Last night we tried something new and live-tweeted the public hearing on Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding for 2013. The hearing was arranged by the newly amalgamated Community, Housing and Human Services megadepartment in the city bureaucracy, and its aim was to address changes to both the amount of available funds and the application process.

This was our first live-tweet attempt, so we overlooked some of the etiquette (a #CDBG2013 hashtag, for instance), but we hope we nevertheless managed to convey some of the more interesting facts and figures as they came to light.

We realize that public hearings aren’t as exciting as, say, an Apple product launch, but we thought live-tweeting would be a good way for everyone to take part and stay informed. It’s easy to lose steam about neighborhood events when it seems like all anyone does is attend meetings.

Some of the more relevant highlights:

• Total tentative CDBG funding for 2013 is $2,844,749. Of that, the total allocation for neighborhoods is $652,800.
• The top recipient of that neighborhood allocation is Hillyard with $113,139 (not East Central, as we tweeted last night; the slide had no order to it). Emerson-Garfield is fourth on the list with $57,250.
• Public service activities get a pot of $426,712. Community centers have to share $250,000 for operations. Nonprofits have a pot of $176,712 for operations. For the first time, neighborhoods also have access to a supplemental grant pool of $100,000.
• There have been 42 applications received so far for public services money. These applicants include organizations like the Corbin Senior Center, Second Harvest, COPS. A total of $773,027 has been requested.
• Many Spokane neighborhoods have used community development funds — or a combination of CD funds and others — for projects that improved their neighborhoods’ safety and beauty (some examples are shown above). Except for some street tree replanting, Emerson-Garfield was all but absent from that list.

The PowerPoint presentation with all these figures and more is available for download here.

If you represent an organization that is based or operates in Emerson-Garfield and have questions about the application process, please get in touch with us using our contact form.

To contact a city representative, please address your queries to the following people. They can all be reached on (509) 625-6325:

• Capital improvements: Kevin Brownlee, kbrownlee@spokanecity.org.
• Housing: Allen Schmelzer, aschmelzer@spokanecity.org.
• Economic development: Kristine Williams, kwilliams@spokanecity.org.