KALAMAZOO (WKZO-AM/FM) — It was an odd little meeting.
So far, there are only two members of the Kalamazoo Foundation for Excellence Board, Mayor Bobby Hopewell and City Manager Jim Ritsema, chosen because those positions are designated by the bylaws as members of the quasi-independent foundation.
They quickly ticked through a number of routine matters, including adopting the bylaws ratified by the city commission on Monday, authorizing negotiations with the foundation for support services, setting a date for the annual meeting of the board and authorizing the submission of the forms for an expedited approval process on their tax-exempt status.
They also approved the rules for taking public comment, and asked as they did for each item if there was public comment.
There wasn’t. The only public in the house was the media, which actually outnumbered the board by three to one.
The mayor said they will wait until they have tax-exempt status, then the tough work of selecting 13 more board members and actually raising the half-billion dollars they need to fully fund the trust will begin.
Cities have foundations to fund some of the work they do. Kalamazoo has a parks foundation, for instance. But no city has ever tried it on this large a scale, to support basic operations, fund roads and other infrastructure and tackle its most vexing problems.
The FFE, like the Kalamazoo Promise, is an experiment. Given the current state of municipal funding nationwide, a lot of other cities will be watching to see if it works.
