Mitchell Park West Neighbors

Pat- you are on the Board!

You know that i was in charge of submitting the grant, why not just ask me? You also have my email. Or ask Ira, since i reported directly to him that evening, as Chair of a subcommittee to the Board and as he is the elected representative of the Board.

no one is hiding anything, i get really busy at times, and submitting the grant was a lot of work on the 18th of May, the entire day, and half of the 19th too. work days! so i was very glad to have that over with, to get a breather and focus on my job.

Ira and I also had to discuss the grant materials afterward, this took a few days. There are things we cant post, since it is confidential information from the businesses that bid on the services, and we have to follow state procurement laws because the city does, and avoid the potential risk of a lawsuit or our grant being tossed out.  Better to err on the cautious side right now. We are asking for $50k. I'd be happy to go over it with you in person, show you how it all worked out. It got really complicated.

There will be the opportunity to revisit the whole application if we are selected. The ensueing Garden Committee, elected by the gardeners themselves will be in charge of it then, and deal even more specifically with all the garden elements. That will be a great opportunity to make the garden meet as closely as possible the description by the garden type committee. This is a really good thing!

ditto Marcia, last years Chair of the Board.

-Mark

I have today sent the following email to Shauna Warner of the Nighborhoods Department at the City:

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Shauna:

I note from the MPWNA neighborhood link web site that on May 18 MPWNA submitted a grant application to your office for a $50,000 grant to install a community garden in Mitchell Park. The grant application states on sheet 2 that "all residents have been notified and asked for comments regarding the project." This is blatantly untrue.

Such notification and commentary are strict requirements of the grant application process. As you told me at the time of the previous application for a $15,000 grant for park benches, such notification has to be a newsletter or postcard sent to all residents; email or web site postings do not satisfy this requirement.

The facts are:

• Residents were informed by a hand distributed flier at the beginning of the year that the idea of a community garden was being floated and expressions of interest in such a venture were sought.
• The Survey Results sheet included in the grant appplication summarize the results of this initial survey and not of any review of a final application.
• A commitee was formed to explore the concept and reported at the general neighborhood meeting on February 14 and again on April 15.
• The original idea had been to apply for a $15,000 grant for the garden but at the April 15 meeting it was suggested that it might be necessary to apply for a $50,000 grant instead. The following link documents other people's comments and surprise on this sudden evolution: http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/Mitchell_Park_West/topics/264441
• On May 18 the application for a $50,000 grant was submitted to your office.
• At no time has a detailed grant application been submitted to all the residents for comment or approval before it was submitted to your office.
• At no time have the residents been asked to agree to applying for a $50,000 grant for this project instead of a $15,000 one.
• At no time have the residents been asked for other ideas for a $50,000 grant application if the association were to apply for this once every 5 years opportunity.

Given this flagrant disregard for the rules of the grant application and for the involvement of all the residents of MPW, I ask you to reject this application forthwith pending correction of the above noted three deficiencies.

Thank you.

John F. Purchase

pat- "you felt there needed to be......." if yes would be enough, just call or email me in the future. as you read, there were good reasons for a short delay of the posting.

and 'yes the grant was submitted' would not have been an appropriate notice on this website. and if i or Ira had responded with that to you on this site, i doubt that would have been satisfactory to you or anyone else. give people time to craft notices, etc. please be a little more patient. we're all very busy.

in neighborhoods, the primary means of communication is to walk over and talk to someone. the 'block delegates' of which you are one, is an extension of that.