City tables food pantry's $50K request

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Jim Harlin was on the fast track to gaining the City Council's approval for a $50,000 donation to the Community Pantry Tuesday evening until he hit a little snag.

Donations are illegal.

Harlin, the pantry's executive director, first launched into a long song and dance about all the organization's programs and accomplishments a working relationship with 60 churches and non-profits, a paltry 1.8 percent of its costs spent on administration, providing an average of 250 people with fresh produce every day, a new facility who's refrigerator could house the entirety of the former pantry, etc.

For the sake of moving the council meeting along, Rosebrough asked Harlin to get to the point.

"I'm requesting $50,000 to enter into a contract (with the city) to distribute food in the City of Gallup; that's the bottom line," he said.

In an advance letter to the city manager, Harlin noted that a major funder, the McCune Charitable Foundation, was pulling out, and said the money was necessary to "more adequately serve our clients."

The Council was eager to help out, and Councilman Frank Gonzales quickly motioned to approve the request, so long as it was legal. Councilwoman Mary Ann Armijo seconded the motion.

That's when City Attorney George Kozeliski stepped in.

"It's squarely in opposition to the anti-donation laws," Kozeliski said, which forbid the government from making cash awards to specific organizations. "It would be like giving money to Casa San Martin."

Still keen on giving the pantry a hand, Mayor Bob Rosebrough asked Harlin if he'd be interested in some arrangement by which the city could offer the pantry in-kind assistance instead of cash. Harlin said he'd be interested.

"I would really like to find a way to work with them and give them the money," Armijo said.

Gonzales echoed the sentiment: "We need to work with them, because I know the work they do is a benefit to the county."

The Council agreed to table Harlin's request for two weeks, during which time Kozeliski and other city staff could come up with some way of financially assisting the pantry in line with state laws.

The local firefighters union also had its hopes put on hold Tuesday.

The union was asking the Council for a change to the city's current anti-panhandling ordinance so that firefighters could hold their annual "boot drive" for the Muscular Dystrophy Association this year.

The ordinance, passed July of 2003, makes soliciting drivers and passengers from medians, intersections, streets and highways for donations the boot drive's basic modus operandi a misdemeanor.

In the days before the ordinance, the drive would bring in an average of $2,000 a year in the course of just three hours for some 45 local families, union member Clitus Mendoza told the Council.

Some councilors were reluctant to amend the ordinance, however.

"Because of the unique problems with panhandling in Gallup," Armijo said, the ordinance was essential.

She suggested the union try some other fundraising tactics, soliciting donations in parking lots, for example.

The problem with that, one firefighter said, was the cut businesses often charge for the use of their lots. Wal-Mart, for example, asks for upwards of 10 percent of the donations raised, he said.

The union offered the council a revised ordinance that would make an exception for their drives. The council tabled the issue to give the city attorney a chance the rework the proposal.