“Capitol Hill Community Council Vice President Zachary Pullin attended Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce’s “State of the Hill” event alongside Alex of Capitol Hill Housing, and still made it back to the council meeting” — Capitol Hill Community Council via Facebook

Part of a City of Seattle grant typically used for marketing purposes will be put toward solidifying some key Capitol Hill community groups, representatives for the organizations say.

At Thursday night’s February meeting of the Capitol Hill Community Council, the group revealed its collective application with the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce, Capitol Hill Housing, and the Cal Anderson Park Alliance for the Office of Economic Development funded “Only in Seattle” grant money. The specifics of the grant are still unknown (i.e how much it would be, how it would be divided up) due to the grant contract not yet being finalized, though Alex Brennan, a planner with Capitol Hill Housing, estimates the total dollar amount would range between $150,000 to $250,000. The contract will be finalized and more details released in early March when the OED will award grant money to numerous neighborhood councils and organizations across the city.

“It’s money for capacity building within the council,” said Brennan.

Under the council’s plan, a portion of the grant will go towards hiring Brennan to provide staffing and administrative support to the council. He estimates his dedicated time will be around 15 to 20 hours a month.

“We’re [the community council] all volunteers so having someone with dedicated time each month to work on everything from looking at administrative staff, helping us polish up our bylaws, to fundraising, to really helping us expand our network of organizations so that our work is a little more cross issue and be more collaborative,” said Zachary Pullin, vice president of the council.

“There’s a lot of room for the council to define what the details are, whereas a lot of the other things that will be funded by this are specific projects,” said Brennan, adding that because the grant contract is still in the works that both he and Pullin are “hesitant to say too much” at this point.

The Chamber of Commerce will handle the billing process as appropriations are made for projects and programming by the other various partner organizations. Brennan noted that the Chamber will be receiving the majority of the grant money.

One attendee of the last night’s council meeting voiced concerns that “power brokers” on the Hill will be “taking over” the community council. Brennan said his staffing efforts will be limited to supporting actions taken by the council.

At the Capitol Hill Community Council’s winter open house last year, community members identified several priority issue areas that they would like to see the council focus on such as race and social justice, affordable housing, and transit. Both Brennan and Pullin said they hope that the grant will provide the council the resources and support to start coming up with projects and programming that can address these issues in the neighborhood.