City eyeing grants to fund major new project

Jeff Kaley

WAURIKA — Getting set to embark on a major project, during a public hearing and special meeting, members of the Waurika City Commission and Waurika Public Works Authority began collecting the information that will define that project.

A large portion of the meeting on Thursday, Jan. 14, was spent in a public hearing that is a preliminary step toward the city applying for a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) from the U.S. Department of Commerce. With that in mind, the commissioners listened while grant writer Millie Vance explained processes and options for acquiring a CDBG.

In addition, Vance said there was another source the city could use to help fund a possible project at the Waurika Water Treatment Facility or the city sewer system.

“The first thing Millie said we have to do is decide whether we want to do a project that combines water and sewer or just water or just sewer,” Brown said, noting that engineer Robert Mullins from Mehlburger-Brawley and two representatives of Myers Engineering in Oklahoma City also attended the public hearing.

Mehlburger-Brawley has performed renovation and improvement work at the water plant in the past, and Brown said Myers Engineering might be among companies that will submit a job bid once a project has been outlined.

In regard to acquiring the CDBG, Vance told city officials there were three “pots of grant money” available. The city could chose to do a revitalization project with a CDBG that would provide up to $150,000 for any type of city project that doesn’t involve work on City Hall.

Vance said there is intense competition between communities to acquire those grants and that cities must match the grant dollar-for-dollar.

“The other CDBG ‘pots’ are for a water project or a sewer project, but with the CDBG, you can’t combine the two.” Brown noted.

A CDBG isn’t the only grant the city might pursue for a major project. The Rural Development Division of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) also makes available Rural Development funding that is a grant/loan combination. Vance said Waurika would qualify for such combined funding, which would involve a 30 percent grant award and a loan with 3.5 percent interest that would cover the other 70 percent of the expense.

CDBG grants are limited to $350,000, which also includes administrative fees and engineering costs, Brown said. He added, “There is no limit on the amount of a Rural Development grant.”

The commissioners, who are also the trustees for the WPWA, discussed the options and information presented by Vance, but took no action following the public hearing.

“First, we need to decide exactly what project we want to do, and then decide on the funding,” Brown said. “Right at the moment, I think the consensus is learning toward getting both the CDBG and the Rural Development (grant/loan), but that could change.

“I think we made a lot of progress, as far as what we want and in matching up the projects with what we can afford. The council did a very good job of pointing us in the direction we want to go.”

The only other agenda item for the special meeting was for the commissioners and WPWA to address the process of obtaining bids from local insurance companies for acquiring insurance on city property. That topic was tabled during a regular meeting on Jan. 4, after the commissioners had expressed a desire to extend the deadline on receiving bids.

At the meeting on Jan. 14, the commissioners voted to approve a 30-day binder that Brown said would extend the deadline to Feb. 1 and “will give everybody interested a chance to bid.”

Other action on the matter was tabled to give city officials an opportunity to examine bids received.

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