City Council approves request to pursue up to $10,000 in Department of Justice funding for victims’ advocate
Unable to find money in the city’s 2017 budget, the Cheney City Council gave approval at its Jan. 24 meeting to the Municipal Court to apply for grants to help fund a domestic violence victim’s advocate.
Court administrator Terri Cooper has requested to apply for two, $5,000 grants, both from the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence against Women. The first is from the Criminal Justice Responses to Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence and Stalking Grant Program while the second comes from the Rural Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence and Stalking Grant Program, which takes into account unique situations smaller, rural communities may face in dealing with these incidents.
City Administrator Mark Schuller told the council the funding is requested to support the return of a domestic violence advocate for the court. The Spokane-based non-profit organization A.R.M.S, Abuse Recovery Ministry Services, had been providing a domestic violence advocate since January 2013, but terminated the service in October 2016 because of expenses.
A.R.M.S. had asked for some funding assistance from Cheney, but city officials weren’t able to find money necessarily to fill the request.
“It’s a good service,” Schuller said. “We just can’t pay for it.”
According to information from Grants.gov, 55 Criminal Justice Responses grants are expected to be awarded, with $50 million available for the program and an award ceiling amount of $900,000. The rural grant program expects to make 45 awards, with $33 million available and a $750,000 award ceiling amount.
Council also approved a new, five-year interlocal agreement with Medical Lake to continue providing municipal court services to that city. The agreement increases Cheney’s fee to $59,000 annually and provides a cost adjustment should case filings increase or decrease by 20 percent or more.
In other business, the council approved a water quality combined financial assistance agreement with the state Department of Ecology to fund payment of the city’s reclaimed water engineering report, which was completed and approved by DOE in October 2016. Ecology provided Cheney’s Public Works Department a $112,000 loan funding the report, of which 50 percent, $56,000 is forgivable with the rest to repaid.
Council also approved a line clearance contract with American Utility & Residential Tree Service to prune or remove trees near city power lines. Light Department Director Steve Boorman recommended last October the council reject a similar contract, which they did, because the city only received one bid for the work.
The department received three bids this time around, with American, which won the contract in 2016, being the lowest bidder at $5,330.80 per week. The department has budgeted $45,000 for the work.
Finally, council approved a $10,665 contract, which includes 10 percent contingency costs, with Continental Door Company for utility bay overhead door replacement at Cheney’s Utility Building. Two doors in the worst condition are scheduled to be replaced, but there are others that also have problems.
“I’m expecting we’ll want to do this amount of work over the next few years,” Boorman added.
John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.
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