New mayor Sophie Barker apologised to the community sector soon after her election when it became clear her restructuring of the council’s committee set-up had excluded the sub-committee.
What made that particularly embarrassing for her, and unsettling for community organisations, was that the committee was about to consider about 300 funding applications. It distributes about $3.76 million in contestable and discretionary funding.
The council saved the day temporarily by allowing council staff to assess and approve grants of up to $5000 until the end of last year.
At this month’s council meeting deputy mayor Cherry Lucas, supported by the mayor, had proposed allocations sit with staff and the finance and performance committee which is made up of all councillors and mana whenua representatives. Cr Lucas felt this would ensure funding aligned with council direction.
Some councillors also suggested since they were elected representatives of the community, the additional input of other committee members drawn from the community would be superfluous.
However, the council voted, by 8 to 6, for a sub-committee arrangement following an amendment from Cr Mandy Mayhem. She emphasised the importance of working with the community.
This means staff will allocate small grants under delegation: the sub-committee, including community representatives, will allocate mid-tier, multi-tier, multi-year, and large grants.
Definitions are yet to be worked out, something which will be part of detailed work on how the policy of the council can be implemented.
Among the policy agreed by the council is the development of new partnership-based grants aligned to priority community outcomes such as housing, youth wellbeing, and health.
While primarily targeting not-for-profit organisations, grants may support for-profit activities "where a clear and distinct community benefit is delivered and is demonstrably separated from private gain".
The staff’s detailed work will presumably also set out how the new sub-committee arrangements might differ or align with the previous one.
However, more controversy seems likely given the pressure on council budgets because of the expected rates cap requirements, and community groups concerned grants are already not keeping up with costs.
Keeping hope alive
Much will be said in the days ahead about the sometimes controversial life of civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson (84).
When he was born to an unmarried mother during the Jim Crow era, nobody would have predicted he would rise to be at the forefront of the civil rights movement and run twice for the Democratic United States presidential candidacy in the 1980s.
It would be 2008 before the US would elect its first black president, Barack Obama.
Rev Jackson was philosophical about not getting there first, telling a Guardian columnist he was a trailblazer and a path-finder.
Rev Jackson was keen to see a US where everybody was valued, regardless of their ethnicity or sexual orientation. He outlined this vision in one of his most famous speeches, delivered to the Democratic Convention in 1984.
He said America was not like a blanket — one piece of unbroken cloth, the same colour, the same texture, the same size.
"America is more like a quilt: many patches, many pieces, many colours, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread."
He urged his fellow citizens to be "unusually committed and caring as we expand our family to include new members. All of us must be tolerant and understanding as the fears and anxieties of the rejected and the party leadership express themselves in many different ways. Too often what we call hate — as if it were some deeply rooted philosophy or strategy — is simply ignorance, anxiety, paranoia, fear, and insecurity".
It is a pity all these years on, the current US president does not seem to have got the memo.
