Simi Disburses $130,650 in Block Grants to a Dozen Nonprofit Agencies : Services: City gives $42,500 to Baseballers Against Drugs for youth workshops. Food Share and Free Clinic also receive funds. But the mayor warns the groups not to become too reliant.

Baseballers Against Drugs and the Simi Valley Free Clinic are in. Catholic Charities and the Wellness Community are out.

So decreed the Simi Valley City Council as it stretched $130,650 in federal Community Development Block Grant funds among a dozen nonprofit agencies, turning down six others when the money ran out.

“You look at all these programs and they seem to be the greatest in the world,” Councilman Bill Davis said. “But then you realize you only have a certain amount of dollars to go around.”

As the council sorted through the applications for the annual funding Monday night, some clear standards emerged.

Requests that came with healthy matching funds were good, as were new programs or expanding ones. The council also favored projects that help many people over those that focus on just a few.

Baseballers Against Drugs got $42,500, by far the largest grant awarded to any agency. The money will fund a series of daylong summer workshops where thousands of needy Simi Valley youth will meet and mingle with retired major league ballplayers.

“This is not the million-dollar ballplayers,” program founder Jim Dantona told the council. “This is old-timers doing their part to keep the kids off the streets.”

More modest grants went to Food Share, Ventura County’s largest food pantry, which got $7,600 to buy a new refrigerator, and the Free Clinic, which received $5,400 to expand its counseling, medical and legal programs for low-income residents.

Mayor Greg Stratton took the lead in querying the applicants, warning them not to become too reliant on the federal funding.

“Have you received (block grant) money before?” and “When do you plan to become self-supporting?” he asked as each applicant took a turn at the podium.

Following its own guidelines, the council turned down a Catholic Charities program to provide food and shelter for mentally ill homeless people. The city had funded the service before, this year’s $5,000 request came with just $500 in matching funds, and the program helped only 22 Simi Valley residents in 1994.

The city also turned down a request from the Wellness Community, a Westlake Village agency offering free psychological support to cancer patients. In past years, the city has donated a total of $20,000 to the program, which last year helped only 74 Simi Valley residents and came with no matching funds.

Other programs that received funding include: Child Abuse and Neglect, $4,800 to train residents in child-abuse prevention; Grey Law, $3,850 for legal aid for senior citizens; Interface Children, Family Services, $9,300 for a health program for children; Long Term Service of Ventura County, $9,500 to help curb elder abuse; and Lutheran Social Services, $17,000 to expand a home-care program for senior citizens.

Also, Older Adults Services and Intervention System or OASIS, received $9,500 to help fund a range of services for senior citizens; Simi Valley Council on Aging, $7,700 to replace old furniture at the Simi Valley Senior Center; Simi Valley Education Foundation, $7,200 for an after-school anti-gang program; and Simi Valley Adult School, $6,300 for child care for teen-age mothers.