Agenda - 04-07-20; 8-a - Minutes

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5 1 2 Travis Myren said he suggested the percentage route because that is what has been 3 done before for other programs, such as the Partnership to end Homelessness, and at this 4 point the Article 46 tax is not allocated by jurisdictions. 5 Commissioner Greene said she thought that the evaluation committee should loosely 6 take into consideration that the funding is spread geographically around the County, and that 7 there is probably more need than money. She said there should not be a cluster in any one 8 part of the County. 9 Travis Myren said staff can communicate this to the evaluation committee. 10 Commissioner McKee agreed. 11 Commissioner Price asked if there are specific criteria the committee will be using. 12 Travis Myren said this will be a special case. He said when this committee is evaluating 13 current loans, their criteria are much more stringent and may be less stringent for this 14 emergency situation. 15 Commissioner Dorosin said he thinks it makes sense to consider distributing the funds 16 to the towns closest to the people since this is an emergency situation. He thinks Carrboro's 17 request is reasonable. 18 Commissioner Marcoplos said he does not think they need to break down the monies 19 into percentages and let the committee decide using geographical spread. 20 Commissioner McKee said he would not be favor of breaking down the funding by 21 percentages. They should honor the way this program was set up and to communicate their 22 intent to honor it geographically. 23 Commissioner Greene said should they consider "playing" with the composition of the 24 evaluation team with representatives from the municipalities, and, again, this is for"for-profit" 25 businesses who are concerned about what is happening to their bottom line. 26 Commissioner Price said the committee could have Economic Development 27 representatives from the towns on the committee. She also suggested possibly using a two-tier 28 system, which would give the monies to the towns to make the first pick, and if they run out of 29 the money they would pick up the funding. 30 Commissioner Dorosin said he is raising this issue primarily because the Town of 31 Carrboro (TOC) requested the Board's consideration. He said if the other towns do not want 32 any funding, then so be it. He said honoring this request does not mean that they have to do it 33 for Chapel Hill and Hillsborough. He said he did not realize that the committee was not 34 weighing the criteria out quantitatively. 35 Chair Rich said her understanding was there would be a time for all applications to be in, 36 and the committee will review them and if they were profitable before this crisis hit, and they 37 have the required documentation, then they get funding. She said there will not be any 38 prioritizations. 39 Chair Rich said the maximum loan could go lower than $20,000. 40 Chair Rich said Carrboro has talked about prioritizing businesses that are forced to shut 41 down. 42 Chair Rich said the Board should consider Carrboro's request, because Carrboro may 43 have businesses that come to them for a revolving loans, and then the County. She said, this 44 way, Carrboro could take the one big pot of money and dole it out. 45 Chair Rich suggested giving a municipality a flat out grant and letting the municipality 46 disburse it. 47 Commissioner McKee said this is not the first time that a municipality has requested to 48 split off this revenue stream, and it will set a precedent and expectation. He does not want the 49 Board to do this by percentages or a tier system.