In funding fight, Peanut Fest has seats at table

SUFFOLK

Like several other nonprofit organizations, the annual fall Peanut Fest recently made its pitch for some funding from the city.

Unlike the other nonprofits, the festival had two of its own board members on the panel hearing those requests, including City Manager Selena Cuffee-Glenn.

Suffolk's city managers have been involved since the event started as Harvest Festival in 1978, and their board seat is in the nonprofit's bylaws, said Linda Stevens, the executive director of Suffolk Festivals Inc., which manages Peanut Fest.

Last year, after Cuffee-Glenn took over as city manager, the city budgeted the same amount for Suffolk Festivals - $50,000 - as it had each of the prior three years. That was the biggest grant the city budgeted for a local nonprofit in two of those three years, not counting its partnership with the Suffolk Center for the Cultural Arts.

The arrangement is unusual in South Hampton Roads and a cause of concern for at least one other nonprofit that has been told it wouldn't receive a local grant this year.

"It doesn't look good, that's all I know," said the Rev. T. Floyd Irby Jr., president of the board of directors for the Genieve Shelter, which serves victims of domestic violence.

Requests for local grants are especially competitive this year as cities try to reduce their budgets. Suffolk cut the amount it budgeted for local nonprofits to $225,000 from about $350,000. The city received 32 requests, and it has told some groups they would get only federal grant money that the city directs, with no local funds.

Stevens said she was confident her group receives no special treatment.

Cuffee-Glenn does not sit on any of the other nonprofit boards that applied for a grant this year, said Debbie George, a city spokeswoman.

The City Council will have to approve her recommendations, which are expected after July 1. George released the following statement when asked how other nonprofits can be assured the recommendations are impartial:

"City staff sits on a number of boards and advisory groups that receive funding from the City. The City Manager has an obligation to evaluate all budgetary matters, as a requirement, and seek input from staff."

Suffolk Festivals' board of directors sets policy and approves the Peanut Fest 's budget, while a separate executive committee runs the operations, Stevens said.

The 21-member board includes other city staff, including Director of Parks and Recreation Lakita Frazier. She was also on the five-person panel that listened to Stevens' presentation last month in City Council chambers.

Norfolk City Manager Regina V.K. Williams was the only other top administrator of South Hampton Roads' five main cities who reported serving on a local nonprofit board that might seek a city grant. She said she set boundaries for herself years ago to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

For instance, Williams serves on the board of Catholic Charities of Eastern Virginia, but she said she does not participate in the review of that group's grant applications and is not involved in the decision of whether it will receive funds.

Williams said she also recently agreed to serve on the board of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeast Virginia. She said she will have an assistant city manager review any recommendations that her administration makes about the group, "which is my process when I think there could be a perceived or real conflict of interest," she said in an e-mail.

Williams acknowledged the desire to volunteer in one's community. But she added that "given the nature of our jobs, we need to be careful."

Pilot writer Aaron Applegate contributed to this report.

Dave Forster, (757) 222-5563, dave.forster@pilotonline.com