DECATUR â Decatur City Council members are used to grappling with problems of how to stretch too few tax dollars to cover the cityâs needs.
But their meeting Wednesday night presented them with a new and more pleasant financial conundrum: how to spend more than $458,000 of taxpayer money made available to them by the federal government for the sole purpose of helping people.
Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe had earlier suggested council members come up with their own ideas for spending the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds, and got plenty of proposals: suggestions ranged from aiding the homeless to supporting local musicians and concerts and workforce retraining, all aimed at assisting lives upended by the COVID-19 pandemic.