Block Grant options for county are rather limited
EL CENTRO — Last week, the County Board of Supervisors held a second hearing to discuss funding opportunities available next year under the Community Development Block Grant, encouraging members of the public to propose ideas on the type of projects the county should pursue the next round of funding.
During the first hearing on Sept. 12, Community and Economic Development Director Esperanza Colio Warren told the board that the number of options the county will have for possible CDBG funds for 2018 would be very limited due to the program’s guidelines.
In order to be eligible to receive funding each year, the county must spend at least 50 percent of the grants received the previous year.
For 2017, the county received a total of $3.4 million and a total of 10 activities were approved by the state to be included as part of the application from Imperial County.
Almost half of all the funds the county received this year are allocated to the Winterhaven Public Safety Facility, which is currently in the bidding process.
However, Colio said for this year there will be an exception and jurisdictions that have yet to spend half of allocated monies will be able to submit a waiver in order to qualify for funding with the caveat that it would only be for a single construction-ready project.
On Tuesday, County Fire Chief Tony Rouhotas said that following the dissolution of the Niland Fire District, his department has a shovel-ready project for a public safety/community center.
“We do have a shovel-ready project with engineering plans and would like to take this and move forward as a county project,” Rouhotas said.
Colio said community members in Winterhaven requested the county look into the possibility of funding improvements to their aging sewage infrastructure and ongoing improvements to their water plant, while Bombay Beach residents asked her to look into a range of children’s and adult programs.
Heber residents Teresa Estrada and Priscilla Flores asked the board to do help their community in rehabilitating the roads and installing sidewalks that allow children and senior citizens to walk safely in the community.
Flores said when it rains, children walking to and from school often have to walk on the street to avoid the water on the side of the roads.
During the first hearing, Imperial County Public Works Department (ICPWD) Director John Gay said that under the program only complete streets which include sidewalks and gutters
are eligible activities under CDBG.
Due to the requirement of projects having engineering designs already in place, it is unlikely those projects could get funded in the next round of CDBG funding. However, ICDPW announced last month a tentative $4 million list of street improvement projects the department wants to get done that will be funded through additional revenue generated by the gas tax increase included in the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017.
The deadline for the application is Dec. 1, and Colio is expected to bring back the application to the board sometime in November.
“The way we are going to work is that we’ll take into consideration all of the requests, then we are going to rank the projects and will come back with an application for you to make a decision on which project we should apply for,” she said.