Every year, community organizations appear before Scotts Valley to share what they’ve been doing to bolster the social health of the local landscape and ask for a grant from the City toward their efforts.
It’s always a difficult decision for the elected officials, who generally remark how challenging it is to divvy up the funds.
There was a gap in the safety net that emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the community grants program was suspended as City finances tumbled. Scotts Valley rebounded—and with it the grants program.
This year, the $50,000 set aside for the program was frozen while voters decided whether to support Measure X. Well, in November they did.
And now, though the City still faces many budgetary challenges, staff says it might be time for Scotts Valley to level-up in a completely new way.
At the regularly scheduled Council meeting Jan. 15, City Manager Mali LaGoe outlined the process.
“We’re excited to be moving forward with it,” she said. “The City Council has been doing community grants for many, many years… We restarted the program in 2022, and one of the ways that we restructured the program a little bit was to create scoring criteria to have interested nonprofit organizations apply for this funding. We created a process where we had a scoring committee made up of staff and community members who would … make recommendations to the City Council.
“Should we follow the same criteria?” she asked. “Or, the Economic Development Subcommittee this last year—made up of Councilmembers (Jack) Dilles and (Allan) Timms—we had a conversation … about a program that helps cities become certified to better serve folks who experience autism or other sensory disorders.”
She said local officials learned about the program from Terence Concannon, the CEO of Visit Santa Cruz County.
“It’s sort of a program that builds upon itself,” she said. “The entire community can become an autism-certified community, which I think fits really well with the values of Scotts Valley, in wanting to be inclusive, in wanting to make sure that everyone feels welcome.”
One in six people have a sensory disorder—and one in 36 children are diagnosed with autism—in the United States, she added.
“Autism travel is an underserved and growing market,” she said. “When I look at places to visit in Santa Cruz County—and sort of the marketing message of Santa Cruz County … I think Scotts Valley is a really perfect location for a family who maybe has an autistic child, or someone who is looking to come to this area, be able to experience things, but also sort of be able to get away from the chaos that can be in the larger cities. So, the access to the redwoods, and Roaring Camp, and the ocean. There’s a lot of things that Scotts Valley can really offer if we had ourselves a little more educated and organized around that.”
The certification would come from the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards. LaGoe said Council could carve $10,000 out of the $50,000 grant program to launch the first step of a drive toward community certification.
And in the end, that’s what happened—in a unanimous vote.
Vice Mayor Timms was so taken by the idea that he initially suggested a 50/50 split.
“That $25,000 being available to the businesses would effectively seed this effort,” he said.
Councilmember Donna Lind said she was concerned that might divert too many dollars away from other important areas.
“I was supportive of the $10,000,” she said, adding she isn’t opposed to finding additional funds somewhere to top-up the certification process.
Councilmember Krista Jett said it’s an effort she wants to prioritize.
“I think it’s a really worthwhile initiative,” she said.
Councilmember Steve Clark asked about the ongoing commitment that would be involved to stay current with the designation. LaGoe said 80% of public-facing staff would need to be trained, with a recertification happening every two years.
Clark said he couldn’t help but notice support for the idea from the business community for the project.
In the end, Timms said he was happy to support the $10,000 level if the Council was willing to reassess as the community grants program progresses.
“I’m happy either way,” he said. “I think this is a really critical project.”
This sounds like a South Park episode. I just can’t believe it. I’m going to send Matt and Trey a copy of this article and maybe Scotts Valley can finally be famous! What about autistic horses? This doesn’t sound very inclusive. If it is dangerous for autistic people to be wandering around with fast moving traffic, I would support something that would bring all the Scotts Valley speed limits down to 15 mph so that the knuckleheads driving big ‘dangerous criminal gang’ Harley bikes (who also donate to children’s food and toy drives – which was actually a South Park episode) and 5′ 7″ tall fat dudes driving ENORMOUS and EAR SPLITTINGLY loud monster trucks – if we could use making Scotts Valley autistic friendly as an excuse to get a little peace and quiet around here, I’d be good with that.
This place is like a freeway with a parking lot. It’s loud. Everybody drives 0.2 miles in a GIANT SUV to get coffee or a single bag of groceries and then also drives around looking for parking for longer than it would take to just walk there.
It is no worse or different than most places in that regard, but since it’s sort of in a forest, it seems like a place you shouldn’t permit people to live because people are just awful…. and I mean both the autistic and not-autistic.