Record requests for Chelan community benefit grants

Chelan City Hall. Photo courtesy: Lake Chelan Now.

A record amount of community benefit grant requests have been made to the Chelan City Council for consideration this year.

Do to the record number of applicants, 13, City Administrator Laura McAloon told the city council Jan. 13, "We are going to do a preliminary review for you of those applications. We'd like to have the applicants give short, brief presentations to the city council to assist you in making your final decisions."

The beneficiaries may be selected at a city council workshop meeting scheduled for Feb. 2.

McAloon called on city councilors to participate in the selection process, and councilmembers Terry Sanders and Agustin Benegas agreed to assist in reviewing the applications.

News of the record number of applications, "Is awesome, but also sad, that we have that many agencies needing support," said Chelan Mayor Erin McCardle. "We have set a budget line item, so we have guardrails for that spending. It'll be really helpful that we have a structured way of prioritizing. I don't think we have enough budget to fund all of the requests in there, so there's going to need to be some choices and hard decisions to be made."

City of Chelan community benefit grants augment nonprofit organizations that provide services to city residents.