The Santa Maria City Council had a busy evening at its Aug. 5 meeting.
Council members voted on several key items, including the appointment of new members to the city’s block grant advisory committee and a resolution opposing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recent budget proposal.
The Santa Maria Block Grant Advisory Committee is responsible for assessing community needs, reviewing applications for funding, and making recommendations to City Council on the allocation of city grants.
Prior to appointing members to the five-person board, council members
discussed whether or not having a person employed by or on the board of a nonprofit organization on the committee would be considered a conflict of interest.
According to a staff report, other city councils have discussed the issue and created ordinances to prevent conflicts. For example, the city of Lompoc has an ordinance barring paid employees of nonprofits in the Lompoc Valley from being on the grant advisory committee.
The city of Santa Barbara, on the other hand, requires that appointed committee members disclose their affiliations that might cause a conflict of interest.
“[Employees of nonprofits] really are experts in their field,” council member Leo Trujillo said. “They always have the option to recuse themselves if need be. It’s up to the individual to use common sense and good judgment.”
Mayor Larry Lavagnino agreed, saying that he believed in the committee’s ability to police itself.
Council member Hilda Zacarias suggested that the city establish an ordinance limiting the total number of people from one specific nonprofit, including churches. And council member Alice Patino recommended that the city prohibit paid nonprofit employees and board members altogether.
Eventually, the council unanimously voted to let the policy stand as is, with the option of making revisions in the future, and moved to make appointments to the committee.
The five individuals unanimously appointed to the block grant advisory committee are incumbents Dennis Carter, Bodil Cudd, and Robert Dickerson, and newcomers Alesia Iglesias and Laura Mohajer.
When asked about a committee member having a conflict of interest, Dickerson said, “Santa Maria is a small community, so people on the committee are pretty much like an open book.
“I think most folks have the commonsense to step forward and recuse themselves if necessary,” he noted.
Cudd agreed, adding a personal perspective: “I’m the president of the Humane Society, but it’s not a conflict of interest because the grant money that comes before us [on the block grant advisory committee] is only for human use.”
The council ended its meeting by unanimously approving a resolution opposing the state legislature’s proposals to balance the budget.
In order to eliminate the state’s more than $15 billion-dollar deficit, the legislature is considering a plan to borrow almost $3 billion from local government funds.
Along with the resolution, Lavagnino said he planned to personally send a letter to state Senator Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) and Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee (R-San Luis Obispo) expressing his frustration with “disastrous fiscal policy.”
During the meeting, City Manager Tim Ness told the council that the state has taken more than $18 million from the city since the early 1990s.
He also mentioned that, rather than borrowing funds, the state has the option of placing a 1 percent sales tax increase initiative on the November ballot to garner the needed money.
This article appears in Aug 7-14, 2008.