Photo by Becky Polaski Community and Economic Development Coordinator Tina Gradizzi held the second of two public hearings regarding the city’s 2010 CDBG Program during the City Council meeting on Monday night.

By Becky Polaski

Staff Writer

The second public hearing regarding the city’s 2010 CDBG Program was held during Monday night’s City Council meeting. Community and Economic Development Coordinator Tina Gradizzi explained the public hearing was being held for public comment and solicitation concerning the city’s 2010 CDBG application. 

The first public hearing was held on Monday, Dec. 7. A resolution regarding the CDBG Program will be presented to members of Council at their meeting on Feb. 15, 2010.

Gradizzi reiterated that the city does not have an allocation for their 2010 CDBG allotment, so they are basing the project amounts on $350,000.

According to Gradizzi, 18 percent of the funds would be used for administration costs, 30 percent would go toward slum/blight funding, and the remaining funds would be put towards housing rehabilitation.

“This morning I received a request from the Community Nurses for funding for telehealth units for CHF patients, which would be congestive heart failure patients,” Gradizzi said.

Gradizzi added that Gwen Auman, a representative of Community Nurses, was also in attendance at the meeting to answer any questions members of council may have.

“They would qualify,” Gradizzi said of Community Nurses. “Back in 2004 we submitted a request for funding for telehealth units for Community Nurses and that was the last that we funded them. They are requesting between $30,000 and $35,000 for these units.”

Auman then addressed council, further explaining the telehealth program.

“It is mostly with elderly. There are occasionally children put on it, but for the most part it is an elderly program and basically what it is, is it is a unit that looks like a computer,” Auman said. “It has a camera on the top and it has medical peripherals attached to it so they can take their weight, their blood pressures, they can do blood glucoses with it and then all of that information is inputted into the computer and it basically is sent via the Internet to the Community Nurses office where they then look at the information and can pass it on to the patent’s general practitioner.”

Auman added that there are both video and non-video units available.

“What they’re proposing is they want the video unit because of the fact that with congestive heart failure patients they need to be looking at them so that in case they are bloated or they look like they’re gaining any weight or anything like that,” Auman said. “It is a really nice unit. It really keeps people out of the hospital and it makes them feel more comfortable at home as well as their families because of the fact that they’re being continually monitored.”

Members of council also inquired how the new units that would be purchased are different that the ones that were purchased in 2004. Auman replied that while technology has advance since the purchase of the units in 2004 these units were basically the same as those that were previously purchased.

“What they’re finding though is that they have so many patients in the City of St. Marys that they cannot get to all of the patients with the units that they have,” Auman said.

Gradizzi added that the purchase of the units would qualify as limited clientele just as it did in 2004 and would fall under low/mod income qualifications. She also noted that the Community Nurses are requesting the purchase of five to seven units.

Council members unanimously approved accepting the proposed CDBG projects.