In addition to being publisher of the Grand Lake Guardian, I’m also Chair of Friends of the Cleveland Cascade. So, duh, today is a good day!
I want to thank—fervently, sincerely, and with utmost gratitude—all those many of you that supported the Cleveland Cascade during the Partners in Preservation web competition. You voted early and often; you enlisted your friends and family (and pets?); and you kept going… way after the novelty had worn off!
It was a big deal for our restoration project to make it into the 25 finalists. Being paired with the Oakland Fox was, by itself, a high honor.
But it is a very big deal that we were awarded a major grant.
Besides the $50,000—which will come in very handy—the credibility and stamp of approval that comes with the award will be a huge boost for our upcoming capital campaign to raise the substantial remaining money needed for the restoration of the Cleveland Cascade.
After the award ceremony tonight, I spoke with Anthony Veerkamp, senior program officer at the Western Regional Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Anthony was very clear what made the restoration of the Cleveland Cascade such a worthy project for funding: that it sprung so organically from the neighborhood.
It was a true and spontaneous grassroots movement. From the first unauthorized shovelful of rosemary and dirt that christened the May 2004 excavation, we were neighbors and a community that would not stand to have the beauty and memory of the Cascade remain buried.
For all the project has been, its success tonight, and what it will become… we have all of you to thank. Thanks!
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Comments
Jeff, that’s a great question. I can’t promise my answer will be as clear as your question!
My understanding is that Oakland’s Public Works Agency (PWA) lives primarily though various fees it charges, rather than from receiving any substantial appropriation from the General Purpose Fund. (Some of these fees are charged by PWA to other City departments.)
The best place I know to see this is from the “City of Oakland, California Adopted Policy Budget FY 2005–07.” (Beware! This “summary” is a 70MB download!) Page D-51 has a pie chart “Breakdown of FY 2005–07 (2-Year Total) GPF Expenditure by Type.” (“GPF” is the General Purpose Fund, which is the main fund in the General Fund.) PWA’s slice of this pie is 0%. (Each other department listed shows at least 1%.)
Any business/organization such as the PWA has various fixed and overhead costs not directly related to any specific project or service. If you have to survive on fees for services, then you have to set those fees high enough to cover not only the true incremental costs of providing those services but also to cover a share of the overhead unrelated to the activity generating the cost. In economics speak, you’re charging more than the “marginal cost.” This can discourage projects that would otherwise make sense in terms of their benefit to the city and their true incremental costs. And for those projects that nevertheless go foward, these higher fees inflate their project costs beyond what most people would guess based on experiences in the private sector.