WILL A NEW CAC BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY BY CITY COUNCIL IF REINSTATED

I read on City Councilman Palmeri's blog that there is an attempt to bring back the Citizens Advisory Committee as the body to make recommendations on how to disperse Community Block Development Grant funding for the city of Oshkosh. After reading it I wondered how much will the council actually listen to the CAC and accept their recommendations.

I was a member of the CAC in the late 1980's and early 1990's. I was a member of the Public Works sub-committee. This sub-committee meet to find and discuss what capital projects should be done with CBD grant funding. It mostly dealt with the streets of the city of Oshkosh but also with public facilities that were located at/in city parks or any other city facility.

There also was a sub-committee that dealt with Housing another called Economic Development,and another that dealt with giving of grants to various agencies to help the public good. The committee started its work usually in August with a bus tour with the city manager as the tour guide taking the group (it had 36-40 members) on a bus tour what is happening around the city and talking about projects that the city was or would be involved in. We meet in the fall in or sub-committees to discuss what projects should be included in a list of projects from all three sub-committees to be funded with CBD funding. Then from this big list the whole group would vote individually on the 10 projects they thought should be funded with CBD grant founding for the coming year. The top ten then where presented to the whole group, then in early winter the Community Development Department would hold two public hearings to present the projects to the public

After that the projects were forwarded to the city council for their consideration. Many times while I was on the CAC the city council would act on part of the recommendations but mostly did what they wanted to do with the CBD grant funding.

My question is if the CAC is brought back how much will the city council listen to and actually act on the recommendations of the CAC presents to the city council. If this is an attempt by one councilor to change the way CBD funding is done because he does not totally like who is doing it now then it is wrong to change. But if the council will actual listen to and do what the CAC recommends then it may not be a bad idea. I know the CAC is a advisory board but in the past it seemed more like a committee that was formed to let some irate citizens think they where being heard by those at city hall.