Citizens for Fairfax Community April Minutes

Citizens for Fairfax Community, Inc. (CFC)
4/20/11 Meeting Minutes:

HEADLINES:
▪   The planning grant application has been put on hold pending raising matching funds and decisions regarding CFC’s future role and activities.
▪   The CFC Board learned recently that the Fairfax Rec. Dept.’s long-term plan includes the creation and operation of a community center, with the intention of providing a venue or venues for the same wide range of activities that CFC has targeted. The Rec. Dept. will not be focusing on this for a few years; but meanwhile, having declared the intention to ‘own’ this project, it is now clear that any effort by CFC to actually create a center on its own would be an unnecessary duplication of effort.
▪   Suggestions for CFC’s new role and activities included (1) running events to raise funds for the community center project; (2) eventually folding into the Rec. Dept.’s structure as a ‘sub-committee,’ working on the project; (3) Moving forward, on its own, with the planning work, in order to provide the Town with complete, current, and detailed planning groundwork to enable the Town to move forward in tangible ways immediately, rather than having to start back at square one.

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Called to order: 6:35 PM
In attendance: Elizabeth Griffin,* Katrina Antonovich,* Doug Stuart,* Eda Kirkpatrick,* Mark Hunziker,* Mary Taylor,* Megan Daigle,* and Susie Posner-Jones* (* indicates Trustees)

Reports and discussions:
▪   The Board of Trustees meeting minutes of March 16, 2011 and December 15, 2010 were approved unanimously. (Moved by Liz, seconded by Mary.)

▪   Mark explained the issues that came to light a few weeks ago, in the process of trying to address some shortcomings in our VCDP planning grant application. First, our understanding about the 25% matching funds turned out to be incorrect. We had thought that we simply needed to show that we had these funds ($5,000 for our $20,000 request.) (Showing the ability to raise some money through donations is apparently a common way for grant applicants to demonstrate that they have community support.) Since it was the Town that was applying for the grant, we had planned to use funds in the Recreation Department’s coffers for the match. Feedback from VCDP about our proposed budget, however, made it clear that the matching $5K needed to be included in the budget and spent in the execution of the planning project.
This was not what the Selectboard had approved; and in fact the Rec. Dept. has budgeted other uses of those funds over the next year. Once this was clear, the VCDP grant application process had to be suspended. Before we could reactivate the application, we would need to raise the matching funds ourselves.
It is also worth noting that as VCDP’s criteria for evaluating a community’s ‘need’ for a project became clearer (based primarily on the numbers of low-to-middle income families that would be served), it became less certain that we can make a strong case in these terms for this grant’s approval even with all the ‘t’s crossed and ‘i’s dotted. We are still gathering information that will clarify this part of the picture. So when and if CFC decides to move forward again in asking for a planning grant, it may be with VCDP, or it may be from another organization whose specifications are a better match for our situation.
We have also learned recently that the Fairfax Rec. Dept.’s long-term plan includes the creation and operation of a community center, with the intention of providing a venue or venues for the same wide range of activities that CFC has targeted. The Rec. Dept. will not be focusing on this for a few years; but meanwhile, having declared the intention to ‘own’ this project, it is now clear that the Town does not consider it to be in its interest to support our work in any tangible way. It’s equally obvious that any effort by CFC to actually create a center on its own would be, at best an unnecessary duplication of effort and, at worst viewed as ‘competition.’
So at this point, the question we need to consider is what, if anything, does it make sense for us to do to help the Town move toward getting a community center up and running? Katrina suggested that eventually it might make sense for CFC (either as an intact 501(c) 3 organization, or at least its interested members) to become a ‘sub-committee’ working within the structure of the Fairfax Recreation Department on the community center. Meanwhile, it could focus on running events to raise funds for the project. This is one idea that is now on the table for consideration.
You will recall that the intended use of the planning grant was to pay outside experts to get us to the point where we could say, with reasonable confidence, (1) what it would cost to get the Baptist building running as a community center, (2) how to go about raising funds for those capital costs, and (3) what approach to operating the center would be sustainable.
The main problem with reducing the scope of our immediate activities to just fundraising is that in a few years, when the Rec. Dept. is ready to focus on creating a community center, most of the considerable groundwork that CFC has done will no longer be relevant. Most of that work, plus the work that we could be doing over the next year or two, would need to be done or redone by the Town, putting any actual creation of a community center an unnecessary additional two years into the future. Mark suggested that, in addition to considering the fundraising and eventual ‘sub-committee’ roles, CFC could choose to move forward, on its own, with the planning work. That way when the Town is ready to move forward with the project, the planning groundwork could be complete, current, and detailed enough to enable the Town to move forward in tangible ways immediately, rather than having to start back at square one, redoing the work we have done and the work we could be doing.
The question seems not to be whether pursuing the planning phase would be a worthwhile thing for us to do. It seems pretty obvious that any form of additional planning would be a positive thing. The question before the CFC Board is whether we have the will, time, and energy to do what would be required in the absence of any assistance from outside the CFC organization. This is a personal-commitment issue for all of us; and one we need to weigh carefully over the coming month.
Several Board members continue to collect and analyze information that will help clarify our options, and that will also be needed for any planning grant application we may decide to pursue.

Meeting adjourned: 8:00 PM

Next Meeting: Wed May 20, 6:30 PM at the Hunzikers’ home

May agenda in brief:
▪   Choose a direction and role for CFC’s future; specifically regarding fundraising and planning grant options.

Respectfully submitted,
Mark Hunziker, Secretary

Citizens for Fairfax Community, Inc.

802-849-6561 mark@vtwellness.net