City to help Duncan Community Heart and Soul by paying for project coordinator

Jul. 13—The Duncan City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to help the new Duncan Community Heart and Soul program established by Leadership Duncan Class 26 hit the ground running by becoming the fiscal sponsor for its project coordinator.

Equipped with a short agenda, the first item up for discussion was for City Manager Kimberly Meek to sign the memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Communities Foundation of Oklahoma (CFO) to serve as a fiscal sponsor to the Duncan Community Foundation (DCF) for funding opportunities so the City of Duncan could contract a project coordinator for the Duncan Community Heart and Soul Project.

"Community Heart and Soul is a proven, resident-driven engagement process used by towns to identify what people love most about their community, what future they want for it, and how to achieve it," Meek told the council. "The great opportunities that exist from community input that Community Heart and Soul programs provide was selected as community project for a recent Leadership Duncan Class."

According to Meek, for Community Heart and Soul to be successful, a project coordinator is required to help facilitate community discussions and projects.

"The funding mechanism provided through this Memorandum of Understanding will allow the project coordinator position to be filled by contract, allowing the resident-driven engagement process to occur," she said. "Citizen input through the community Heart and Soul process will be beneficial to all of Duncan, including our citizens, non-profit and for-profit organizations, economic development and community development at many levels."

According to the contract, CFO, which will serve as a financial sponsor to the Duncan Community Foundation (DCF), will receive funding from the city to contract the project coordinator for Duncan Area Community Heart and Soul, a project of DCF.

The goal, according to the contract, is for Duncan Area Community Heart and Soul's project coordinator to "benefit citizens of Duncan by empowering residents to craft action plans that will inform economic growth and social engagement in the community."

According to the contract, the agreement will remain in full force and effect for not longer than two years from the date of agreement and the MOU can be terminated, without cause, by either party upon 30 days written notice. If terminated, CFO will return all remaining grant funds awarded by the City to the City within 30 days.

The city will provide to CFO funding for the project coordinator in accordance with the resolution, previously adopted by the city supporting the project. The city will also provide office space and a phone for the project coordinator and will process disbursements to CFO.

The project coordinator position will cost $120,000 over the two years. Compensation for the contractor will be paid once monthly in the amount of $5,000 by CFO on behalf of DCF.

According to the contract, the City of Duncan will disburse funds to CFO designated for the project coordinator's compensation once monthly in the amount of $5,150 no later than the first Thursday of each month. These funds will be directed to the Duncan Community Foundation Fiscal Scholarship Fund, a component fund of CFO.

CFO will pay funds designated for compensation for the project coordinator post through DCF's fiscal scholarship fund once monthly.

The project coordinator's job is to coordinate the Heart and Soul core team, sub teams and community volunteers to implement the model. This includes event planning, communication and management. Heart and Soul is designed to be led by Duncan residents. This means the Heart and Soul team and volunteers are heavily involved in activating the entire community to develop and implement activities to make heart and soul a success.

The project coordinator will organize Heart and Soul teams to accomplish Phase 1 milestones, which include building a community network analysis, organizing volunteers for initial actives, linking in local officials and city government, setting overarching goals and geographic area, developing core messaging and marketing and launching it publicly.

According to paperwork, the Heart and Soul program will help Duncan "see its pride and confidence grow, civility and respect increase, its residents become more connected to one another encouraging more volunteerism and civic engagement, particularly allowing young leaders to emerge." The goal, from there, is to drive "an improvement in economic conditions with increased investments in the community, allowing more businesses to open and thrive."

Through the community involvement, DCF and the city "will develop a deeper understanding of what matters to the residents of Duncan, allowing those findings to inform projects in the future."

Duncan Leadership Class 26 raised the initial $10,000 to fund the initial part of the program, and then applied for a matching seed grant for $10,000 from the Community Heart and Soul master organization. McCoy's also donated $1,000 to the project, according to The Banner's archives.

The agenda item passed unanimously.

Following the meeting, City Manager Meek, Mayor Robert Armstrong and Vice Mayor Patty Wininger each had commentary about just what the program would bring to the city and its residents.

Meek confirmed the city will provide the money to Community Heart and Soul. Duncan Heart and Soul conducted the hiring of the project coordinator, who will work for the nonprofit organization, although the city will pay the salary for the position.

"The person won't work for us," Meek said, noting they will work for Duncan Heart and Soul.

Armstrong said the Duncan Community Heart and Soul program will prove beneficial for the city and its residents when it comes to identifying exactly what they envision for their hometown years down the road.

"We want to make sure the public understands this is the public's input, the public's ideas and the public's projects that they will line out that will determine what our projects focus should be," Armstrong said. "It'll be the public's plan for what projects the city needs to get to work on and what projects the public needs to get to work on."

Wininger clarified the city wouldn't fund everything, just the project coordinator position, but said it will help when it comes to developing a comprehensive plan for what the people want. A majority of it will run off of donations that can be directed to CFO, which will then be paid out to DFC for the projects.

Armstrong said the hopes are it will create a project list that's prioritized and that determines what the town and the citizens want to see 20 or 30 years down the road.

"I'm excited," Armstrong said. "My hope is this rallies our community behind getting a plan together ... It'll be their input that makes the choice on what that ends up becoming. Then we decide whose tools will accomplish that — what's our responsibility, what's their responsibility, what's your responsibility. I'm really, really, really excited and really eager for it to pick up some steam and get started."

Meetings are anticipated to take place around the city in different wards. Armstrong said the organization will go to the people and encourage them to give their input.

Duncan Area Heart and Soul recently announced Mike Conn would become the project coordinator for the organization.

In other Duncan City Council news, the board approved:

—Authorizing the repair of the nitrification pump at the Wastewater Treatment Plant from Hanes Equipment for $57,939.

The next regular Duncan City Council meeting will take place at 5:15 p.m. on July 25 inside Duncan Council Chambers, located inside the Duncan Police Department.