The January 26th issue of The West End NEWS is on the street!

City Officials Await CMPAC Recommendations

The City Manager’s Policy Advisory Committee will start voting on January 26th on recommendations to the City Council on how the Council should spend federal money in the city in the next fiscal year. The committee has been hearing presentations from social service agencies, neighborhood associations and City departments for the past several weeks.

City officials have been paying closer attention to the board’s work this year, after the City Council disregarded CMPAC’s recommendations last year and was widely criticized. East End City Councilor Kevin Donoghue has been a regular attendee at the weekly CMPAC meetings, and Councilors David Marshall and Ed Suslovic have also dropped in to observe the proceedings.

Among the requests for funding that the board has received this year are:

-A request from the City’s Economic Development department for matching funds for a downtown façade improvement program.
-Requests from the St. Lawrence Arts & Community Center and the Maine Irish Heritage Center (St. Dominic’s) to help fund maintenance projects at the two historic churches.
-A request from the West End Neighborhood Association for funding preliminary work on the Reiche Community Center.
- Bayside Neighborhood Association request for funding new sidewalks.
-A request from Portland West to help fund window replacements at its residential properties the city.

The committee has also heard numerous presentations from agencies asking for funding for youth programs, soup kitchens, community policing, childcare programs, services for the elderly and for minorities, and infrastructure improvements in the city such as brick sidewalks.

City Manager Joe Gray will meet with the advisory board before making his final recommendations to the City Council, which has the final say on the expenditures.