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Item No: 7D Meeting Date: February 25, 2008 Type of Business: CB Administrator Review: ____ City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: James Ericson, Interim City Administrator Item Title/Subject: Resolution 7228 Accepting a Donation from Bethlehem Baptist Church and Appointing Members to the Mounds View Service Project Fund Committee. Background Bethlehem Baptist Church purchased the building located at 5151Program Avenue in 2004 and received City zoning approval to renovate the former office / warehouse space for church usage. At this same time, the Church expressed its desire to sponsor and support worthy community endeavors and thus created the Mounds View Service Project Fund pledging annual donations totaling $25,000. According to the Church they envisioned the fund to be used to help meet certain community needs jointly identified by the city and the church that would be “in harmony” with their mission and values. Previous donations have funded Mounds View park improvements, the YMCA’s Y Partners program, the Mounds View Festival in the Park, the Mounds View School District’s SAIL and STAND programs, the DARE program, Irondale High School athletics and CEAP—the Community Emergency Assistance Program—among others. Discussion At the August 27, 2007 City Council meeting, the Council accepted the send-half donation from Bethlehem but questioned the programs identified for funding. The Council expressed its desire to see the dollars be utilized in a way that would more directly benefit Mounds View and its residents. Earlier this month the mayor asked me about the August 2007 donation and how it had impacted the YMCA. The Y partners program was not identified for funding in the second-half donation last year as it had in the first half donation. I spoke with Program Director Dan Weldon last fall who asked if the funds that had been directed to the STAND and SAIL programs were the same dollars that could have been directed to the Y Partners program. I confirmed for Mr. Weldon the programs to which Bethlehem had directed their second half donation, which did not include Y-Partners. Last week Mr. Weldon indicated that he had mistakenly assumed the Y-Partners funding was more or less a permanent thing. Last week I contacted Pastor Dan Holst with Bethlehem Baptist Church and asked about the first-half donation for 2008, and requested that the committee meet to review funding opportunities if the check had not yet been issued. Pastor Holst confirmed that the check had indeed been cut although it had not yet been delivered. He assured me that Bethlehem had listened to what the Council had expressed last August and