Two Springfield city councilors leveled criticism Wednesday at how the mayor’s office distributed federal recovery funds for an outdoor dining program. They said the process fast-tracked funds to restaurants and organizations politically favored by the mayor’s office.
“I’m very suspicious on who they awarded, the amount they awarded, and the process that they went through to get there,” said At-Large City Councilor Tracye Whitfield, who sits on the city’s ARPA advisory committee.
A top official in the mayor’s office on Wednesday defended the award process, saying it was not guided by political goals and that the mayor has discretion in making grants.
A spokesman for Mayor Domenic J. Sarno declined to make the mayor available for questioning about the awards.
On Tuesday, the Sarno administration announced it would distribute approximately $2 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to 17 restaurants and organizations to help build out the city’s outdoor dining space. Chief Development Officer Timothy T. Sheehan said the move would bring vitality to neighborhoods and encourage foot traffic.
According to city documents, establishments could use the funds for new tables and chairs, lighting or even public art to encourage patrons seeking an al fresco experience.
But Whitfield and City Councilor Justin Hurst point to the fact that some residents and businesses have been waiting for years after applying for recovery funding.
They say the recipients of Tuesday’s outdoor dining grants were establishments whose owners were — in the words of Whitfield — “politically connected.”
Hurst accused Sarno of using federal recovery funds “as his own personal slush fund.”
Sarno recently announced he was seeking reelection.
“The way the process was set up and how applications were approved was all done behind closed doors and in order to benefit from this new program you had to be in the ‘know,’” Hurst, who is also running for mayor, said in a statement.
Whitfield called the way the mayor’s office distributed the outdoor dining money“disgraceful, misguided, and morally bankrupt.”
Fast-track decision
At the end of March, the city announced the outdoor dining program, with $2.5 million going to restaurants. The deadline to apply for the program was May 5 at 2 p.m. On Tuesday, the city announced its grant recipients.
The process to decide which establishments got money bypassed the committee that has been reviewing the slew of applications from businesses and nonprofits around the city.
Whitfield sits on the ARPA advisory committee intended to vet businesses and nonprofits seeking recovery funding from the city through its ARPA “request for proposals” program. She also chairs the City Council’s ARPA oversight committee.
She said she recently reviewed applications from businesses that applied in November 2021. The outdoor dining program skipped that step.
“They did not bring any of the applications to the advisory committee from May 5 until now. They turned these awards around very fast,” Whitfield said. “We had small business applications that have been in since November 2021 that haven’t been looked at until 2023.”
“So how did these go through the pipe so quickly? Why was our advisory committee left out of the entire process?” she asked.
According to Whitfield, the awards for outdoor dining projects came even as some residents wait for direct cash assistance from the city and businesses struggle to remain open in other parts of the city.
“It’s just really bad precedence,” Whitfield said. “The ARPA funds aren’t going for the disproportionately impacted communities that it should be going for. And I think it’s just a political scheme so the mayor can push through his politically connected friends.”
Hunt for data
Whitfield said she has struggled to obtain raw data from the Sarno administration regarding its handling of ARPA funds. When she asked for all the small businesses and new businesses that applied to the city for recovery funds, she had to file a public records request.
The city moved to charge her about $12,000 to see the documents. Whitfield said she appealed the charge to the state.
“I’m struggling to do my due diligence, although I see what’s going on,” Whitfield said.
The 17 establishments that received awards this week include White Lion Brewing based in Tower Square. The brewery received $250,000 based on its plans to build a concession stand and a meeting space in Tower Square Park.
Its founder and president, Raymond Berry, was one of the speakers at Sarno’s reelection campaign event on May 17.
A bulletin board in one of the corridors in City Hall on Wednesday advertised two retirement parties for employees in city government. The first retirement party, for Department of Public Works Deputy Director Vinnie DeSantis, was held on June 16 at Nathan Bill’s, an East Forest Park establishment that received $75,000 for outdoor dining Tuesday.
The second was for a coming group retirement party held at the John Boyle O’Reilly Club, an establishment that received an outdoor dining grant of $250,000.
Guidelines set out by the city for the outdoor dining program said national chains would not be eligible to participate.
Nonetheless, UNO Pizzeria and Grill on Hall of Fame Avenue received $100,000 and the nearby Hilton Garden Inn netted $75,000 for its outdoor dining plans.
Sheehan, the city’s chief development officer, said the outdoor dining program is different than the program that has distributed portions of the $123.8 million the city received in federal recovery funds to area businesses and nonprofits.
The distribution of the ARPA funds for outdoor dining, he said, “is moving back to a more traditional grant pattern that we would typically have.”
To pick projects to fund, Sheehan said applications were scored by a committee to determine which were most beneficial to the city.
Sheehan said the committee kept politics out of the process because the applicants were judged on a criteria.
“It’s not a requirement of ARPA to even have an advisory committee. The authority in terms of the expenditure once the council approves acceptance of the funds, is the mayor’s discretion.”
As for White Lion Brewing, it received a quarter-million-dollar grant “because of the nature of their project, the significance of it in activating a park in the center of downtown that’s laid dormant all through COVID,” Sheehan said.
UNOS and Hilton received funds, Sheehan said, because the businesses are owned locally.
Hurst said the distribution for outdoor dining comes at a time when some residents who applied for $1,400 in direct cash assistance from the city are still waiting to hear if they’ll be helped.
At the beginning of May, the mayor said it was seeking a third party to review pending applications. A sign taped to the entrance of City Hall says residents wishing to learn the status of their applications should contact Public Partnership LLP.
“For me,” Hurst said in an interview, “it’s a smack in the face to the residents who are struggling, and businesses who actually have been disproportionately impacted, to not have received this money, while watching other businesses who have already received money, receive even more money.”
Reporter Jonah Snowden contributed to this report.
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