The College Park City Council discussed community service grants, a contract to conduct a city survey and several other items at its meeting Tuesday night.
The city council budgeted $20,000 for fiscal 2017 to award grants to local community service groups, which the council does annually. A subcommittee — which included councilmembers Christine Nagle, Robert Day and Dustyn Kujawa — met Oct. 25 to review six applications for grants up to $2,500.
“I think [the subcommittee] looked more at the beneficial aspect to College Park versus some of those programs that benefit more of the surrounding communities,” said Gary Fields, the city’s finance director.
The subcommittee recommended awarding two groups — the Lakeland Community Heritage Project and the National Center for Housing and Child Welfare — $3,000 each, which would exceed the original offer of a $2,500 grant. The city has not exceeded the stated amounts of community service grants in any recent years, said Fields.
The council will vote on the grants at its Nov. 15 meeting.
The members of the subcommittee felt the proposed $3,000 to the two groups would help assist local efforts to better College Park.
“We’re helping something that’s directly affecting our neighborhood and our communities,” said Day.
The budget for the fiscal 2017 also includes funds for a survey of College Park residents on city issues and services.
City staff recommended the city council approve the award of a contract for the survey to the National Research Center based in Boulder, Colorado.
The company proposed sending a five-page survey to 1,900 randomly selected households in College Park and aiming for 300 to 450 responses, said City Manager Scott Somers.
If awarded the contract, the National Research Center would begin developing the survey in November or December and distribute the survey in January or February.
Similar surveys were conducted in Takoma Park and Rockville and city officials were “happy with the results,” said Somers.
The city council could also choose to spend more money on the survey in order to aim for a higher response rate.
“To me, 300 out of 1,900 is a pretty low response, so I think it would be a very good idea to invest in getting 750 responses,” said Stephanie Stullich, a councilwoman from District 3. “The thing about the response rate is that the closer that percentage is, the higher confidence you can have in the accuracy of the results.”
The city council will not hold a meeting next Tuesday due to Election Day, but will follow up on both the community service grants and the contract for a community survey at the next meeting on Nov. 15, said Mayor Patrick Wojahn.
