The contract for Friends of Hemming Park spells out minimum fundraising and revenue requirements for the nonprofit to receive quarterly payments totaling $1 million from Duval County taxpayers.
The first benchmark came Dec. 1 with the contract saying the nonprofit must raise $25,000 in the three months after the Sept. 1 effective date.
A budget prepared by the nonprofit shows it raised about $1,500 in the first three months, but it still received the $150,000 payment due from the city Dec. 1.
Bill Prescott, who serves on the Friends board of directors, contends the nonprofit reached the goal because of $50,000 in grants it received as far back as seven months before receiving the contract to manage the park.
City Council members who worked on turning the park over to the nonprofit disagree.
“How do you consider that?” asked council member Denise Lee. “That happened way before the agreement.”
Lee chaired the committee that drafted legislation to retain the Friends to manage the park.
Council member Bill Gulliford, who chaired the committee handling Request for Proposals for management of Hemming Park, also questioned the interpretation of the contract terms.
“I think that’s bogus. I don’t know how you count that. The grants aren’t the result of the contract,” he said. “The reality is they haven’t raised the money.”
Lee said it should have been made clear before the contract was signed if the group expected to receive credit for earlier grants.
“If that were the case, it should have been part of the legislation,” she said. “The administration needs to come back before the council."
Oliver Barakat, chair of the Downtown Investment Authority, agreed with Lee and Gulliford that money from the grants should not count toward the nonprofit's fundraising obligation. The DIA provided $800,000 of the $1 million for the Hemming Park contract.
Lee has scheduled a public meeting at 2 p.m. Thursday in the Don Davis Room at City Hall to discuss the terms and interpretation of the contract.
“We can’t write another check until this is resolved,” said Lee.
David DeCamp, spokesman for Mayor Alvin Brown, said the administration has no problem with counting the grants received before the effective date of the contract.
“Are we supposed to penalize them for being successful?” DeCamp said. “Our goal is to get them in a position where they can be successful.”
He called the Daily Record’s questions about the issue “picayune.”
The nonprofit received a $35,000 grant from Wells Fargo in February 2014 and a $15,000 grant from Deutsche Bank in July. Both were for park beautification.
The Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Services requested an opinion Dec. 10 from the Office of General Counsel on whether the grants should be counted because the funds were obtained prior to the contract being signed.
Assistant General Counsel John Sawyer said the contract allows amounts raised in previous periods to be counted toward successive periods.
To disallow those funds “runs counter to the intent” of the contract, Sawyer said.
Parks department spokeswoman Pam Roman said the request for the legal opinion was made after the Friends listed the grants on a progress report provided to the city.
The grants were not listed in the budget reports the Friends provided to the parks department other than as a footnote.
Prescott said about $23,000 of the Wells Fargo grant was spent on beautification of the park. A portion of the balance from the grants, he said, was used to cover operating and payroll expenses because the Sept. 15 payment due from the city wasn’t received until October.
The nonprofit then restored the grant funds to the budget designated for beautification projects. That leaves about $25,000 for future improvements.
Prescott said the nonprofit’s expenses since Sept. 30 total about $227,000.
He described the issue as “bumps in the road of getting started.”
Gulliford said while he is a long-time advocate for improving the park and voted in favor of the city putting $1 million into the program, he so far has not seen much that’s different since the nonprofit began managing the space.
“It’s not at the magnitude I expected,” he said. “We’ve hired people and we’ve got a new logo, but I don’t see much change in the park.”
Since the nonprofit has managed the park, Vagabond Coffee Co. has moved there. Also, Charlie’s Cafe is open 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday-Friday. The park also hosted dozens of same-sex weddings on a Saturday last month.
Terms of the contract
Friends of Hemming Park is required to raise $250,000 in the first year of the contract. The city can withhold payments if the nonprofit fails to reach its performance standards. The schedule is:
• $25,000 within three months after the effective date of the pact
• $100,000 within six months
• $200,000 within nine months
• $250,000 within 12 months
The city is paying the nonprofit $1 million to manage the park for 18 months. The Downtown Investment Authority is contributing $800,000, with the remaining $200,000 coming from the Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Services. The payment schedule is:
• $300,000 on Sept. 15
• $150,000 on Dec. 1, March 1, June 1 and Sept. 1
• $100,000 on Jan. 1
@DRMaxDowntown
(904) 356-2466