Committee recommends scaled awards from hotel-motel fund after scoring review; sends recommendations to city council

A city advisory committee on hotel-motel and partnership funding on Monday reviewed applications, debated scoring and documentation gaps, and voted to forward recommended award amounts to the City Council for final approval.

Committee members and staff spent the meeting reviewing individual applications, noting several missing documents and glitches in the online submission system that prevented some groups from filing separate applications. The committee debated how strictly to disqualify incomplete submissions and discussed a grading proposal that would pay 100% of an organization's request if its average score was 70 or higher, with scaled awards for lower scores.

During public comment, a representative identified in the transcript as Robert Eads, joined by Maggie Selvaraj, director of resource development, asked the committee to accept materials that the applicant said were included with their board-approved application but were not present in the meeting packet. Eads said the group had been authorized by its board to apply and asked the committee to “review for all agencies” and consider missing documents in good faith.

Committee members and staff described recurring problems with the application process:…