Residents offer ideas for federal relief funds
Sewer projects among suggestions for county
Residents offered Oklahoma County Commissioners a few suggestions for use of the county’s $154 million in American Rescue Plan funding during Monday’s commissioners meeting.
The commissioners have not made plans for the money. However, District 3 Commissioner Kevin Calvey has suggested using the funds to build a new jail. Calvey’s idea was included on a mailer sent to constituents in Calvey’s district soliciting their input, leading to Monday’s response from former mayor of The Village, Cathy Cummings, who is now a city council member for The Village.
“I’m here to advocate and present my case for the City of The Village,” she said. “We came up with this list of drainage and sewer projects that our city is in dire need of, but we don’t have the funds to complete these projects.”
Cummings said The Village stands to receive about $1 million from the latest coronavirus relief funding, enough to cover only one of seven projects. She laid out the projects, which she said would use $3.6 million or 2.4% of the county’s allotted funds.
Cummings’ husband, Sean, who has been critical of the jail trust and use of CARES Act funding on the jail, had his own ideas. His proposal was to create a $15 million bail fund, helping to reduce the population of the jail, rather than building a new one.
He said the county could reduce the population by around 500 or so people and would only spend 10% of its American Rescue Plan funding on the jail instead of the whole amount, allowing other projects also to be undertaken.
“It would get the jail down way below their numbers, which would help with their employment problems that