Minutes 10-05-2021 Virtual Business Meeting

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32 BACKGROUND: At the September 2, 2021 Board of Orange County Commissioners (BOCC) Business meeting, a petition was submitted by Commissioner Earl McKee for the Board to consider a policy requiring any entity receiving county funds include on their regular meeting agendas an opportunity for public comments. Each year Orange County allocates over $1 million to local non-profits to provide various services and meet needs across the community. Applications for funding are submitted by the non-profits through the County's Outside Agency process. The applications are assigned to appropriate county advisory groups and staff based on subject matter, and reviewed and scored based on an established matrix. As part of the county's annual budget process, the Manager then makes funding recommendations for each non-profit to the Board of Commissioners, and the Board approves the final funding amounts for each entity. Recipient organizations subsequently sign performance agreements with the county agreeing to utilize the funds as proposed and in compliance with other provisions. It is proposed that the Board consider a Performance Agreement provision requiring that the non-profit organizations receiving funds through the County's Outside Agencies Process provide the opportunity for public comment at their regular meetings. Bonnie Hammersley reviewed background information for this item. Commissioner McKee explained the basis for his petition. He said the county provides over $1 million of taxpayer funds to nonprofits to help the county with the provision of services. He said he is petitioning that these non-profits allot time on their regular agendas for public comment. He said he is not asking the non-profits to engage or reply to the commenters, just allow people to speak, with the parameters left up to the agencies themselves. He said he is aware that there are some outside agencies that deal with highly emotionally charged issues, and they may be excluded from the provision if the Board approves. He said he is convinced anyone spending public money should be obligated to accept public comment. Chair Price be clarified that the request is for public comment to be taken at the board meetings, as opposed to a staff meeting for example. Commissioner McKee said yes. Chair Price asked if this would be only for agencies who are part of the outside agencies funding process, or any non-profit that the county funds. Commissioner McKee said he proposed it with outside agencies in mind, and would stick with that. Commissioner Greene said the county does give money to nonprofits outside of the outside agency funding process, and Chair Price's question needs to have a clear answer. She said it will be very hard to carve out the agencies that are sensitive in nature, and it would make more sense to limit it to organizations where people who they serve are the direct beneficiaries of the service. She said a nonprofit does not represent or serve the entire county the way government does. She said this petition is a very dramatic departure from way nonprofits ordinarily function, but she does see the logic of taxpayer money being used. She credited Commissioner Richards for considering which agencies that do something for the county that is really important, i.e. provide housing. She said those agencies have tenants or homeowners that may have very legitimate complaints. She said it is reasonable to ask that subset of nonprofits to create a grievance procedure that's viable for those that are being served. She said this could be done in a variety of ways. She said she understands the impulse to say it is public money, so public comment should be accepted, but she is coming from perspective of nonprofits who do not operate that way traditionally. She proposed to focus this on nonprofits