Title
Adoption of Resolution Authorizing the City Manager to Accept up to $140,000 in National Park Service Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program Funds. (Library 5210)
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Adoption of this resolution would authorize the City Manager to accept grant funds from the National Park Service (NPS) Japanese American Confinement Sites (JACS) Grant Program and enter into a Standard Grant and Cooperative Agreement with the NPS to accept the grant funds. The Alameda Free Library applied for and was awarded grant funds of up to $140,000. The grant funds will be used to document, catalogue, digitize, provide public online access and digitally preserve a community-wide archive of video and audio oral histories, documents, photographs, books, films and maps about the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans in the city of Alameda. The entire grant, including “in-kind” expenses totals $216,920.
BACKGROUND
The Alameda Free Library grant application proposed that it would gather information initially compiled by members of the Buddhist Temple of Alameda and Buena Vista United Methodist Church to document, catalogue, digitize and preserve the WWII evacuation and incarceration experiences of Japanese American residents of Alameda, California, which was the first California community to be forcibly removed under Executive Order 9066. The project name is: “The Impact of Japanese American Incarceration on Alameda, CA-the Frist California Community Removed under Executive Order 9066.” This will be a collaborative, community-wide project that will document the long-term impact of the removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans across religious, generational and social divides.
This project builds on the successful 2010-2012 California Civil Liberties Public Education Fund grant which produced the film, Honoring Alameda’s Japanese American History, which was a collaboration between the three Alameda institutions. This project will also include videotaping and transcribing interviews with key Japanese Americans who were incarcerated and their generation Japanese Americans with ties to Alameda, exploring the long-term multi-generational impact and legacy of the incarceration on one community.
DISCUSSION
The goal of this project is to catalog, digitize materials pertaining to the Alameda Japanese American experiences and archive these materials into several repositories: the Alameda Free Library, Densho, and the Internet Archive, to ensure the best possible chance of long term access and preservation. Densho offers study and documentation by top scholars of the Japanese American wartime experience. The Internet Archive offers lifetime file maintenance, including a guarantee that the media will be transferred into current file formats over time and are backed up in geographically distributed data centers. A series of public events will invite Alamedans of all background and members of other Japanese American communities to come and share in what was learned in this process.
This grant supports the one-time organization, curation, cataloging and digitization of media of many types. The maintenance, long-term preservation and public access to these materials depend on the sustainability of the three primary organizations: the Alameda Free Library, Densho and the Internet Archive. The Alameda Free Library is City of Alameda (City) funded with a 142 year history. The Internet Archive was founded 23 years ago. The Internet Archive’s sustainability is that is designs and maintains its own data storage centers in Richmond, CA with copies in Amsterdam, Cairo and Canada, all at a fraction of the cost of Amazon Cloud Services. Densho has a 22-year track record of curating and providing free public access to an online collection of 100,000+ historic photographs, documents, and newspapers related to the WWII Japanese American incarceration.
Grant Term: The grant term was proposed to beginon August 1, 2020. If Council authorizes the City Manager to accept the grant, work under the grant will commence following the City;’s signing the NPS’s Standard Grant and Cooperative Agreement. The term is anticipated to end on August 1, 2022. Grant monies are issued as reimbursements to expenditures on eligible activities through various vendors and grant partners.
ALTERNATIVES
The Council may pursue several different alternatives:
1. Authorize the City Manager enter into the Standard Grant and Cooperative Agreement with the National Park Service and accept the grant funding.
2. Decline the $140,000 Federal NPS share of this grant. This project will not move forward in the foreseeable future. Funding this project is beyond the capability of the citizen participants.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
The City’s “in-kind” contribution of $76,920 would consist of staff time that is funded by the General Fund and the Library Fund. No additional funding is needed for staff time through the end of FY 2020-21 (June 30, 2020) as it is included in the previously approved Library Department budget. Funding for staff time after June 30, 2020 through the end of the grant period in August 2022 will be subject to future appropriations.
The grant award would be allocated to the Library Fund on a reimbursement basis as expenses are incurred.
MUNICIPAL CODE/POLICY DOCUMENT CROSS REFERENCE
This action is consistent with the Alameda Municipal Code.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
Acceptance of grant funding from the National Park Service Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program is exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act Section Section 15061(b)(3) (no significant environmental impact).
CLIMATE IMPACTS
No climate impacts.
RECOMMENDATION
Authorize the City Manager to accept up to $140,000 of NPS JACS Grant Program funds for work on the archiving of the impact of the Japanese American incarceration experience in Alameda.
CITY MANAGER RECOMMENDATION
The City Manager requests authorization to accept up to $140,000 of NPS JACS grant program funds.
Respectfully submitted,
Jane Chisaki, Library Director
Financial Impact section reviewed,
Nancy Bronstein, Interim Finance Director
Exhibit
1. Grant and Cooperative Agreement
cc: Eric Levitt, City Manager