City foundation would serve as an umbrella for raising money
By Kara Chalmers
The community foundation that the Saratoga City Council hopes to kick-start, to raise money for city projects, would not adversely affect existing nonprofit groups in the city, according to council members. They allayed fears of this happening at their Feb. 27 meeting to discuss the proposed foundation's bylaws.
Resident Tom Blaisdell, the vice president of finance for the nonprofit Friends of the Saratoga Libraries, said at the meeting that he questioned whether a community foundation would dilute the fundraising activities of community organizations that already exist.
The Friends, a group that supports the Saratoga Community Library, has more than 1,200 members, and raises about $45,000 a year from those members, according to Blaisdell.
Saratoga Mayor John Mehaffey said that other organizations have fairly specific missions and that the community foundation could be an umbrella organization for the city's smaller causes that do not have many resources.
"I don't see them as being antagonists," Mehaffey said of existing groups and the proposed community foundation.
In January, the council decided to try to form a foundation that would serve as a receptacle for donations for general needs in the community. Mehaffey said that there are residents who want to donate money for city projects, but the city today lacks a mechanism for them to do so. "There's a lot of good people in Saratoga that want to help," he said.
The proposed bylaws allow for two types of donations to the foundation: donations that are only earmarked for specific items, or donations that are from people who care about the city and want to give money that is unrestricted, according to city attorney Richard Taylor.
Council members also decided in January, to define the foundation broadly, as an organization that would raise funds for sports, arts or city facilities.
Taylor said the city council wanted to insure that the foundation could be used to support a wide range of activities that could enhance the quality of life in Saratoga.
According to Taylor, the bylaws would allow the foundation board of directors to make decisions on what projects the fundraising would target. But the bylaws would also allow any group in town that wants to support a particular community project to operate under the umbrella of the foundation. Of course, Taylor noted, any physical project--a building, a trail or a public monument, for example--would require city council approval, no matter how much money is raised.
"Donors to the foundation will want to be assured that there's broad community support for what the foundation's doing," Taylor said.
The council wants the foundation to be private, as soon as possible. Its goal is for the foundation to become totally independent of the city by 2003, but the city would sponsor the foundation to get it off the ground. It is the council's belief that an independent private foundation would do a better job raising money.
In October, the council gave up control of the Hakone Foundation--a now private foundation that supports the Hakone Gardens in Saratoga. The reason, according to the Hakone Foundation's president, Dan Pulcrano, is that the foundation would be in a better position to attract donors, if it were not operated under the direct control of the council, which previously could dissolve the foundation board for any reason. [Pulcrano is the chairman of Silicon Valley Community Newspapers, and publisher of the Saratoga News.]
On Feb. 27, the council decided that there would be at least seven directors on the community foundation's board, including two council members. Council members proposed that residents of Saratoga--and residents only--would be able to become members of the foundation, by donating, and that members would play a role in choosing the foundation's board of directors.
The fee for becoming a member would not be prohibitively expensive, the council decided, although a fee has not yet been set.
Council member Stan Bogosian said, and other council members agreed that, if the city puts forth the money and effort, and devotes staff time to start the foundation, citizens need to volunteer, since the city needs the people to help. If no one makes a commitment, the city may as well stop progress on the foundation now, Mehaffey said.
According to City Manager Dave Anderson, residents interested in sitting on the foundation's board of directors, or in donating, can contact the city clerk's office at 408.868.1269.
The public will have a chance to comment publicly on the bylaws at a future council meeting, most likely on April 4, Anderson said. Copies of the foundation's bylaws will be available in late March, or early April, on the city's website at www.saratoga.ca.us.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
