Yuba City Council recommends use of CARES Act funding
May 7—Yuba City Council this week recommended using $824,716 in allocated federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, Economic Security (CARES) Act funding for several projects, according to Development Services Director Ben Moody.
The funds have been designated for use and will be utilized by the recipients to implement their projects or programs. The organizations that will receive funds include: the city and its parks department, the fire department, the Regional Emergency Shelter Team (REST), FREED, Playzeum, and Adventist Health/Rideout.
FREED Center for Independent Living will be receiving $218,000 for a dine at home program that focuses on providing meal vouchers to disabled individuals and seniors who are sheltering in place.
Yuba City is using $155,369 of funding to provide mortgage assistance to qualified residents who are behind in mortgage. The city will provide no more than 90 days of assistance.
The city's fire department will be spending $141,238 on purchasing additional personal protective equipment for firefighters.
Moody said the list of projects will be submitted to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for confirmation. The funds are received on a reimbursement status, so the city first expends the funds, then requests reimbursement.
"The funds will not be physically received until after the projects/programs have been implemented," Moody said.
Once HUD approves of the projects, the city will coordinate the funding and work with the recipients.
"With the city's outreach efforts there was a coordinated effort to endeavor to contact all nonprofit organizations in the community to help give them an opportunity to submit for available funding," Moody said. "The funding source is very specific having to be directly related to impacts associated with the pandemic, while also meeting federal guidelines related to CDBG funding, including serving individuals with low to moderate income levels."
In other business:
Consideration of an amendment to the city's shopping cart ordinance was continued to the May 18 meeting, according to Moody.
"The ordinance update is an effort to align with business needs and implement effective measures to decrease the number of abandoned shopping carts in the community," Moody said.
The proposed changes to the ordinance include separating the ordinance into sections that clearly delineate the law and consequences to individuals who remove the carts from store locations and update penalties; modify the retrieval period from 24 to 72 hours to provide more time for businesses; and remove the "new" business requirement related to containment systems so new businesses would adhere to the same requirements as existing businesses.
The existing ordinance requires businesses to establish an Abandoned Shopping Cart Prevention Program (ASCPP). The update would change the requirements around the program. Businesses with nine or fewer shopping carts will be exempt from needing a ASCPP under the modified ordinance. Those with 10-149 must have an ASCPP and will be given the option to retrieve their own carts or contract with a shopping cart retrieval company. Businesses with more than 150 shopping carts will have to have an ASCPP and establish a standardized shopping cart containment system.
Nine businesses in Yuba City have more than 150 shopping carts, according to a staff report. Businesses like Home Depot, Lowes, Raley's, Sam's Club, Target and Walmart would have to install a standardized cart containment system under the amended ordinance. The businesses will have one year to make the changes.
"While the Shopping Cart Ordinance has seen some positive outcomes related to the reduction in abandoned cart complaints, it placed burdens on businesses while many of the individuals that take the carts offsite were unaffected," a staff report read. "Additionally, larger businesses that do not have the containment systems are still seeing regular loss of carts that are being left in the community."
