Recommendation to Authorize the City Manager to Disburse Money Donated to the Fund-Wide Alameda Strong Community Relief Campaign as Follows: 60 Percent to Small Businesses, 20 Percent to Non-Profit Organizations, and 20 Percent to Alameda Renters. (Community Development 256)
Recommendation to authorize the city manager to disperse money donated to the fund wide. Alameda Strong Community Relief Campaign as follows 60% to small businesses, 20% to nonprofit organizations, and 20% to Alameda renters. All right. And who's presenting on that, Mr. Burton? No. Yeah. Oh, did I miss Potter? Hi. Here you are. Um. Uh, can't hear you. Yeah, it's. It's, um. How did you do it before? Did you style it? It just. This is Louis Butler. I'm here to see Ty Keller, Community Development, Economic Development Division. I am prepared to give a brief staff report if you'd like, or I can answer questions. I know it's getting late. Yeah. Counsel, um, do you. Do you know my brother? Just for the sake of the public? If you could go quickly. Operative word being quickly over a staff report, they'd be lovely. All right, so on April 21st, the city council approved a $600,000 COVID small business relief program. At that same meeting, the city council was concerned that the demand and the need would far outstrip the strength of council directed staff to create a public private partnership, to solicit tax exempt donations to supplement the Small Business Relief Grant Program. At its May 19th meeting, the City Council approved the creation of a Alameda Strong Community Fund to provide emergency grants. To. Small businesses, nonprofit organizations and residential renters economically impacted by the COVID pandemic. Through the website that has been created for me. The strong people can and companies can donate to the three funds previously mentioned, or they can donate to a one fund that will be dispersed as the fund wide fund and staff is recommending that the City Council approves the. Distribution. Of the fund at 60% to small businesses, 20% to nonprofit organizations, and 20% to eliminate it renters. Alternatively. The City Council could authorize the city manager to. Disburse. The general contributions using a different formula to disperse the zero contributions in the same rate so that the funds are received in the individual funds or. Directed staff to return to City Council to. Determine the allocation of the funds once a. Threshold funding level has been. Achieved. That's my report. Thank you, Ms.. Butler and Ms.. Potter, are you still struggling there? So are you. I'm sorry. Oh, I know. I'm in there. You are. But all I wanted to do is hand it off to Lois, so it's perfect. He just gave a nice overview of the council. So we're here to answer any questions. All right, I appreciate that. Um, and I would just like to say, I'll just lead off really quickly and say that I think this is a wonderful idea. The Alameda Strong Fund, I think it's been a little bit of just it's been impacted by so many other things going on right now in our city. Just, you know, on a greater national level, we're we're dealing with a lot of crises, but this fund will be here. And so when hopefully things settle down a little bit, the need is not going away. Our small businesses, our ranchers, we are doing things to help our ranchers. But, um, the longer the shelter in place goes on, the, the more help people are going to need, which is, again, so important to wear your mask in public. Um, we, we can, we can really reduce the spread and help get businesses back to, back to work. But anyway, this is, this is what's in the fund right now. And we are asked to vote on, you know, approving the recommended allocations. And Madam, quick, I forgot to ask, do we have you you said there were some public comments. We had on this. One. Did you. Two. People who submitted comment. But we think they might be on the zoom and raising their hand and wanting to speak directly. Adam Kirk, are you muted? Oh, I'm speaking into the mic. This city manager has his hand up. I do believe that we have two submitted public comments will double back on that. So I Mr. Leavitt. I'm just going to clarify the city council that there's four funds within this relief fund. One is as as Lois has said once, one is for small businesses relief fund, one is for renters assistance and one is for not for profits. And then what we're talking about is the allocation. If someone does it to the general fund at this time, we have very little money in the general fund. Most money donated has been specifically to one of those three specific 500. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um, and do we know the total amount that's been donated thus far? Yeah, um, the last estimate I have and I, I can go ahead and I just got it tonight. The last time I had was and I'm just giving you round numbers about 30,000 and the business relief, the it's about two or about 6000 for renters assistance and about 2000 for not for profit. And it's less than a thousand that I received that I received in the report for the general the general allocation. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And Madam Quirk, did we get you back to hear the public comments? Hopefully you can hear me now, can you? You can't hear me muted. No, I'm not muted. I am. Speaking into the mic. Loudly. That mis texture really quickly. Cause if we have public comment we should hear them. I stop working? Um. Okay, we're switching mikes because maybe my mic went out. Can you hear me now? You still can't hear me now. Okay. Counsel, does anyone have any questions or comments? Oh, boy. Um. I am calling the city clerk. Maybe I better call her. Now the mayor, councilmember and councilmember Jay Thug. Councilmember, they said, are you muted? Sorry. Yes. Can you hear me now? I can. Okay. When people make contributions to the East Bay Community Fund as the I guess the fiduciary agent of this, are they being given some kind of sheet or something slip that allows us to be some kind of tax deduction? Yes, definitely. The funds are tax deductible and they are giving an electronic supply like that. I think that says how much they have donated. I think letters. Can you give me that? Okay, great. Thank you. Appreciate that. Natalie, can you. Oh. Oh, yes. Can you do that? Okay. Okay. We are trying something creative. The city clerk is having trouble getting her connection. She's going to try to read the letters through my microphone. Let's give it a shot. We have got clothing. Oh, hi. Okay. Can you hear? Councilmember, give me a thumbs up if you can hear. Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Bowling. Okay. Let's see if it works. Uh, yeah. I just wanted to say quickly that I think it's a really good program. I think one of the things that I would ask is I don't think there's been a lot of like marketing around this funding specifically. I think I don't think many people know about it. I think I can probably help with that a little bit, um, through my channel. But I think, uh, the $30,000 is really, I think we can do a lot better than that, especially with, with, we saw the community come out outpouring for a member of our community that had his car vandalized and within one day had $10,000. So I think there are there is funds in our community. I think if we just get the word out about it. And I think on the this if you look on the Web page for the city, the general city funds the way the buttons are set up on the Web page, it's different. So I think people are having a hard time finding that. But outside of that, I think I think this is a great thing for our community. And I just wanted to, to, to to make that comment and yeah. Thank you for for the comment staff. I will just say note that name. Okay. Um, let's see. So we are, we, let's see if I can call back. So I think we have one more or if it's a live speaker. Is that what. I don't know. It's just at the bottom of the screen is. Uh, Mr. Potter, is that you? Is that your number? Oh, uh, well, okay. Let me try. Um, Madam Clerk, I know you can't communicate. I'm going to call you on your cell phone again. And if you've got a letter to read, hold my phone up to your microphone. Uh. Uh, uh. Better yet, um. The clerk has emailed the letter to Assistant City Manager Bowden, who has disappeared. It is on mute. Um, there you are. Did you get the email Abbott kept on me? There you go. Though he looks like a well-oiled machine. It. I just have to find it. So let me let me just grab it here for my inbox. So severe the top. I'm just. Sure. Here we go. Here we go. Ben Kaleka. All right. All right. So at the meeting of Waba Darbar GABA and the Chamber of Commerce and City of Alameda on May six, the issue was brought up about not preventing sole proprietors to count as employees and the criteria for qualification for the next series of grants. This was widely considered as a significant oversight in the first set of grants, and we had been informed that we would have a chance to address this in the next round. The group universally agreed that this restriction should be removed from the grant from the next grant, particularly when it came to brick and mortar retail shops. The recommendation was quotations. The applicant must be a small business or nonprofit with up to 25 employee employees, end quote, which removed the doesn't count as one problem. However, that was done instead. What was done instead was to take sole proprietors of restaurants and put them in the You Are Fine group, but put the retailers into a group that would at least be qualified but for half the amount everyone else could get. Why is this important? Many of the businesses that are that are an important part of what makes Alameda unique and attractive are these kinds of businesses. They include little jams like the sewing room and yes, 20 games. We serve hundreds of kids and adults in Alameda, giving them a place to learn kindness and mutual respect. And we have we have between three and five part timers on staff, usually having their first jobs in high school, giving businesses like ours a chance to survive through. This is exactly why the city why the city has done these grants. We are we are most we are some of the most valuable. It is, however. Good, good. The intention was the first the first time around. The distinction between a sole source, proprietor and employee is a matter of accounting. Choosing to take a draw is often what sole proprietor does so they can make sure that the business has what it needs to survive before they take out anything for themselves. Frequently they will have a couple of part time employees, but they tend to work far more than full time themselves to keep the business around to serve. Alameda The state has made changes to the unemployment criteria to acknowledge the illness of work that we sole proprietors do. A couple of years ago, an issue with a landlord put put us in a situation where we could have closed our doors. There was such an outpouring from the community that I knew I could not take away something that meant meant that much to them. I could I could make more money doing something else. But I choose to work my heart out for the community that has cared so much for me to be told now that all the work I do only counts as half a business is dismissive and dismaying. This is a simple, unnecessary issue. Please repair it this time around. That concludes that. Next we have Ronald Mooney, Honorable Mayor and City Council. I hope you will clarify the issue of sole proprietor business applying for funds from the Alameda Strong campaign. I believe a brick and mortar store proprietor or one that works out of commercial unit for clarity should be eligible for a full grant even if they have no employees. I certainly would agree a sole proprietor working out of a residential property should be eligible for the reduced 50% amount. And that concludes the public comments. All right. Thank you. Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Bowden. Okay. And so we finished public comment, and I think you saw the vice mayor stand up, did I not? Yes, yes. Yeah. Thank you. I think they have the assistant city manager. I'm not sure who to ask this question, but actually both those letters that the last one, what was described there, I thought was what we did. I thought we made it clear that there would be a half you could get half the money if you were a sole proprietor working out of your own house because you didn't have the same rent. But the sole proprietors who had brick and mortar stores, regardless of whether they were commercial or whatever else, would be eligible for the first. That's not the case. I guess I'm a little surprised. By the reaction. Yeah, that is the action that the council took in May and that is the way we interpreted the direction and that is how the program funds will be disbursed. Great. So for Mr. Carpenter and Mr. Mooney can feel confident that what they were concerned about is not five, seven, eight, 916 is a part of the current program. Has been right. Mr. Mooney's characterization is absolutely accurate. Sole proprietors of bricks and mortar businesses will be eligible for. A full 7500 sole proprietors that work out a home based business will be eligible for one half of the amount. Thank you. All right. Just to clarify, because we set up a meeting, we were interpreting that as 50%. So now we've gotten the clarification. It will be what what Mr. Potter just mentioned. All right. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Butler. Thank you, Mr. Potter. Any further questions from staff? Okay. Have it in motion. Mr. Counselor Rody has had it. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And thanks. In this butler, Ms.. Potter, for your presentations, I would move to give the city manager authority to disburse the general contributions 60% to small business, 20 to nonprofit, and 20% to either renters. So we had a motion. Vice mayor has his hand up. We have a motion. It's been seconded. Any discussion thing then maybe we have a roll call vote, please. Councilmember de. SAG. Hi. Yay! I'm back. Madam Clerk, are you going to be able to? You know what? I'm sorry she called in. Okay. I kept seven white guy. He's right by that last time. As we are back. Hi, Carrie. Sci, five eyes. All right, good work. Okay. Madam Clerk, are you are you able to introduce item 64? Is that a problem? I can do it. You can do it. All right. Take it away. Thank you. Thank you. Staff recommendations. You ready? Yeah. Recommendation to authorize the city manager to execute a contract with the construction code for correct parking lot improvements. Madam Speaker, not to exceed 406,000 or in the alternative, reject all bids for Cherry Creek, a golf course parking lot improvements number of W 2012 and provide direction for a lease amendment with Greenway Golf for rent reduction. A requirement to fund and construct the truck like a golf course parking lot and sewer line. Thank you. And I believe that we have here Amy Wooldridge, Recreation and Parks Director, who will present this item. Welcome, Ms. Wooldridge. Thank you. Mayor Ashcroft. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'll keep this brief as I know it's late. You have two options before you. Regarding the improvement of the parking lot at the temporary golf complex, the city is required to renovate the parking lot for the current lease agreement with Greenway Golf, and we have funds that were allocated to do so last fiscal year.