Citizens Advisory Committee reprograms CDBG funds for facades, streets and parks; approves grants for local services

The South Gate Citizen Advisory Committee voted Thursday night to reprogram leftover Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) dollars across several prior program years, approving a street resurfacing award and reallocating commercial-façade money toward parks and public-service projects.

The committee approved a staff recommendation to allocate $752,540 in CDBG funding to the Residential Resurfacing Project Phase 4, including substantial work on Industrial Avenue adjacent to the recently opened Holiday Inn Park, drainage and sidewalk repairs, and ADA modifications. Kenneth (Public Works superintendent) told the committee, “We're gonna be getting 752,540,” and described milling, overlay and associated construction sequencing for the resurfacing work.

Why it matters: the city is under federal timeliness pressure for CDBG spending, and staff told the committee that consolidating smaller leftover balances from multiple action-plan years into specific ready-to-bid projects will help the city clear backlogged allocations.

Committee members also voted to reduce the size of the commercial-façade program being proposed in the substantial amendment and to consolidate remaining façade funds into a single program account. During debate, staff described the façade initiative as a proactive combination of commercial-sign and façade grants that would encourage businesses with code violations to update signs and do deferred-maintenance work; interim community development director Dave Crabtree said the proposal “is taking from all of these years primarily from previous smaller amounts that were left from the commercial facade program.”

Public comment and parks requests: multiple residents urged the committee to direct money to parks. Mario Dominguez Jr., identifying himself as “a resident of Southgate,” asked the committee to “allocate 160,000 of the CDBG funds towards our Department of Parks and Recreation for the purpose of doing plans and designs for a splash pad.” Caroline Maravilla and other speakers pressed for permanent park patrols and beautification at Southgate Park.

Parks and Recreation Director Steve Costley told the committee the department has a large backlog of needs and prioritized repairs over new facilities. “I currently have… almost $60,000,000 in projects that need funding throughout the whole parks and recreation department,” Costley said, adding that the department has spent roughly $20 million on improvements at Southgate Park in the last 15 years and is now managing several grant-funded large parks projects. He listed smaller, near-term items Parks staff had asked the committee to consider, including shade structures (roughly $100,000 per baseball diamond), a replacement pool scoreboard (about $80,000), a gym divider (about $40,000) and a tot-lot replacement (about $120,000).

Committee action on parks and façade funds: after discussion the committee voted to reduce the overall commercial-façade allocation and to use the remaining commercial-façade balance to fund a set of Parks requests presented by Costley (shade structures, scoreboard, gym divider, cabinetry and other repair items) for parks located in the CDBG-eligible service area. The motion to recommend using the remainder for the parks items passed.

Street project details: Kenneth of Public Works said Industrial Avenue — next to Holiday Inn Park and the upcoming Southeast Gateway Line station — is in poor condition and that the resurfacing award will support pavement milling/overlay, sidewalks, drainage work and a new traffic signal at Garfield and Clarity. He described the standard residential milling and rubberized hot-mix overlay process and showed before-and-after photos of prior city resurfacing projects.

Public services and nonprofits: the committee also considered requests for the CDBG public-services cap (15% of annual allocation) and heard presentations from seven applicants. Presenters included Lisa Baca of the California Latino Leadership Institute, which runs a college-and-trades internship program; Detective Lopez and members of the South Gate Police Explorer program; Laura Maldonado from the South Gate Police Department’s victim-services/domestic-violence program; Osea Rella, Public Works superintendent, on the city’s graffiti-abatement program; Anna Ramirez of Southern California Rehabilitation Services (assistive-technology/home-modification program for residents with disabilities); and representatives from the Los Angeles centers for alcohol and drug treatment program and other community groups.

After the presentations and deliberation, the committee recommended funding a subset of public-service applicants within the available public-services cap. The committee's recommendations included partial or full awards to the California Latino Leadership Institute, the South Gate Police Department’s family-violence program, the South Gate Police Explorer program, the city’s graffiti-abatement program and the Home Modification/assistive-technology partnership (as listed below). Several applicants were not funded in this round.

Votes at a glance - Reduce commercial-façade program to $400,000 and consolidate remaining façade balances into a single commercial-façade program: motion passed. - Approve $752,540 from CDBG for Residential Resurfacing Project Phase 4 (Industrial Avenue focus) and related street improvements: motion passed. - Recommend directing the remaining commercial-façade balance to parks repairs and equipment (shade structures, scoreboard, gym divider, cabinetry and related items) in CDBG-eligible parks: motion passed. - Non-public-service applicants: the committee recommended a $12,000 award to the South Gate Women’s Business Center (South Gate Chamber partnership) and declined to fund the Upwards Boost childcare request in this cycle. - Public-service allocations (committee recommendations): the committee approved recommendations to allocate available public-services funding across a subset of applicants, including the city’s graffiti-abatement program and the South Gate Police Explorer and family-violence programs. The committee adjusted amounts to stay within the 15% public-services cap and to prioritize projects that staff said could spend quickly. (See Actions below for the motions and outcomes recorded in the meeting minutes.)

What committee members said: several committee members said they wanted to prioritize projects that could be packaged and bid quickly so the city could reduce its HUD timeliness warning. Committee members also debated using CDBG for security patrols (public services cap and eligibility concerns were raised by staff) versus capital repairs and programmatic services.

What’s next: staff will package the committee’s recommendations for City Council consideration as part of the city’s substantial-amendment process and will return with more specific scopes, cost estimates and final program language suitable for a council vote and HUD submission. Interim Community Development Director Dave Crabtree said staff will help the council and committee “form up some options for the council to consider” and stressed the need to select projects that can be completed to satisfy HUD performance rules.

Ending: the committee closed the meeting after finalizing recommendations and reiterated that several items will be part of the City Council’s upcoming agenda for a final decision.