:26:48] Joseph Leonard: Depending on what the opinion is of the committee, I mean, I would amend my motion that would be specifically from the opioid settlement funds. I don't feel comfortable giving unassigned fund balances to a non-profit. I would rather we actually utilize our unsigned fund balance for the city so [1:27:19] Carolyn Fish: that'd be my amendment. And I would agree that I feel that not coming from unsigned funds, and as far as it not being alone, I understand it puts you in a tough predicament, but I would not like it if you had a lot of grants come in the day after we give you this money, and then therefore that money has been taken out from something else that could benefit other people that come to us in need of help. So I don't know how we could be creative with that. I don't know, maybe if it's even zero interest, but I just think we need to be tougher about consequences and accountability. So I don't wanna put such a burden, it makes you feel before we even start to help you succeed, but I'm not comfortable just saying, here you go. Out, so I understand it come from opioid settlement money, but at the same time it's monies that could be used for something else. So I would say, I don't know if the wording would be a loan, but if we find their flush with grant money in a few weeks, as I see all 700 and something thousand dollars worth of grant money, I would like to see us reimbursed for it. [1:28:30] Susan Faloon: Counsel, thank you. I would just suggest, and again not on this committee so I can't even vote on this, but maybe something like that the city will give up to $63,000 on a monthly basis, which could be reduced if additional funding is raised. So it would guarantee that they would get the money that they needed to get the match. We would be giving that guarantee, but if other donations come in and they get that additional funding or they get a portion of it, then we would meet up to, so say tomorrow they get, you know, 30 000 from some other organization or some other donor, that then we would still do the monthly payments, but you know it would be reduced by that difference of the money that came in. I don't know if that made any sense but [1:29:32] Carolyn Fish: Okay, so did we 've really given you? Yeah, so I don't think I have clear guidance primarily because I think it needs to be guidance that's based on a majority of the committee. I'm not sure that there's a clear majority yet on what council would like. so let's take consensus of first of all do we want to give I think the bottom the direct answer is do we want to give together place the sixty three thousand dollars that they want Council Leonard sorry was there a second to that no I'm just trying to get a consensus if there's consensus thumbs up thumbs down so who else do we have it's the left here and who else is there counselor walker thumbs up thumbs down just trying to get a consensus so we can give so we've got okay and i'm a down so that's three to two, so I don't think we've got no, this is two to two,, I'm sorry, I think I'm getting late, that's the letter I, we [1:30:47] Joseph Leonard: should have honestly probably done this when counselor beck left but we probably should have appointed another person to have that fifth vote but we didn't i don't know if we actually can [1:30:58] Carolyn Fish: I don't think we have to appoint someone. Might I make a suggestion? Because I do think that you are particularly challenged in situations where you don't have a proposal in front of you, I and you've given the organization a lot of feedback about the types of concerns that you, that you have and protections that you're interested in. But I don't know that the organization has fully determined what will work and what will be palatable in your overall operations. Might it be, the answer can be no, but might it be that for the organization to go back and come back to us with a firm proposal of what would work for you for council to consider that includes some of these things that you've outlined, we are willing to do that. Absolutely. I think that would be helpful, because I think that, I think the consensus is we want to help, the consensus is you've provided a great program for a long time and none of us want to see it close, but it puts us in a tough position to kind of be your banker, and so it would be very helpful [1:32:18] Joseph Leonard: to look at your proposal. Thank you. Did you have something to add? No, I would agree with that sentiment. If Together Place is able to provide us with one or even a couple proposals for us to consider, and obviously we would have the ability to amend the proposal as well, that would, I think, determine and help us to make a decision at this point. [1:32:48] Speaker K (unidentified): Think that's where we're at. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate the opportunity. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Thank you for having us.