Solana Beach to move forward with Community Grant Program for 2021-22

The Solana Beach City Council unanimously agreed to move forward with its Community Grant Program for the 2021-22 fiscal year, and to provide an extension for recipients of the 2020-21 program.

The grant program provides funds to local nonprofits and other organizations that provide services or projects that contribute to the community. The city has $25,000 allocated for the program in the 2021-22 budget.

The extension would provide last year’s grant program recipients more time to spend any remaining funds on projects or services that may have been on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Solana Beach City Councilman David Zito said the city should check to see if applicants for the next fiscal year’s program have any remaining funds from last year’s program.

“I do think it would be worth making sure that as we go around for the next round of grant funding that staff communicates to the applicants that one of the things that we’ll be considering is, if people reapply, whether they’ve expended current funds when we’re considering grant requests for next year,” he said. “If they haven’t been able to expend the funds to date it’s going to be a little bit odd to be giving more money to organizations when there is such a huge need out there.”

City Councilwoman Kelly Harless said the council shouldn’t be “too rigid” given the dire circumstances many businesses are facing because of the pandemic.