Councilors question budget

By Liz McMahan
Phoenix Staff Writer

June 21, 2009 10:24 pm

— Page by page, line by line, several of Muskogee’s city councilors have been going through this year’s city budget proposal.
They are looking for places to make cuts and developing questions about where the city spends its money.
The councilors came to last week’s Public Works and Finance Committee meeting with several things marked on their copies of the budget, including what the organization Neighbors Building Neighborhoods does for the city.
They have received $30,000 a year from the city for the last several years.
None of the other council members nor the city manager had an answer.
Kathy Hewitt, former mayor and co-chairman of the original group, had the answer: Neighbors Building Neighborhoods “is the same, exact thing as the Non-Profit Resource Center,” Hewitt said.
The nonprofit center grew out of the Neighbors Building Neighborhoods project, Hewitt said.
The neighbors group began in 1997 as a nine-month project to develop a plan for Muskogee’s future. It was funded with $10,000 each from city, the Greater Muskogee Area Chamber of Commerce and Muskogee Development.
The group unveiled its study the following April, with plans to start affordable housing units, establish a city-county pro-business program and requiring demolition of all vacant derelict houses by the year 2000.
After the planning and strategies were set, Hewitt’s group didn’t stop meeting. They went to the agencies that might implement the plans and became the agent for a grant received to reduce juvenile crime in the community.
Russell Ruby left the group part of his estate and the Resource Center was established to help other groups with learning to write their own grants.
City Attorney John Vincent said there is nothing improper about the city supporting groups like Neighbors Building Neighborhoods, but the council needs to have a written contract with them, he said.
Reach Liz McMahan at 684-2926 or lmcmahan@muskogeephoenix.com.