City backs away from plan to cut influence of councils

Pressure from the city's four neighborhood council representatives forced the city to back away from a plan to reduce how much say the councils have in spending $6.4 million in federal grant money. Since 1978, a committee composed of eight neighborhood council representives, one member each from the planning, redevelopment and housing commissions and one from the community services board has submitted recommendations on how to spend the federal funds. Those recommendations are passed along to the City Council, which has final say over how that money is spent. "The fact that we had eight votes from the neighborhood councils had a huge impact on the budget," said Mitch Caldwell, Central City Neighborhood Council president. "If you take half of that away, I can't help but feel that it's going to change the way the budget looks, when it goes to the council," said Caldwell, who also is a planning commissioner. . But while the neighborhood councils will keep the same number of representatives, the panel will receive two more members. One will represent the city's gangdrug task force and the other the city's Private Industry Council. "The intent was not to limit in anyway the vote the neighborhood councils have," said Lisa Stipkovich, city community development director. "We have to consolidate it but that shouldn't stop you from giving input through other boards," she said. The grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development consists of $4.99 million in Community Development Block Grant funds, $1.3 million from a HOME grant and $136,000 from an Emergency Shelter Grant. The money is targeted to eliminate slum and blighted neighborhoods, expand affordable housing and provide emergency shelter and assistance for the homeless,.