{"id":16035,"date":"2021-05-05T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2021-05-05T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/president-ramsammy-and-alfredo-balarin-named-to-albanys-covid-recovery-task-force\/"},"modified":"2021-05-05T12:00:23","modified_gmt":"2021-05-05T16:00:23","slug":"president-ramsammy-and-alfredo-balarin-named-to-albanys-covid-recovery-task-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/president-ramsammy-and-alfredo-balarin-named-to-albanys-covid-recovery-task-force\/","title":{"rendered":"President Ramsammy and Alfredo Balarin named to Albany&#8217;s Covid Recovery Task Force"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Albany names mix of business, community leaders to plan $85M in federal Covid relief<\/h4>\n<p>By Chelsea Diana \/ Albany Business Review \/ May 4, 2021<\/p>\n<p>The City of Albany has named 40 business leaders, CEOs, community members and government officials to help decide how to equitably disburse around $85 million in federal aid through the American Rescue Plan.<\/p>\n<p>The 41-person Covid Recovery Task Force is made up of people from a variety of industries, including arts and entertainment, banking, child care, economic development, housing, nonprofits, small businesses and other industries. It is is led by co-chairs Mike Whalen of M&amp;T Bank and Jahkeen Hoke of the Business For Good Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the $85 million will help bridge the city&#8217;s expected revenue gaps from now until 2024. The remaining stimulus money will go toward reopening businesses, preventing evictions and strengthening nonprofits.<\/p>\n<p>The goal of the task force is to figure out how to best use the money to help Albany recover stronger post-Covid, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Create a &#8220;shared understanding&#8221; of how the American Rescue Plan can help the city<br \/>\nIdentify the needs of city residents, businesses and nonprofits that are not covered by other funding sources, such as the Paycheck Protection Program or Economic Injury Disaster Loan<\/li>\n<li>Equitably and strategically maximize resources to help Albany recover<\/li>\n<li>Engage every sector of the city to make sure resources are directed where needed<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The task force, which met for the first time last month, will complete a needs assessment and identify areas in need of investment over the next few months to help determine how to spend the $85 million. The task force will meet once a month to develop a plan and finalize recommendations in July.<\/p>\n<p>Members of the task force include:<\/p>\n<p>Kaweeda Adams, Albany City Schools<br \/>\nFaye Andrews, Albany Community Development Agency<br \/>\nDorcey Applyrs, Chief City Auditor<br \/>\nKate Baker, Small Business Administration<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Alfredo Balarin, Albany Common Council member<br \/>\n<\/span>[<em>Editor&#8217;s note<\/em>: Balarin is director of Student Life\/EOP at HVCC]<br \/>\nCarm Basile, Capital District Transportation Authority<br \/>\nBob Belber, Times Union Center<br \/>\nNeenah Bland, Albany Community Action Partnership<br \/>\nTricia Brown, North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters<br \/>\nJeff Buell, Redburn Development<br \/>\nMichael Castellana, SEFCU<br \/>\nChiquita D&#8217;Arbeau, Albany Housing Authority<br \/>\nMark Egan, Capital Region Chamber<br \/>\nCorey Ellis, Albany Common Council President<br \/>\nSonia Frederick, Albany Common Council member<br \/>\nAnthony Gaddy, UpState New York Black Chamber of Commerce<br \/>\nPeter Gannon, United Way of the Greater Capital Region<br \/>\nTammis Groft, Albany Institute of History and Art<br \/>\nJahkeen Hoke, Business for Good Foundation<br \/>\nKevin Hicks, Albany County Airport Authority<br \/>\nMicky Jimenez, Capital District Latinos<br \/>\nAndrew Joyce, Albany County Legislature Chairman<br \/>\nAnna Kuwabara, Albany Symphony<br \/>\nEileen Larrabee, Open Space Institute<br \/>\nAngelo Maddox, Fresh &amp; Fly Clothing<br \/>\nDaniel McCoy, Albany County Executive<br \/>\nDr. Dennis McKenna, Albany Medical Center<br \/>\nTracy Metzger, TL Metzger &amp; Associates LLC<br \/>\nGiovanni Otero, Salvation Army<br \/>\nMatthew Peter, Albany Parking Authority<br \/>\nDominick Purnomo, Yono&#8217;s and DP&#8217;s<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Roger Ramsammy, Hudson Valley Community College<\/span><br \/>\nSarah Reginelli, Capitalize Albany<br \/>\nJahmel Robinson, Albany Common Council member<br \/>\nHavid\u00e1n Rodriguez, University at Albany<br \/>\nDarius Shahinfar, City of Albany Treasurer<br \/>\nKathy Sheehan, Albany Mayor<br \/>\nNoelene Smith, Baby Institute<br \/>\nGeorgette Steffens, Downtown Business Improvement District<br \/>\nRaphael Tucker, City of Albany Youth and Workforce Services<br \/>\nMichael Whalen, M&amp;T Bank<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published:<\/strong>\u00a0Wed, 05 May 2021 12:00:23 +0000 by\u00a0d.gardner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Albany names mix of business, community leaders to plan $85M in federal Covid relief By Chelsea Diana \/ Albany&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2086,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}