Board recommends $670K in block grant funding

The advisory board for the city’s Community Development Block Grant program has recommended allocations totaling $670,000.

Requests for the grant money totaled $875,111.

The $670,000 figure represents what the city expects to receive for fiscal 2018 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and some 37 percent of that total has been recommended for housing rehabilitation and emergency repairs.

The next step in the process is for Kingston Mayor Steve Noble to issue funding recommendations, which is expected to happen or about March 2. The Common Council’s Community Development Committee then will consider the recommendations of the mayor and advisory board on March 27, and the full council will vote on the funding at its April 3 meeting. The Community Development Advisory Board recommended the following outlays.

• City of Kingston Community Development, housing rehabilitation and emergency repairs, $250,000.

• TransArt, windows, $35,400.

• City of Kingston Parks and Recreation, Barmann Park, $30,000.

• City of Kingston Parks and Recreation, Rondout Neighborhood Center improvements, $30,000.

• City of Kingston, Creating Opportunities for Youth program, $30,000.

• Family of Woodstock/ Kingston Cares, youth programming and operations at two neighborhood centers and support for summer camps, $23,455.

• Hudson River Maritime Museum, roof replacement, $19,189.

• YMCA of Kingston and Ulster County, bike ports, $15,000.

• Children’s Home of Kingston, Whitehurst room divider, $14,041.

• Read and Write program, $10,365.

• The People’s Place, floor replacement, $8,790.

• Center for Creative Education, after-school and summer arts technology program, $8,700.

• The People’s Place, community hub, $7,630.

• Kingston Boys and Girls Club, Teen Supreme program, $7,500.

• Kingston Boys and Girls Club, sprinkler system, $6,900.

• Ulster Literacy, English for Parents program, $5,940.

• The People’s Place, Bag Holiday Hunger program, $4,510.

Additionally, under the advisory board’s recommendations, $134,000 of the $670,000 would go toward administrative costs, and $28,600 would be dedicated to “program delivery.”

In some cases, the recommended amounts were substantially lower than what was sought by the applicant, and five requests were turned down completely.