Incoming City Manager Eric Batista Talks ARPA

Part 4/8 from our mini-season: ARPA Funding in Worcester

Public Hearing is back with part 4 of our ARPA funding in Worcester mini-series. During this episode, we continue our discussion with our guest, Eric Batista, who will be taking over the role of interim City Manager this June, by addressing some of the common questions and concerns from the community about how the money will be spent and how the funding will be used to create and promote equity in Worcester. Another topic addressed in this episode is how we can make information that comes from the city more accessible in order for the public to be more involved in the decision-making process.

Learn more about how Worcester plans to spend ARPA dollars on the City website.

Public Hearing is a podcast from Action! by Design about our home city of Worcester, Massachusetts and the people we should be listening to—residents, artists, activists, community leaders, storytellers, and those most impacted by issues facing our city. Our mission is to cultivate community through equity, inclusion, and design, and that work starts at home.

Want to be the first to listen to new episodes? Tune in Wednesdays at 6pm on WICN 90.5FM, Worcester's only NPR affiliate station. Not in the Worcester area? No worries, you can listen live at WICN.org

Transcript for this episode

Joshua Croke (00:04):

Hey everyone. Josh Croke here, your host of Public Hearing podcasts and radio show. This episode of Public Hearing was recorded on Thursday, April 21st on Friday, April 22nd. The city released the city council agenda with updated information related to ARPA that I will cover at the end of this recorded interview. This interview was scheduled to be with the current city manager, Ed Augustus, and incoming acting city manager, Eric Batista, Ed Augustus, however canceled, without notice, as we sat down with Eric the day of our interview. So there's that. So in this upcoming episode, we have a pretty good conversation with Eric, but I do just want to, as a podcast about centering voices, talking about equity, accessibility, and transparency, that it is very frustrating to be in positions where we have a platform to share these stories with people in our community. And it is still up to of our elected and non-elected leaders to show up or not.

Joshua Croke (01:08):

And I think there is a level of courtesy and conversation that also goes into this, which is the strategy of elected. And non-elected officials to say that they're going to do something. And then at the minute, pivot that decision so that it leaves us in the community having to respond to and react to those decisions in a way that is not fair. So I wanted to just preface that I might sound a little salty because it's true. I am. And I think that the community and our listeners have the right to hear from the current city manager Ed Augustus, who is driving the decisions around how the 146 million that we've been talking about from the American Rescue Plan Act funding is being used. So while I was encouraged to be able to speak to Eric who is going be ushering forward, this work starting June 1st for our city and community, and he will be who we are supposed to be holding accountable to utilizing these funds in an equitable and accessible way for the priority populations as articulated by the ARPA funding, which is our low-income communities and communities of color. I am disappointed that the current city manager Ed Augustus did not show up and did not have the decency to tell us other than two minutes ahead of time. So there's that. So I hope you enjoy listening to Public Hearing. And here it is.

Joshua Croke (02:48):

Hello Worcester and the world you're listening to Public Hearing on WICN 90.5 FM Worcester's only NPR affiliate station or wherever you get your podcast. I'm your host, Joshua Croke. And our show is about making public participation and civic engagement, more accessible in the pursuit of creating an equitable, just and joy-centered Worcester. The city of Worcester is receiving roughly 146 million through the American Rescue Plan Act. Also known as ARPA. This money has been given to communities across the country to aid read due to the economic and health effects caused by the COVID 19 pandemic with a specific priority to support people. Most disproportionately impacted low income communities and communities of color, 146 million is a lot of money, but a city has a lot of things that need to be addressed. So how are those priorities established? How are the communities most impacted it involved in the decision-making process? What money has been spent in Worcester so far, and what are the plans for the rest of it? We're exploring all this and more today with our guest and the incoming acting city manager, Eric Batista. This is part of our series on the American Rescue Plan Act in Worcester. And this is the Public Hearing podcast, Eric, welcome. And, and thank you for coming on Public Hearing today.

Eric Batista (04:01):

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Joshua Croke (04:03):

Pleasure. Before we dive in, cuz our time I'm sure will fly by, but for folks becoming more familiar with you as you're stepping into this role, is there anything that you'd like to share with folks about your background or your social location or things that have informed how you experience to the world and how you're going to be stepping into this role?

Eric Batista (04:22):

Sure. thank you. So people, if they don't really know who I am, I came here when I was seven years old on the island of Puerto Rico. So I am Puerto Rican descent. My mom is half Puertorican, half Italian, and that's something that most people don't know <laugh> cause she embraces her Puerto Rican culture very well. But we've lived in Worcester since 1990. So we've been here a long time. I grew up here, I went to school here, grade school, elementary, middle school, high school, and then, you know, took off and went off to college. Came back for a little bit to try to figure out what I was gonna do with my life. Then I went back to college and then, you know, then started my professional career. So I feel like I'm a Worcester kid, even though I wasn't born here.

Eric Batista (05:15):

I feel like I am a Worcester kid. I know the city very well. I know the community very well. I know a lot of people that I've just grown up with through different networks. And then and then I started working in the city about 10 years ago. That's when I started working in the city government. Prior to that, I was doing a lot of work in the nonprofit sector, working with youth first-generation, low-income students like myself, I'm a first-generation and low-income student. So it would, for me, it was a privileged and honor to do that because it helped to relate to the people and the families that I was working with. Most specifically people that I knew that were facing the same challenges that I faced when I was trying to figure out college and education.

Eric Batista (06:01):

And, what does that mean and what does that take me? And so that kind of helped to guide the next step, which was government. I wanted to be in a place where I could have a bigger impact. I was providing a lot of direct service, but I knew that policy season, things that were happening at the state level, federal-local level were things that I felt like I wanted to have more of an impact. And so I that's when I applied for the city of Worcester and I became a project manager in the city manager's office 10 years ago. And that allowed me to really learn about local government. I honestly, before that, I really have, didn't have more knowledge about local government in terms of its efficacy, their importance, and it's a vital role in terms of our day to day lives.

Eric Batista (06:45):

And there, I kind of worked my way up was a project manager, became a chief of operations, then director of innovation and assistant city manager, and now have the honor and pleasure and privilege to be the acting city manager come June 1st. So it's a bit of a whirlwind in the last 10 in the past 10 years, but I think it's something that I'm excited for that I feel would be extremely well received, not only for the internal departments, but also for the community members that I've worked with and known for long time.

Joshua Croke (07:21):

Thank you. And, and one of the responsibilities that you'll be stepping into and have been involved in, in your current role is the ARPA money. And that's coming into this city. And so I want to ask some questions and hope we can provide some clear and specific answers for folks in the, the community. So from what I've been able to uncover so far, it seems this city has spent around 12.5 million of ARPA funding. So far to date and from my understanding, a lot of that has been in the like revenue, recovery category and look working on streets and sidewalks parks. I think there is something related to like off Streett parking, but this information's kind of been hard to find and cobbled together. And so my first question is to confirm how much money has been allocated and spent so far of the approximate hundred 46 million that we're getting. Yeah.

Eric Batista (08:13):

So what has been actually spent what has been, what has been allocated is little bit different than what has to been spent, what has in terms of the categories right now? So there was categories that the city manager set forward related to housing, business development, creative economy, et cetera that has been proposed for allocation for terms of funding. There were some allocation to, I went to DPH and there were some allocation that went to revenue, recovery, like you mentioned. And so all, a lot of that internal kind of expenditure related to public health the parks department revenue, recovery some of the water and infrastructure stuff that's gonna happen. We've expensed between 12 and a half and 13 million. Right now a lot of the bulk of that, I wanna say a big probably portion between seven to 10 million is we've gone to revenue, revenue, recovery, and, and revenue.

Eric Batista (09:13):

Recovery is part of the report that you mentioned is part of the DCU reserves is reserves that we had to utilize during the pandemic to pay for, you know, on the deficits in the DCU center, DCU wasn't being used. It was impacted by, you know, people not parking, not utilizing the, the garages era. So a lot of those reserves went away. We had to like empty out those reserves. So to try to recover those reserves in case something else happens again, we, we, we replenished that and part of the ARPA funding allows municipalities to do that to provide some revenue recovery. So we, we did that. And then the other portions I think a million dollars went to the food hub. There were some funding that went to, that's going to discover central mass for tourism et cetera. So there's funding, that's been specifically allocated to certain things, but the majority of the funding the majority of the funding, which is over 50 million dollars that is available for public through grants applications that we're in the process right now of developing those RFPs.

Joshua Croke (10:25):

And for listeners who have been following our series, we've done a few episodes and we've kind of talked about some of the specific categories of the ad hoc committees, the areas in which that the money is eligible to be used in the community. And one of the big questions that we're getting from folks is like, what is transparency going to be going to look like? And I think that one of the questions that has come up is a dashboard that folks in the community can see and identify what projects has this money going to, what is being spent, how have these decisions been made. So what's the line for this dashboard and when will the community be able to start following along with spending?

Eric Batista (11:03):

No, that's a good question. And part of what we want to do is we've wanted to create a, even also a market, not a marketing, but a communication campaign that, and what we're trying to call it is we're, gonna call it ARPA at work and where we could provide graphics or information status updates on a, either weekly, monthly, whatever basis included of that would be a dashboard. All of that will kick off this Friday. We're submitting a council memo that will include the link and the actual dashboard that's already been developed. It's just a matter of submitting it to council on Friday for Tuesday's discussion public discussion at the council floor that will give us the opportunity, the green light to now start communicating and putting things out, et cetera, that council member will also include the new appointees for the ad hoc committees. And the diverse candidates have been selected as part of those ad hoc committees as well, including the affordable housing trust fund committee. So that's all going this Friday tomorrow, but basically to the city council's agenda.

Joshua Croke (12:16):

And so for listeners, you'll be hearing this after that comes out. So future me is excited for that information. Cuz I made a request to the city's ARPA email and was sent an infographic with yes, very vague percentages in a pie chart. And so that's where my kind of things have been cobbled together as to trying to find and access what has been spent so far

Eric Batista (12:41):

And you bring a good point and that's the balance that we're trying to figure out, right? Our typical way of communicating to the public is we inform council first, we let council know what's happening. What are the projects, things that are, and then we try to, you know, communicate out to the public. Ideally right now we live in such a fast-paced communication is available at any moment in your hands at all times that information should be available, at that speed as well. And so, but our challenges is how to, we balance communicating to the public before we've communicated to the council on what, what we're doing and that's what we're trying. And that's why we're hoping that this memo will be the kickstart for us to be able to start updating folks on a continuous basis on everything that's happening within ARPA. Hey, you know, the RFP is about to go out in two weeks, pay attention to, and we can just pull certain things like that. So people are aware and know what's happening. Because it's like, like you said, when we take our time to create these reports, to communicate to council, it's a matter of waiting game waiting for that report to come out.

Joshua Croke (13:49):

And there's also a component of inaccesibility of those reports for the community as well. Correct. You know, I've read through some of the proposed budgets that are like 30 page, you know, memos that have some information, but some of it's still relatively vague to it's

Eric Batista (14:05):

Technical too.

Joshua Croke (14:06):

It's technical. And one of the things that has come up time and time again is we have centered this show around how do we involve more of the public in the process of making decisions as well. And many folks, many guests have shared that they feel that oftentimes there feels like there's like these gate keeping or there, there are these barriers from, you know, the city government as well as larger institutions in the city that are at decision making tables to say by the time the community receive the information, these decisions and things have already been made. And so the ability for the desire to provide feedback at that point is often met with frustration or disagreement because the city's like here is an update to you on what has already been decided. And so it shuts down the community's belief that they can be involved in giving feedback that will be listened to. Yeah. And so, as you talk about the city council's involvement, what do you foresee there? Role being as it relates to, to ARPA and, and, and these dollars

Eric Batista (15:15):

They, so their role, it would be to help inform through residents, communicating to them, informing them, but also allowing the residents at the council meetings to share their thoughts, their ideas, et cetera. Most likely this item could be sent to a, and then be further discussion and committee. I could think currently right now, it's in the hands of the Mo committee. And so I've gone there a couple of times on other previous updates that we've provided financial updates. It's gone to Mo and it's been discussion there

Joshua Croke (15:46):

For listeners. I always like to clarify acronyms. So Mo

Eric Batista (15:51):

Municipal operation as committee. Great. But you're right, we need to figure out a way to communicate it in a way that's much easier. And I say this all the time, we live in an environment of pictures, videos, and 140 characters submitting reports and trying to read reports, doesn't help the average person that doesn't.

Joshua Croke (16:09):

I literally said to a guest, I was like, I would love a city of Worcester Twitter feed. That's like being million dollars allocated to the Worcester Regional Food Hub being like, as these decisions are being made so that the community can, again, engage in that dialogue and be able to say, I can follow along in this. Cause when you give people a lot of information over a good amount of time, it's much easier to digest. Absolutely.

Eric Batista (16:31):

Absolutely. And I agree with you and that's, that, that was my initial intent and idea with Amy Peterson when we sat down and we said, we need to create this process. And that's what we call an we're calling it ARPA at work. The challenge was that we, the kickoff is this report to then start that off. Could have we've done it earlier. ARPA at work, I launched, launched the communication campaign and start doing that to say, Hey, the, an update will be coming for in the next few weeks. You know, we're interviewing candidates right now. We, you know, we've selected the candidates you should be hearing from them in a couple, like, just like you mentioned, if we are able to do that, it becomes more the interactive discussion and engagement with the community and saying, oh, Hey, look, I just saw this, you know, this Twitter feed that says that this is currently where they're at.

Eric Batista (17:20):

So now, you know, it's just like, how do we treat ARPA as a person who's managing a Twitter account, right? And like, you know, status updates all the time as a person and most people there's status updates, Hey, I want to Starbucks, I on a coffee, look, how do we utilize that same kind of platform to be able to do, be effective in communicating our strategies and what we're doing as part of our parts of the community. And I agree with Dean, I think that's what Amy Peterson and myself are working on. And in this campaign of ARPA at work to try to kick it off that way.

Joshua Croke (17:52):

And one of the things that I appreciate that the city is doing is kind of leading with like an equity forward approach by creating these ad hoc committees that are gonna be allocating or overseeing some of the money that is available within ARPA. And so I wanna ask really specifically about these subcommittees and what true power will those individuals hold to administer and distribute the grants, or does the ultimate decision, you know, is that sit with you as the, as the manager? Yeah.

Eric Batista (18:26):

You know, that actually didn't come to realization it's. So now when you just said, it's gonna be me, <laugh> the way we structured it, the ad hoc committees, the committees will have the responsibility to review the RFPs before they go out. The departments are developing the RFPs, the scope of work of the programs and whatnot. The committees will have the opportunity to review of them to provide feedback any edits, et cetera. And then we will then release 'em to the community. They will also have the responsibility to review the applications not only the city administration will help and assist the department, cuz each committee has a liaison. That's a city adminis that will help and, and assist in reviewing applications. For example we could expect, you know, business relief could be 3, 400, 500 applications.

Eric Batista (19:20):

And so that's a lot of work. And so that we wanna also support the ad hoc committees and not overburden them but they'll have the responsibility to review and then so what they will do, they will submit a set of recommendations to myself. And that set of recommendations then will be in my hands to then, for me to review and make a decision. So technically the ultimate decision comes to the city manager. And, but that would be based on the recommendations that come forward. And we're one to, and part of my initiative too, is that those recommendations will be put forward and shown and, and so people can see what those recommendations are and how consistent I may be in terms of funding those recommendations as well.

Joshua Croke (20:03):

And so how does the community hold you accountable to following these recommendations and not making a decision that might ultimately you be different than what your, what these committees are recommending? Cuz I think that that's one of the areas of concern with many folks in the community as well, is that these folks are, you know, being recruited to do this labor for the city as representatives of their communities in the city and then their recommendations may or may not be listened to. So how do we really hold your position accountable to following these, this guidance from the labor of these committees?

Eric Batista (20:44):

I think it's one is gonna be the transparency of what those recommendations are maybe. And then two is just gonna be further discussion. I think there might be. And I know what they may be right now, but there may be some situation where an organization may need further support, right? They may not be ready to receive $50,000, but they could receive $20,000. And in terms of some, some money to help them support them, et cetera, some of those decisions might be tough, right? And, and it may be something that can come towards me and, and, and I may be able to say, well, I think we should consider the X, Y, and Z. I think all those elements need to be transparent. It also be in a way that I will be submitting my recommendations to council, and to the public so that they can see what, how it aligns with the actual recommendations of, and then it's an open invitation for discussion in terms of I'm not fulfilling or I'm not providing, or I'm not being equitable, I'm not being inclusive.

Eric Batista (21:47):

I'm not being and consistent. Then that's the part where the community can say, Hey, you said X, Y, and Z, you, they recommended this. You recommended that you need to explain, you need to communicate to us why. And I will do my best to ensure that we communicate if that was ever the case cuz I wanna make sure that it's transparent and communicated to the public as much as possible based on exactly what we talked about earlier

Joshua Croke (22:13):

And, and connected to that. Is there, you know, you mentioned some of the allocations that have been decided like the million dollars to the food hub right. And not arguing for, or against that decision, but is there a reason why non-city entities like receive pro priority over other community entities in that initial decision-making process?

Eric Batista (22:33):

Yeah, the, one of the things that that we decided to do in terms of funding, those agencies, there is an opportunity where by funding that entity or that location it's to develop the work that they're doing, we've been trying to work with them. And the folks that work the small businesses that work within the food hub and trying to find a space and location union station became a space that was available and, and it was something of interest. And so gave us an opportunity to try to develop that space, to provide you know, kitchen space or what have you to these small businesses who are trying to grow and develop their businesses. So it was ARPA allows us to give to one entity as the fiscal agent to administer grants, et cetera.

Eric Batista (23:29):

But it, it also allows us to, to give, to be to the city to be like the conduit of just it just flows through us to give to individual organizations or even individual artists or et cetera. The decision to the food hub was primarily because of the work that they do and the communities and the community that they serve in terms of all those small businesses. And then this cover central mass was the other agency that we are giving money to. Because one of the in the final rule of the ARPA one of the areas that is specifically that's very specific in terms of what we can fund is tourism, hospital and tourism, cuz we know that was the most impact and, and affected. They were impacted and affected DCU and Discover Central Mass was because of everything that happened. They weren't. And so this allowed for us to fund them and help, you know, sustained their existence and support and try to market us as a city and draw more tourism to the community.

Joshua Croke (24:26):

And there's probably a whole other podcast episode that we could discuss around like tourism strategies. And are the revenues coming in from these efforts like Discover Central Mass pushes, are they actually benefiting the residents who live here and are the people who have been most impacted by pandemic, again, low-income communities, communities of color, and you know, folks who have lived here a long time and there is, you know, raising concern around the cost of home prices and rents rising and is the city ready to support our residents who are here who need affordable saying who need access to homes generally, right? How are we addressing the need that our unhoused populations have? Right. And I know that both in the survey that the city did at the end of last year, talking about what are some of the priorities the community would like us to make, as it relates to this ARPA funding, housing came up as like number one every time.

Joshua Croke (25:28):

Number one. And while I would always like to see more participation in those surveys, right? Where 200,000 people city, I think there were 360 responses to that survey. So is it adequately representing what the community really feels is mm-hmm, <affirmative> something that could be, could be discussed, but as we're looking at, you know, housing and the other priority, there's still a lot of that money outside of the 50 million that is being under kind of some guidance from these ad hoc committees. So what are the plans for making those decisions and what are some of the things and projects that are being prioritized that we could share with folks

Eric Batista (26:04):

Yeah, some of the projects is I believe is like 23 to 25 million is going to water and sewer infrastructure. There is a number of projects, a number, a certain amount of money that's going into parks that we need to enhance or renovate, et cetera. The thing is that all of this work, all of this work, whether it’s parks or water and sewer infrastructure, a lot of that infrastructure has to be within the census track, has to be within the qualified census track which the qualified census track, the individuals that predominantly live in that area are low-income people of color by bar communities. And so that's where it's impacted the most. So it's, it has to be very intentional in where we spend those dollars. There's money there. There's about 6.5 million for broadband as a placeholder for broadband and where broadband it's going in terms of the discussions on that. There is, I didn't bring documents with me to show to know exactly where, but the majority of the money is going to water, sewer infrastructure, which is like 20

Joshua Croke (27:24):

It's, like 37 million is like in that category

Eric Batista (27:26):

It's all infrastructure. Which what helps us on that end is that as part of ripping up the, you know, the, the roads for water and sewer infrastructure allows us to improve our, the quality of our roads, the pavement index and our sidewalks. And so it helps to improve that as well.

Joshua Croke (27:45):

You are listening to Public Hearing on 90.5 FM, WICN Worcester’s only NPR affiliate station and wherever you get your podcast.

Joshua Croke (28:06):

So Eric, now that we're back, how do you respond to folks concerned that all of these infrastructure improvements might lead to continued inflation and housing costs and, and rents and things as like, oh, right now it's something that is addressing the folks who currently live here, but these are also tools that have been used over to time to make areas more attractive, to, you know, bring in outside money and outside individuals into the city. So what are some of the ways in which you can either alleviate or, or commit to residents that these improvements are for our community and that they are really being prioritized and how do we strengthen and support the eco anomic mobility and growth potential for the residents who are, are here now.

Eric Batista (28:50):

Yeah. And I mean, that's a viable question, right? Because there's always, fear that when there's a major improvements, it's gonna displace somebody or something, or et cetera, the, our water sewer infrastructure in the city, it's very, very old. We have pipes that are in the 18 hundreds. And so we have a lot of pipe burst all the time, water main breaks, where break we have a really old infrastructure. And, so part of our, a study that was done as part of our integration plan for the, for the city requires us to over time improve these water and sewer infrastructures. Otherwise we would, we could be in a position where we could we don't want to be the next Flint, Michigan, <laugh> where the water is actually contaminated significantly.

Eric Batista (29:41):

And, and so it’s trying to strike that balance that we need to make major improvements in our water and sewer infrastructure, which will impact the quality of life in our health here in our community. But at the same time, we need to, that's why we need to offset it with programs or the housing, like the affordable housing trust fund, or other programs at the city level, or working with other stakeholders to ensure that, yes, we'll do these improvements, but we need to provide housing opportunities here. We need to provide affordable options here. We need to provide assistance in these areas. We need to provide, you know, rank control in, in these other areas, through like block grants, like, you know, one big initiative that we did here in, in the green island neighborhood, we put over $3 million of investment and we made it public to a property owner.

Eric Batista (30:31):

If you wanna make any renovations or investments into your property, by utilizing this funds, you have to control that rent. And also there's a restriction now on that property, those are the tools that we could use to try to retain the income or retain the rent levels. So that you're right, so that they don't take our money, fix their property, sell it for double, and then all the rents are going up and then people are being displaced. And so it's a, it's a balanced effort that we're trying to, we're trying to put our money in all different spaces. So, you know, we're putting 20 million in the affordable housing trust fund, and, and that's gonna continue to grow over time cause that's gonna be invested and that's gonna continue to grow. So the hope is that long term, this will be a trust fund that can just continues to grow. And we continue to be able to provide opportunity for people to apply and build more housing, build more affordable housing, cuz it's specifically to affordable housing.

Joshua Croke (31:27):

I wanna talk to you a little bit about like the RFP process and so how, and for listeners RFP requests for proposals, the opportunity to apply, to get money from ARPA. And again, as we address the priority pop populations that are looking to be supported from this money, how are people gonna find out about this process? How is this process gonna be made accessible? So that folks who don't have maybe significant resources like development departments who are writing grants mm-hmm <affirmative> and who spend that time, you know, figuring out how out to go through what are often complex processes, how do we get, you know, mom and pop shops and small business owners and local small nonprofits that are working directly with people most impacted what's the process for applying for this funding and how can people connect to support?

Eric Batista (32:21):

Yeah, so we're doing a multiple things because it's important that it's accessible and it's important that everyone has the equal opportunity to apply those who, who want to apply. We are hoping is that the first week of June is to release the first iteration of RFPs to the public, the RFPs right now, we're trying to make them

Eric Batista (32:47):

As simple as possible taking into consideration that we have some federal regulations that need to be added to it. One of the biggest challenges that we know as part of the AR one is that in any individual that wants to apply, or that's gonna be a recipient of the funds need to be registered through sams.gov which is a platform that you have to register as part of this federal government, as an entity. And so those are, those are barriers that we understand and know within the system. And so to, to alleviate that part of what we're gonna do is we're gonna provide orientation and training to our aha committees, but we're also gonna provide community sessions where we it's kind of like information sessions to the community to allow community to come in or even virtual or different aspects to ask questions, walk through the application process.

Eric Batista (33:38):

What are some of the challenges we're looking to partner with some community partners as well, who I can call up or members, if they feel more comfortable or call up Josh CRO and say, Hey, Josh I need some help filling this application. Now, can you walk us through it? That organization can say, yes, we'll help you. This is out of the steps to take et cetera. So we're gonna start kind of branching in that in the next month or to start building that program as to how that looks like. So that we, when we are ready to launch the RFPs there's info sessions going out there's communication, there's, there's, there's a process that's laid out that people understand and know the applications are simplest as, as they can be. And, and understanding and knowing that there's some restrictions that we just can't get away from. But we're gonna try to do the best we can to, to make it as accessible to everyone.

Joshua Croke (34:29):

Yeah. And to your point, there's, you know, federal regulations like these things that you have to adhere to and also the eligibility criteria for ARPA is pretty broad. So there's a lot of potential for folks there to apply for this money to really help, to be transformative in their communities, in their neighborhoods, in their spaces, in their businesses, in their organizations. What would you say to folks who might be hesitant to apply or even think about engaging in this process? Yeah,

Eric Batista (35:02):

I would say to them that one is try to engage with individuals or organizations that you make you feel comfortable with in asking those questions or having conversations about ideas or things that you're thinking. It could be that it may be, you feel like it's, it's pretty daunting to do it by yourself, but there's probably somebody else who's thinking the same thing. And they now, you both come together and you can create something pretty cool. And, now you have more support to submit that application and go through the process, et cetera. For example, there's a significant amount of money. I think about $4 million. That's going to the arts economy. Some of those funds will be going to individual artists. One artist may feel, you know, I just, I do not feel comfortable in doing this. I'm not too confident, but maybe two or three artists coming together to do a project together.

Eric Batista (35:55):

Now that it's more confident because you have more people involved. So I say, I, I say to them, you know, to one is ask questions, try to build collaborative partnerships as part of this process you know, go to the people you feel most comfortable with. And if, and if, if that doesn't work call the city manager's office, we will be more than happy to kind of talk through and work things out to help assist the individuals through the application process. But we want everyone to feel welcomed to apply because this is an opportunity where it's a lot of money and we have, you know, to 2024 to expense, technically we have to 20, 26, it all has to be encumbered by 2024. So, you know, and, and you really think about it. We're already, you know, in mid 2022. So, you know, time's kick taking pretty quickly. So we wanna make sure that you know, we wanna get these dollars out. People need 'em communities need 'em businesses, need 'em individuals need 'em organizations that, you know, covered our in deficit that covered a lot of, you know, support during those, those times are also in need. So we want to get those, those dollars out as quick as possible.

Joshua Croke (37:02):

And that's what I'm hoping to see as well in the engagement process is providing the adequate time for people to be able to engage in these trainings or hear about these community sessions, these community meetings, and then have a good amount of time between when they're doing that learning to when they have to submit RFPs or applications. Yep. Cause I think that's another thing that has come up regularly in guest conversations is, you know, oh, the city did do an info session, but I didn't hear about it until the day of I scrambled to get there. I had to find childcare and then the decisions were being made or the application was due two days after. Right. And so everything condensed into, you know, a really tight timeline and also in inaccesible for a lot of people. And especially when we're talking about these priority populations with ARPA, the considerations have to be made of like, how are people getting transport to these spaces? Are we actually, is the city going into the community to provide these trainings and these opportunities so that people don't have to figure out getting the bus to, you know, city hall and like, what are the commitments that we can make to people so that there's adequate time for them to find out about these resources and opportunities and then adequate time for the application process to fit into their life. Yeah. <Laugh> before it's, before it's due, right?

Eric Batista (38:25):

Yeah, no, no, you're right. And coming from a space where in a nonprofit sector, I used to write grants. It could be a little challenging if you are only given a certain amount of time without ample communication. So I agree with you. And, one of the things that we're gonna do, we wanna try to do these sessions in the communities in certain neighborhoods. We're probably doing in each district we want to definitely give people ample of time. And, the entire application process right now, we're looking at six to eight weeks where people will have an out opportunity to apply. That gives about, you know, a month and a half or two months to submit applications. One of the things that we're going to do as well as part of the ARPA funding is we're going to hire three ARPA administrators.

Eric Batista (39:09):

So that those, that those positions will be job description will be going out soon. So if people are interested, it should apply I to become administrators and administer these, these funds and help administer the funds that will help us because one of the things that we've seen especially during the COVID times when we were trying to provide funding for small businesses, is that some, some folks just don't have the experience of submitting these application. So they're taking pictures, those documents, they're sending them pictures. I mean, it was, they were doing the best they could at that moment. And we had staff constantly following up, cuz we didn't want to deny someone because they didn't complete the application. We wanted to give people the opportunity to complete the application and do it. Right. so because, you know, as you mentioned earlier, just folks don't have the experience and we need to be as successful as we can, so they can be able to provide and I mean, apply and apply accordingly. And so that's why we're also hiring people. The three individuals that I mentioned to help assist in that process, cuz there's so much, that's gonna come in in the next you know, three to four months that we need to ensure that that we're doing our part as a city to ensure accessibility, equity and inclusion in this whole process.

Joshua Croke (40:24):

Yeah. I think timelines are so critical and as someone who's applied and receives a lot of grants doing work for various nonprofit organizations and, and, and groups I think there's like that the critical need for also like when is the application due and then what's the timeline for the city to get back to folks and say, oh, this would've been, you know, dismissed cuz of a technicality, but we want to give you the opportunity to like adjust or make the correction. Yeah. So that this can be, this can be received. Yeah. Quickly before we wrap up going back to the subcommittees and you know, if anyone who is listening is one of the people appointed to the subcommittees, thank you for this work that you're doing. Right. Thank you for the labor that it's a lot of work, a lot of work.

Joshua Croke (41:11):

And on that, I think as we pursue equity and accessibility for public part to patient, I would push both in this ARPA instance, but also more broadly that we find mechanisms to compensate people for their time in doing these significant tasks, right? Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and this significant work mm-hmm, <affirmative> making these decisions, reviewing applications, et cetera. And it is all, it is truly a matter of equity and accessibility because if you are you in a low income family and working multiple jobs and are people who are in the most need of the support, that's coming from this money and you don't have any capacity to serve on these committees are the people who are needing to be represented, actually represented in those spaces. And so I, I know that a source tells me that there is some might be some private money that's been raised that could support compensating sub yes. Members for their time in labor. Yes. As you're stepping into this role, is that something that the city would be willing to like accept and like work with this funder or like the, this funding to support you know, connecting people to these resources to say like, not only a thank you for your time, but also compensate people so that they feel that they can adequately allocate the time needed to do this work well.

Eric Batista (42:38):

Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. And that's something that we've, we've had conversations with community partners and where we could partner with them and collaborate where they can provide that, that funding outside of this, the city, the city currently right now only provides a stipend to election commission, a very small stipend. They used to, I think the license commission years, years ago, I think before my time used to receive a stipend and that was eliminated. And so only the because it, it just, it just seemed like a conflict of interest to pay a stipend, the license and commission, but the election commission currently right now is the one that receives the stipend to do their work. It's a lot of work on what they do. And it's something that we're definitely exploring and something that we're thinking about in the few for future purposes of the people who one is, want to get involved, but can't get involved because of challenges.

Eric Batista (43:34):

And other is who we just have, you know economic barriers to be able to kind of support or even get involved as much as possible. So we wanna be inclusive of that. We wanna be open to that. And I think that's why we're continuing conversation with some of the partners to figure out what that, what that is, you know, is it's something that we do at the end and, you know, to thank that, there's something that's happened quarterly. How much is it, et cetera, et cetera. And we wanna make sure that it's equal to everyone in the, at our committees. And there's not, you know, we don't wanna put people in certain positions where they feel like, oh, you get a stipend and then it singles them out over another person. So we wanna make sure that it's equal to everyone as well. So there's a lot of conversation there. I think there think we'll be coming forward shortly, but it's something that we're definitely contemplating.

Joshua Croke (44:21):

Great. And so in closing, and thank you again, Eric, we're talking to Eric Batista acting city manager of the city of Worcester. I know that the current city manager Ed Augustus had made a commitment to producing like an annual equity report related to city activities. And I envision ARPA being a big part of that. So just in closing, can you tell us what this report might look like and who's leading that effort to assemble that report for the community?

Eric Batista (44:46):

Yeah. So right now the report is being done is being done by myself, Amy Peterson, Peter Dunn we're the ones kind of crafting it. We're getting community input weer together and their team has been extremely supportive in helping kind of not only in the process of, you know, whether it's interviews, whether it is looking at some of the paperwork, some of the RFPs providing support, guidance, communication, feedback. I mean, all that stuff is awesome because for me when you're trying to do a work so large like this having community members give you their perspectives and ideas and concerns and thoughts just makes the process even better and more enriching and more inclusive. And so when we put everything out, we're all, we're all celebrating the successes of that. Because we all took part in it. So I think right now you know, there's been a great partnership in relationship in doing so and we're hoping that, you know, Friday we'll have this Friday the 26th will be available to not the 26th, 22nd will be available to the public and the console agenda.

Joshua Croke (45:58):

Great. Well, Eric, thank you so much for coming on the show. Hey, everybody, Josh here from the future I'm sitting across from our audio producer, Giuliano D’Orazio welcome Giuliano.

Giuliano D’Orazio

Hello everybody.

Joshua Croke

So on April 22nd, there was a city council agenda that was released that has some updates following our conversation with incoming city manager, Eric Batista, who was not able to share some of what was going to be included in that agenda. So I wanted to provide a quick update around what some of those things Giuliano is here as a concerned Worcester citizen.

Giuliano D’Orazio (46:35):

So concerned citizen

Joshua Croke (46:36):

That's right. A long time or all-time Worcester resident

Giuliano D’Orazio (46:42):

Almost all time.

Joshua Croke (46:43):

Yeah. A graduate of Burncoat high school.

Giuliano D’Orazio (46:45):

Yes. Product proud product of the Worcester public schools and a very underfunded school that is still waiting for that Burncoat high school.

Joshua Croke (46:53):

Yeah. So we'll get we talk about the schools a lot. So we will get into that, but two major updates about ARPA. The first is that in this city council meeting agenda, it included the assignees for the ad hoc committees for, from ARPA. So again, for listeners, these are the committees that have been formed for people within the city of Worcester. So our residents to provide recommendation for how this 50 million community budget allocation might be spent. And I say recommendation with an underscore and a highlight because in our conversation with Eric that you just heard, he also said that he ultimately will have the final decision as the city manager, but these committees are there to provide recommendation and all also review all of the applications. So I think an advocacy point and an opportunity for us as residents is to really push the city on allowing those committees to make ultimate decisions and final decisions for how this money is being spent, especially because there is the instance which the, as people probably are going to be doing this all year.

Joshua Croke (48:12):

And even if they get stipends, they're gonna be a fraction of what you would actually attribute to like an hourly wage for the amount of work that these committees are about to do. But just as a reminder, the ad hoc committees are creative economy, mental health, business assistance, community programs, and the affordable housing trust fund. They also provided some committee demographics and across race and ethnicity, 19% identify as Latino 28% identify as black, 47% white, 3% agent and 3%, two or more gender identity, 42% male, 56% L 1% otherwise identified. And council district representation, which this is unsurprising. If people follow voter trends in Worcester, but is something that we need to do a better job at getting people activated across our districts in can I guess, involved in process? Yes. Get guess what is the majority represented district in these committees?

Giuliano D’Orazio (49:11):

I would say district five,

Joshua Croke (49:13):

You are correct. Ding, ding, ding at 41.6% D four 11 point 11%, D three 13.8% D two 8.3% D one 25%. And there is a little asterisk that says council district representation of the appointees is represented of overall percentage of total applicants. So again, this is just pointing to me like the glaring issue that we have of like what accessibility and inclusion to participate in these types of activities look like, right? Like you have to be someone of wealth and privilege to some capacity. You hold, you have to hold certain in levels of privilege to sit on these committees. Right.

Giuliano D’Orazio (49:54):

Well, like you were saying whether or not it's even there's a stipend or anything. It's a privilege just to have the time to be able to give, to do something like this.

Joshua Croke (50:03):

Correct. Yeah. And the stipends are still something that is a question mark. And if those stipends were provided and as part of what would be included in this commitment, we might have seen more turnout of applicants.

Giuliano D’Orazio (50:19):

Maybe

Joshua Croke (50:20):

There is an alternate future or not future there's an alternate universe. That was the case. And I wish we could talk to them to see what how the turnout was in that case. And as a reminder, there were 148 applications received and 36 committee members have been selected for appointment to one of these five advisory committees. There are seven members per committee eight members, affordable housing trust fund. And then the, as far as the process goes, the city of Worcester staff and external partners interviewed every eligible applicant collaboratively using a uniform scoring rubric, removing potential bias from the process along with trying to balance demographic and geographic representation. So that was also in the, in the brief to council. The other piece that I want to talk about, and I'm actually gonna be bringing this up pretty much live. I have not taken much time to review this, but is the ARPA budget dashboard.

Joshua Croke (51:19):

And we are gonna include this in the show notes. So if folks are interested and are listening on the radio, you can access our episodes where every listen to podcasts and also@publichearing.co we're gonna include a bunch of these links. So folks have access to these resources at first glance, the ARPA budget dashboard, which I am bringing up, which is using a software tool called Tableau, which is a data and analysis and visualization tool is, looks like it is interesting. So I, since you were listening, I'm gonna explain a little bit of what I'm seeing. I'm seeing a title that says American Rescue Plan Act projects. There is some options to filter by ARPA category, which includes the different areas in which funding can be allocated administrative overhead, community-based initiatives, premium pay public asset and infrastructure improvements, public health, revenue, recovery, technology improvements, and unbudgeted allocation.

Joshua Croke (52:22):

There is a tab or a space that says total projects. And the total number projects is 32. Then underneath that spent funds to date is 13 million total ARPA funds is 146.6 million. Then funding status. There is a bar graph that says, spent and unspent. And so on spent, there is a little tab or the, you can click what it seems like. You can click on the spent portion here at 13 million, but when I click on that, nothing happens. So I should be able to review everything that was spent, but, but you can't, but I can't. Well, there's this little tab that pops up that <affirmative>

Joshua Croke (53:12):

Kind of, after a second or two, you can click view data. So let's click view data spend 13,000,008 do $8,632 and 74 cents is the summary full data expenses. Okay. So I'm seeing minus amounts, negative expenses. This is way more than 13. Oh no, it's not than 13 mode. Okay. So you can see a breakdown. So, so far things that have been spent is in the public health bucket, something called the hub navigator in the public health bucket. COVID testing contract at 55,000 public health emergency public health initiatives at $153,200 under public asset and infrastructure DCU center improvements, electrical alt at 451,000. So that's half a million dollars, which is a pretty significant amount, but I know that the DCU Center was used as the emergency hospital during COVID as well. So I know that some of the money is preparing that for any future pandemic use.

Joshua Croke (54:22):

The other item that is here, couple technology improvements for an enterprise resource planning system at 2.9 million and then revenue recovery, which total revenue recovery is nine point four billion million rather. So that is a breakdown. So this is actually pretty cool. I'm enjoying this tool. I'm hoping that will start to use it as part of our accountability measure for the city. Folks can find the link to this in our show notes and at our website @publichearing.co. This was a quick little update about the American Rescue Plan Act funding in Worcester. Giuliano thanks for sitting in, thank you for having me and as always, thanks for listening to Public Hearing.

Joshua Croke (55:12):

You're listening to Public Hearing our podcast and radio show that airs Wednesdays at 6:00 PM on WICN 90.5 FM Worcester's only NPR affiliate station and can be heard wherever you listen to podcast. I'm your host Joshua Croke from Action! by Design, where we help coalitions and communities authentically engage people in equity-centered ways. If you're listening and wanna support the show or point your friends to Public Hearing.co share it on Facebook, add it to your link tree on Instagram, make a TikTok. Whatever's the cool thing to do these days. Our audio producer is Giuliano D’Orazio who also made our show music. Thank you to Molly Gammon and Kelly Kosiorek, who also support the production of this show. The work continues Worcester and as always, thanks for listening.