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Coalition loses main money source Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Brita Ethridge, 7, and her brother Trigg, 5, take a ride down a new corkscrew slide at Union Park in west Medford. The park was cleaned up and new amenities installed last year with the help of the West Medford Community Coalition. Failing to get city grant forces West Medford's grass-roots improvement organization to lay off director By MELISSA MARTIN Mail Tribune A nonprofit agency created to spruce up old Medford is at a crossroads after losing its major funding source and its paid director and finding itself about $5,000 in debt. Budget group used points to rate applicants The West Medford Community Coalition was among 21 nonprofit agencies that stood before a city budget subcommittee last month seeking nearly $600,000 in grant money. The subcommittee, which includes City Council members Sal Esquivel, Claudette Moore and Jim Key, made recommendations that will be presented to the budget committee April 29. They used a point system created by city grant specialist Tanya Wray that grades nonprofits in 13 areas based on the Medford City Council's grant guidelines adopted in 1999. Here is the list of agencies recommended for funding, along with the points they scored in the city's new system. A perfect score is 61. For capital improvement projects: Community Health Center, for the purchase of land for a new facility, 58 points, $150,000 grant; Housing Authority of Jackson County, for housing rehabilitation, 55 points, $90,456 grant. For the operating grants: Community Works Inc., 52 points, $72,102 grant; Southern Oregon Drug Awareness, 51, $5,000; Rogue Valley Manor Community Services, 49, $11,380; Community Health Center, 49, $46,431; Oregon Children's Foundation, SMART Program, 49, $7,500; Jackson County Child Abuse Task Force, Children's Advocacy Center, 49, $9,320; ACCESS Inc., 47, $82,076; the Salvation Army, 47, $20,790; American Red Cross, 46, $5,000; Center for NonProfit Legal Services, 45, $27,420; OnTrack Inc., 44, $17,000; Children's Dental Clinic, 43, $8,500; Rogue Valley Council of Governments, Senior and Disability Services, 37, $10,384; Multicultural Association of Southern Oregon, 37, $2,851; Medford Senior Center, 37, $7,126. Low-scoring groups that did not receive funding included Samaritan Counseling Center, 36 points, CERVS, 36, Arts Council of Southern Oregon, 35, Asante Child Development Services, 31, West Medford Community Coalition, 30, and The Job Council, 26. On the city's score sheet for point leader Community Works, Wray's handwritten notes praise the agency's long history of providing services, yet warn of possible lawsuits. (Last year, criminal sex abuse charges were filed against employees at a youth shelter operated by Community Works.) On the city's score sheet for West Medford Community Coalition, Wray's notes questioned the agency's lack of diversified funding, wondered why it left its history of providing services out of the application and noted a belated financial review. For the first time in several years, the West Medford Community Coalition failed to get a city grant. Board members responded by laying off the only paid staff member, Gigi Michaels, and launching a fund-raising campaign to make up about $5,000 already spent in anticipation of getting the grant, said board Chairman John Hamilton. "We're aggressively looking at fund-raising to recoup that deficit as quickly as possible," said Hamilton, a newcomer to the board following the chairman's resignation. But a critic of the coalition said spending money that's not in the bank reflects poor management. "You should have money in hand before you spend it," said Medford Councilman Skip Knight, who last year asked the budget committee to stop giving grants to the coalition. "That organization can do some great things and did some great things in the past," Knight said. "But it has become a self-serving, self-employment organization. If you have the funding, you pay your director. If you don't, you don't." The coalition needed a paid staff member to direct the projects and answer the many phone calls that came in at the agency's office in the Santo Center, the city's community hall at the corner of McAndrews Road and Columbus Avenue, said Michaels. Coalition director since 1996, Michaels last year managed the agency's $76,000 budget. What the neighborhood group needed most, it didn't get - City Hall's support, she said. "I would go to conferences with other neighborhood associations and listen to groups give reports about their projects and hear about the support they got from their cities, and I'd come back excited about our projects here and not get the same support," Michaels said. "Maybe they considered us a threat, or maybe it was a matter of being territorial or possessive rather than looking at it as an opportunity to work together to make something good happen." This past year has been a type of probationary period after city budget committee members questioned the nonprofit's ability to accomplish its goals with the grant money. In defending the agency, Michaels said the coalition started many programs that it didn't get credit for, such as Kids Health Connection, which put a nurse in the city's poorest elementary schools, and Kids Unlimited, which started an afterschool child-care program. She listed other coalition accomplishments: creating city ordinances that prohibit abandoned cars and require landlords to pay for garbage service for rentals; building a playground at Union Park near Washington School; painting or encouraging the painting of 100 west-side homes; giving away hundreds of children's bicycles; and annual cleanup days. "Gigi has been the glue holding the coalition together," said Jeanne Hamby Gang, a former board member and retired teacher. "We once figured the coalition saved the city $250,000, dollar-for-dollar, for each service provided. It's too bad the city doesn't see the usefulness." A city councilman who serves on the subcommittee that awards grants said the coalition may have lost touch with the neighbors. "I went to the first organizational meeting and was overwhelmed at how many people turned out, more than 100," said Councilman Sal Esquivel. "The last meeting I went to, only about five or six people were there. "In order for the West Medford Community Coalition to be a viable organization, it has to get neighbors to be a part and you do that by getting out and knocking on doors. West Medford people are just like any others - they are willing to give their time, even if they can't afford to give money - to make their neighborhood better." The coalition has several activities planned for spring, including a spaghetti feed on May 10 to raise money for the budget deficit. This isn't the coalition's first financial trouble. In July 2000, the Rogue Institute of Ecology and Economy - the nonprofit that maintained financial records for the coalition - folded, with $10,000 of West Medford Community Coalition money unaccounted for. "They closed their doors with $10,000 of our funding," Michaels said. "We kept our own books alongside of the Rogue Institute's bookkeeping because we were preparing to become our own 501(c)3. If we wouldn't have been balancing our books, we wouldn't have known how much was lost." The new board chairman said the coalition will work hard to recruit volunteers. And the former chairman - who said she resigned because of a busy schedule - said she will be in the ranks. "I've spent most of my growing-up years in west Medford and I still live there," said Karen Blair, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker. "It's a part of town I hold near and dear. I know what it used to look like and I hope we can get it back to where it used to be." Reach reporter Melissa Martin at 776-4497, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.