Nonprofits Selected for Block Grants

The City Council has approved its final list of organizations to share $420,000 in community block grants over the next two years.

Approval of the list, which includes 13 area nonprofit organizations and a handful of city-sponsored programs, came after several months of review by city staff.

The council approved the grants Monday after a session that included the pleas of representatives from several organizations passed over for the latest funding.

Twenty-two organizations applied for the funding.

City Manager Donna Landeros will now be asked to draw up contracts with the recipients. Among the organizations approved were the Assn. of Retarded Citizens, which received a $2,500 grant for each of the next two fiscal years to help clients participate in recreation programs, and Interface Children Family Services, which received several grants totaling $52,4000 each year for various projects.

Council and staff members who reviewed the initial funding requests based their decisions on criteria that included the cost-effectiveness, goals, quality of the application and performance of the program if it had been funded before.