Fund Grant Requests Approved by Council

The Police Department’s antigang unit, city code enforcement efforts and a new mini-community center in the Glen-Neighbors apartment area are among programs that will receive federal grant money.

The City Council this week approved a total of $6.2 million in federal grant funding requests.

City Housing Manager Bertha Chavoya said that for 1997-98, the city will receive $4.7 million in community development block grant money, $1.3 million in money for affordable housing projects and $126,000 in emergency shelter grant money.

Block grant money will be used to hire a full-time employee to coordinate programs and activities at Ponderosa Park community center and to buy land to build Betsy Ross Park at Manchester Avenue and Santa Ana Street and Lemon Park at Water and Lemon streets.

Several residents who live near the proposed Betsy Ross Park urged the council to allocate grant money to build a gym at the new park. But city officials said there are no plans to build a gym.

“Building a gym in west Anaheim is long overdue,” resident Rudy Escalante said. “It really, really is needed.”

Resident Seferino Garcia, who also supports a gym, criticized the grant allocations, saying that too much grant money is going to projects in central Anaheim.

Nonprofit agencies receiving grant money included Anaheim YMCA for its camping and child-care programs, Anaheim Museum and Anaheim Boys and Girls Club for operation expenses and for a program that delivers meals to elderly people in the city.

Also approved was a request to build a community shelter at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School to be used for an after-school program as well as other community functions.

Some of the organizations receiving emergency shelter grant money are Anaheim Interfaith Shelter, Episcopal Service Alliance and the Women’s Transitional Living Center.