Another answer to funding questions

On May 4 the City Council voted 3 to 2 to deny funding for the

Dayworker Center on Laguna Canyon Road.

The Crosscultural Council had applied to the city in the 2003-04

budget for a $34,000 community assistance grant. The council gave it

$24,000 and said at the time to come back if the group needed more.

But when it came back, the city decided not to dip into its $3.3

million general fund reserve.

Councilman Wayne Baglin made the comment that if a nonprofit has

to depend on the city for operating costs it needs to write an

obituary. But Councilman Steve Dicterow has a different point of

view. He said the program is a solution to a neighborhood problem,

and that it is a direct benefit to the city and different from other

nonprofit organizations.

Councilwoman Toni Iseman agreed that the program is a benefit to

the city -- even financially. She said police response to resident’s

complaints about dayworkers congregating on street corners cost a lot

more than the city grants to sustain the Dayworker Center.

Though we believe the Dayworker Center is one of the areas the

city would be warranted dipping into reserve funds for, that source

can’t be relied on. Fortunately a new group has popped up to assist

nonprofit groups in raising money and handling other logistics of

charity work.

Michael Pinto, Mary Fegraus, Wayne Peterson and Peter Kote have

started Laguna Beach Community Foundations. The details of the new

group are still being hammered out, but it’s objective is one we

applaud.

We trust the city, with all its many nonprofit organizations, will

get behind it.