Vacaville City Council presented with federal COVID relief funding proposals

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The Vacaville City Council received an update on how to potentially spend its $12.7 million apportionments of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds at its Tuesday meeting.

As part of the process, the city will be administering a survey to garner input on how residents would like to see the money spent.

Finance Director Ken Matsumiya said the funds are part of the $1.9 stimulus bill signed by President Joe Biden in March to provide economic relief in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and financial slowdown that resulted from it. A total of $350 billion from the bill has been allocated to local governments to help cities weather the impacts.

Vacaville was allocated $12.7 million, which Matsumiya said was based on factors such as population, the extent of poverty, housing overcrowding and age of housing compared to other metropolitan cities.

The money would be disbursed into installments, with Vacaville having already received half the allocation in late June and the remaining expected next July. Funds must be committed by Dec. 31, 2024, and spent by Dec. 31, 2026.

The funds can not be used for deposits for pension funds, tax cuts, legal settlements and deposits to reserves or rainy day funds. Eligible funds fall into six primary categories: supporting the public health response to the pandemic, addressing the native economic impacts of the pandemic, replacing public sector revenue loss, providing premium pay for essential workers, investing in improvements to infrastructure, and providing services to disproportionately impacted communities such as homeless and child welfare services.

Matsumiya said the largest priority areas for the city were infrastructure — particularly the Downtown Specific Plan and biomanufacturing areas, housing and homelessness — including potential funding for a navigation center in Vacaville, economic recovery — such as direct household assistance, support for nonprofits and training programs to transition to non-science jobs in biotechnology; and city revenue loss and COVID expenses — with potential funding for onsite testing, reimbursement of unemployment and COVID-related leave expenses, cybersecurity initiatives and a Citywide Arts Master Plan or strategy.

Estimated costs for each category would include $6.1 million for infrastructure, $5.3 million for housing and homelessness, $3.2 million for economic recovery and $1 million for city revenue loss.

One of the staff’s recommendations is to adopt an online ARPA survey through a program called Balancing Act to allow the public to become part of the process.

“It gives residents a real-time view of the tradeoffs public officials face when prioritizing funding,” Matsumiya said.

The survey would include the aforementioned categories plus any additional ones prioritized by the council and give residents an opportunity to opine on areas they feel the city should focus on in ARPA spending. The survey would be open from early November to mid-December. It will be available in English and Spanish.

After the survey is completed, Matsumiya said the results would be compiled and presented to the council in January and ongoing updates would be presented as part of quarterly budget presentations, with the council potentially giving guidance on how the money should be spent.

In a public comment, resident Alicia Minyen lauded several aspects of the proposal, including funding for economic development, homeless programs, affordable housing, and job training. She asked if the premium pay would be pensionable. Matsumiya said other finance departments typically pay premiums in the form of bonuses, which are not pensionable.

Brooke Fox, executive director of the Downtown Vacaville Business Improvement District, said she was happy that downtown infrastructure and an arts master plan were being prioritized.

“Downtown would greatly benefit from having an arts strategy and arts master plan,” she said.

Vice Mayor Nolan Sullivan expressed concerns that the survey would give certain groups more amplification than others and suggested doing a random sample. This sentiment was echoed by Councilman Jason Roberts.

“The people that are gonna be filling out the online surveys have more access to internet or accessing the city webpage or more involved in city politics and policies,” Roberts said. “Anyway that we can find help reach more audiences than just an online survey would be very useful.”

Roberts suggested bringing iPads or laptops to different parts of town to have people fill the surveys out.

Councilwoman Jeanette Wylie felt having a question simply asking if survey takers lived in Vacaville was not enough.

“Anyone can click on ‘Yes,’ whether they are or not,” she said.

Matsumiya said the survey would have the ability to have an IP log to show where someone was logging in from.

Despite some concerns, the council members were all enthusiastic about the proposal. Councilman Greg Ritchie liked the idea of getting people back into jobs and suggested the money be used to take it a step further and train them for better jobs than they previously had.

“I want them to come out better than they went into this thing,” he said.

In other business, the council unanimously approved an ordinance to allow electronic filings of candidate statements in elections — with the stipulation that paper filings would remain an option — and voted 5-2 to resume remote meetings, with Ritchie and Councilman Roy Stockton voting against.

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