Committee weighs community‑spaces upgrades, outreach staffing and public‑works requests; calendar system and part‑time outreach favored

Committee members spent substantial time reviewing department budget requests for community spaces, events and public works and signaled priorities that will shape the draft budget.

Community spaces staff presented a tiered staffing proposal for outreach: basic (existing), optimal (part‑time outreach coordinator) and enhanced (full‑time coordinator). The presenter argued a part‑time coordinator would free staff to do consistent outreach and that the full‑time role would extend capacity for survivor‑resource outreach, educational workshops and event support.

"If there was a full‑time role, it wouldn't just be going into doing our things full‑time ... but I also would really want to target getting more outreach on those resources," Maya said, describing capacity gaps for survivor partners and other community work.

Capital proposals included a $35,000 bare‑minimum speaker, lighting and mounting installation to support concerts and larger events, and staff said a new calendar/reservation system (roughly $300/month, $3,600/year) was operationally necessary and would save staff time. A proposed $30,000 kitchen upgrade to allow commercial cooking was described as valuable but administratively complex (permitting required) and thus a candidate to defer to the capital fund.

Festival budgets and grant programs were discussed in detail: Soultopia’s 2025 spending was reported near $300,000, staff proposed continued grant support for community festivals and flagged options to reduce some grant pools if necessary.

On public works, Jenna described parking‑program staffing (ambassadors), a new public works project manager (Nico) coming on in June and consulting/data collection quotes from Dixon that staff planned to renegotiate because the proposed data price appeared high.

Committee members expressed general agreement with pursuing the reservation system and funding at least a part‑time outreach coordinator and longer event leads windows; they asked staff to return with refined costings and to negotiate Dixon’s contract. No formal votes were recorded at the meeting.