The twenty-one member Vance County Golden LEAF Review Team met yesterday at the Vance-Granville Community College’s Civic Center and chose the four projects it will endorse to the Golden LEAF Board of Trustees.
The projects that will be recommended are:
The fourth project is a combination of the fourth and fifth projects that appeared on the original ranked list developed by the committee after their first meeting.
The review team made its decision after it reviewed written responses to questions and concerns of members discussed in the previous team meeting and after listening to ten minute presentations made by representatives of the grant seeking entities followed by short question and answer sessions.
After the presentations were made, it was determined that the top four projects combined totaled $2,461,456 in grant requests from Golden LEAF. According to Golden LEAF representative Pat McCabe, a request of that amount over the $2 million in possible grant awards is “not out of bounds”.
McCabe later added that in the history of Golden LEAF, it has only exceeded the $2 million limit twice, and in both cases, for projects where foundation funds were the “last money in” to complete those projects. In the case of the projects endorsed by the Vance group, only the funding of 800 MHz radios would complete that communications upgrade project.
Review team member and County Commission Chair Dan Brummitt, referencing discussions with Dan Gerlach, the president of the Golden LEAF Foundation, reported that the radio project is “attrractive” to the foundation. Regarding the other half of the proposal, it was noted by several members of the group, including McCabe, that Golden LEAF has never funded fire hydrants before.
Apparently, no group has ever requested that the foundation fund fire hydrants. Vance County Planning Services Manager Jordan McMillen reported during the discussion that funds to increase the number of hydrants from other sources were not available elsewhere. It was also stated that the foundation is traditionally committed to infrastructure projects.
Concern was also expressed that the fire hydrant project was more long-term in its projected completion as are the other projects.
A motion made by Creasman to recommend funding of the first three projects (Boys & Girls Clubs, the REEF Project, and his Innovate Project) was passed by a majority vote. That vote essentially eliminated all but one of the remaining seventeen proposals, with the 800 MHz radio/increased density of fire hydrants project the only one under consideration.
Attention then turned to that fourth project. It was put forward that it might be best to separate the projects and present them as two proposals, as it was the implicit consensus of members that the hydrant increase portion of the proposal was the weakest of those that had been considered. At one point, member and Vance County Commissioner Terry Garrison proposed that the radio/hydrant proposal be sent back to its originators to be cut down to a budget not exceeding $600,000 in order to keep the total request made of Golden LEAF to $2 million. However, Garrison chose to withdraw that motion as McCabe repeatedly assured members that a request of $2.4 million would not be considered “out of line” by foundation board members. A motion by member Mac Bobbitt that the fourth proposal be presented to Golden LEAF at the original funding level request passed by majority vote.
The next step in the process is for the four chosen applicants to complete full grant proposals for submission to the Golden LEAF Foundation in preparation for their board’s February 4, 2010 meeting. Those fully detailed proposals will be due to Golden LEAF by the first week of January.
Although the official mandate of the review team was met by the last vote taken by the group, member Andrea Harris expressed a desire for the group to meet again to discuss funding sources for the projects that were not endorsed by the committee. Member Abdul Rasheed, who is the founder and CEO of the North Carolina Community Development Initiative, added that he wanted to explore funding options for the top three proposals as well.
Currently, the Review Team plans to meet again on November 18, 2009 at 6:00 p.m. in the Civic Center of the Vance campus of Vance-Granville Community College, Seminar Room 1.