If St. Joseph city officials want to make a last-gasp effort to grab federal stimulus money, they need to answer questions from concerned City Council members.

The St. Joseph City Council will meet at 4:30 p.m. Thursday with city staff to discuss the consequences of its decision to turn down more than $475,000 in the fourth-floor conference room at City Hall.

The council voted 4-3 Monday in favor of an emergency ordinance that would have brought the money to St. Joseph. However, the bill failed because emergency ordinances require six votes to pass, while regular ordinances need a simple majority.

Clint Thompson, city director of planning and community development, explained how the city became eligible for the funding. St. Joseph is an entitlement city — as are all other cities with more than 50,000 people — which makes it eligible to receive funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD plugs the city’s demographics into a formula that determines how much money the city will receive. St. Joseph’s number was $475,429, without any requirement of a city match.

“Every city in the nation is getting this money,” Mr. Thompson said. “We didn’t seek out these funds.”

Mr. Thompson said the city would use the money to stimulate Downtown redevelopment and job creation. He did not provide specific plans, but said it would generally be used to reduce start-up costs for new businesses.

The city must send its application for funding by Friday. Mr. Thompson said the city did not learn of the program until mid-March and worked as quickly as it could to put the issue before the council. Council members did not hear about the ordinance until late last week.

Council member Bill Falkner said the short notice played a role in his “no” vote. He was out of town when the information came out and did not learn of the stimulus money until Monday, which left just a few hours to ask questions before the vote.

Mr. Falkner said his main concern was that the city planned to direct all the stimulus money to Downtown.

“In the information we got from the city, it doesn’t state that it should be just for the Downtown area,” Mr. Falkner said. “Who decided that this just had to be for Downtown? Why alienate businesses in the rest of the community that might have been eligible for this? I’m all for Downtown, but fair is fair.”

Council member Barbara LaBass also voted against the stimulus money. She was concerned that the city always seems to find money to help Downtown, while other existing businesses such as the Eastside Industrial Park have not received funding to repair crumbling roads.

“I realize the money supposedly is just being given to us, but many times there are strings attached with federal money,” Ms. LaBass said. “It’s very suspicious to me that the federal government can come up with that kind of money for us to use Downtown.”

Mr. Thompson said the city was seeking stimulus money to use in other parts of the city, including the new Eastowne Industrial Park. Funding for the Eastside Industrial Park may be harder to find, he said, because stimulus programs focus more on building new infrastructure than maintaining current facilities.

Becky Boerkircher, executive director of the St. Joseph Downtown Partnership, said she had not heard about the potential stimulus money for Downtown until after the council’s vote. She said she was surprised the council would turn down money if there really were no strings attached. Further, she didn’t understand how taking money for Downtown would affect funding for road work in the Eastside Industrial Park.

“By voting against it, that doesn’t help the industrial park. That just gives the money to another community,” Ms. Boerkircher said.

The third council member to oppose the ordinance, Mike Bozarth, was unavailable for comment.

Mayor Ken Shearin, Deputy Mayor Mike Hirter and council members Gary Roach and Joyce Starr voted in favor of the stimulus money Monday. Council members Roger Baker and Donna Jean Boyer were absent.

Clinton Thomas can be reached at clintonthomas@npgco.com.