Board of Aldermen 2-06-2020 Page 7
Deborah Novotny, Capital Campaign Committee
Thank you. What have we been doing again since December? We were in the training and preparation
stage, we hit the ground running in August of 2019. Today we have secured 30 pledges by meeting face to
face with people in businesses, often more than once. Remember, we are asking in a capital campaign for
major and lead gifts. We are asking people to give of their assets, not their income. So these
conversations do take time, but we have secured 30 as of last week. We are following up with several
others who are in different phases of their decision process. We have several initial meetings with people
coming up over the next two weeks.
We also have over 75 lead and top prospects identified that we need to make contact with. Actually that
just scratches the surface. The campaign is going really well; we have received positive feedback from our
community as well as other communities surrounding us. As Committee members, most of whom either
have a fulltime job or run their own business, we have been doing and will continue to do all the things that
make a Capital Campaign successful and have seen and are seeing the fruits of our hard work. Most
Capital Campaigns take 3 to 5 years and we’ve done really well in the past 7 months. We are ahead of all
of our internal milestones that we have set for ourselves and we will continue to remain on course. Ifa
deadline is required, we do request an additional two years.
Mr. Cummings
Mr. Chair, I’ll just close by saying it was never the intention for when the fundraising timeline was originally
discussed during the feasibility study for it to be memorialized, it was originally discussed as a plan or a
guide post which we should all recognize that some of the best laid plans need to change and evolve. If
the Committee wasn’t working or gaining the momentum, | could understand a concern being raised, but
this couldn’t be the furthest from the reality of the situation. The Capital Campaign Committee is working
tirelessly and they are just appealing for some more time. It is my recommendation that this body approve
R-18-001 and allow for more time for this project and the fundraising to occur.
Lastly, | just want to note that we have also an overall project status update one-pager for you. I’m not
going to go into detail on that but | do want to call out a couple particular items, particularly because there
are some audience members here who have asked me to make sure | am very clear and transparent on
some of the particular numbers with this project. So a cost estimate was recently done and it came it at
$23.8 million dollars; that’s what the project is looking at right now. The cost estimate that was recently
done is showing it to be at $23.8 million dollars. We are striving to reduce that down to something in the
order of $21 to $22 million dollars, which is the targeted goal.
We have three main sources identified for funding this project; $15.5 million dollars of City general
obligation bonds; we have identified New Market Tax Credits at $4.2 million dollars and then local private
fundraising capital at $2.5 million. That raises us, if all in, at $22.2 million dollars. So the overall financial
plan would be to use 70% of the project funding coming from the general obligation bond; 20ish% from the
New Market Tax Credits and then 10% from the Capital Campaign Committee. We are working towards
that 20% as a New Market Tax Credit. We are working towards that 10% as the local philanthropic
charitable capital to be contributed to the project. That’s 30% of the total project funding. We have
confidence in the 10% that’s coming together, if you are willing to give us an extension of the timeline and
we are working aggressively for that other 20%. That other 20% through the New Market Tax Credit is
beyond our control, and it is something that we won't really learn about until early summer, June or July
timeframe. So | just want to make sure that everyone understands that. So there is a possibility at some
point that we may need to revisit how to close that 20% gap in the funding plan once we hear from the New
Market Tax Credit folks as to where things stand come early summer.
So | just want to make sure that was also very clearly understood again for folks. With that being said, Mr.
Chair, | hope this evening this body feels as though they can support the Resolution and votes in favor of
the Legislation before you. Thank you.
