The Mobile City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday, April 14, 2020, to authorize Mayor Sandy Stimpson to apply for a $500,000 grant through the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance Fiscal Year 2020 Coronavirus Emergency Supplemental Funding Program. The city is not required to provide any matching funds to receive the money.
According to the Department of Justice, state, local and tribal agencies had until May 29, 2020, to apply for the grant funding, which was designated for a range of pandemic-related expenses, including hiring personnel, covering overtime costs, purchasing protective equipment and supplies, and addressing the medical needs of inmates, among other eligible uses.
The item was not originally on the council’s agenda because it had not gone through the city’s regular routing process, but Councilman John Williams pushed to have it added and voted on immediately. “All we’re doing is we’re authorizing the mayor to pursue (the grant),” Williams said. “Let’s not delay it. What if we’re one day short on that?”
Councilwoman Bess Rich agreed the resolution carried little downside for the city. “There’s no match and there might be a timeline to submit the grant,” Rich said. “If there is no harm and no money that we have to let go at any point, according to this resolution, it’s pretty clean.”
Finance Director Paul Wesch also urged the council to move quickly. “We would appreciate any indulgence you can in sending it forward,” Wesch said. “It would sound like something we would like to do sooner rather than later. We are faced with a number of expenditures related to COVID-19.”
The grant application was one of seven COVID-19-related items on the council’s agenda that day. Four construction-related items were held over until the next meeting, and a public hearing on the proposed Mobile Tourism District was postponed four weeks, to May 12. Council members also approved a separate COVID-19-related item that day: a $2,000 appropriation to Feeding the Gulf Coast to support the organization’s pandemic relief efforts.