Memorandum

City of Lawrence

City Manager’s Office                 

TO:	David L. Corliss, City Manager
FROM:	Jonathan Douglass, Assistant to the City Manager/City Clerk Kelly Unger, Management Intern Megan Gilliland, Communications Manager
CC:	Tarik Khatib, Chief of Police Charles Soules, Director of Public Works Scott McCullough, Director of Planning and Development Services
DATE:	March 8, 2012
RE:	Donation Meters Implementation Plan

Background

On 07/19/11, the City Commission received information and discussed the implementation of donation meters in Downtown Lawrence. Donation meters are parking meters that have been repurposed to accept donations, which donations are then utilized to serve the homeless. The purpose of such programs is to redirect giving from panhandlers to programs which more effectively serve the homeless.

Implementation overview

Pursuant to City Commission direction, staff has prepared the draft implementation plan below. The general outline of the program follows:

1. To kick off the program, the city will pay for and install donation meters at six locations. Each location is either near a midblock crossing or a breezeway. Staff proposes locating the donation meters near the benches at the midblock crossings (see sample photo) or the planters in the breezeways (see sample photo). Exact locations will depend on the location of other above ground and underground infrastructure. The proposed locations are:
1. 700 block of Massachusetts, west side, near midblock crossing
2. 700 block of Massachusetts, east side, near breezeway
3. 800 block of Massachusetts, west side, near midblock crossing
4. 800 block of Massachusetts, east side, near breezeway
5. 900 block of Massachusetts, west side, near midblock crossing
6. 900 block of Massachusetts, east side, near midblock crossing
2. A year after the initial installation staff will report back to the City Commission regarding the success of the program. If experience indicates that the program should be expanded to the rest of downtown (including off-Massachusetts Street locations) sponsorships could be considered and meters installed at locations suggested by sponsors, subject to city approval. Sponsors would have to deliver a set amount of money to the city to cover the actual costs of retrofitting, painting, decorating and installing the meters.
3. Parking control officers will collect donations from the meters and the city will separately account for the donations and deliver a check in that amount to the Lawrence Community Shelter on a regular basis. Frequency of collection and distribution of funds will be determined based on experience once the program is up and running. The City Commission will annually reconfirm the recipient(s) of the donations.   
4. Downtown Lawrence Inc. will support the program through their own marketing efforts to members and customers.  
5. The meters will be installed as weather and workload allow in spring 2012.

Implementation details

Various aspects of the donation meter program will be implemented as outlined below.

1. Design/decoration/branding of meters
1. Staff recommends “Cents of Community” as the name for the program.
2. Staff recommends that the meters be painted green to distinguish them from standard meters (grey or brown), 15 minute meters (yellow) and handicap accessible signage (blue).

c. The meters will include stickers identifying the meters as donation meters and providing information on the program. See attached sample mock up of a meter.

2. Public awareness campaign
1. Initial public awareness campaign

i. The city will create a webpage for the program with information about the purposes of the program and the timeline for implementation.

ii. City staff will create a brochure for the program. An electronic version of the brochure will be placed on the donation meters program website and can be downloaded and printed by downtown merchants who would like to distribute the brochures in their businesses.

iii. City staff will manage appropriate media releases and related efforts, including communications to downtown merchants.

2. Ongoing public awareness campaign

i. The city will maintain the webpage for the program and the meters themselves, and will update any promotional materials (including brochures) as appropriate.

ii. City staff will include information about the program in materials distributed to incoming university students each school year/semester.

iii. The recipient(s) of the funds, as well as downtown interests, will be responsible for any further public awareness programs they wish to undertake.

3. Sponsorship program
1. A year after the initial installation staff can report back to the City Commission regarding the success of the program. If experience indicates that the program should be expanded to the rest of downtown (including off-Massachusetts Street locations) sponsorships could be considered and meters installed at locations chosen by sponsors, subject to city approval. Sponsors would have to deliver a set amount of money to the city to cover the actual costs of retrofitting, painting, decorating and installing the meters.
2. If the City Commission decides to expand the program beyond the initial installations, additional meters would only be placed once sponsorships funds are received.
3. Sponsors would requests locations to have the meters installed, which would have to be approved by the city.
4. Sponsors would be listed on the program’s website but would not have their names on the meter installations themselves, in order to minimize visual clutter on the meters.
5. Multiple entities could pool resources and sponsor one meter.

4. Collection and distribution of funds
1. Parking control officers would collect donations from the meters and the city would separately account for the donations and deliver a check in that amount to the chosen recipient(s) on a regular basis. Frequency of collection and distribution of funds will be determined based on experience once the program is up and running.
2. The initial recipient of all donations will be the Lawrence Community Shelter. The City Commission will annually confirm or re-designate the recipient(s) of the donations.
3. Donation meters will only accept coins. During the 07/19/11 City Commission meeting it was suggested that special envelopes be provided to downtown merchants, which patrons could use to submit dollar bill donations via the yellow parking fine collection boxes downtown. The cost to purchase 10,000 or 20,000 envelopes of similar size, but lighter weight and different color than the parking ticket envelopes, would be approximately $1,000 to $2,000. Staff recommends that the envelopes be made available to downtown merchants at the Municipal Court and the City Clerk’s Office, and merchants that want to have a small supply of the envelopes in their store could pick them up as needed from the city. Then envelopes could be dropped in the fine collection boxes or mailed in to the city.  
4. The website created by the city for the program can link to the recipient agency’s website, and if the recipient agency accepts online donations people can utilize that method of giving also.    

On March 7, 2012, Jonathan Douglass personally contacted each business directly adjacent to the proposed locations to find out if they had any concerns with locating a donation meter nearby. At most of the businesses he spoke with an owner or manager, and at the few where neither an owner or manager were available he explained the program to an employee of the business and left a business card for the owner or manager to contact him if they had any questions or concerns. All of the people he spoke with were either ambivalent or positive toward the program; no negative feedback was received.

Staff will proceed with the implementation of a donation meters program according to this plan, unless directed otherwise by the City Commission.