County Commissioners will accept proposals through a pre-application process from the community for the third round of Community Development Block Grant funding.
Commissioners held a public hearing on the CDBG program that is overseen through the Governor’s Office on Economic Development (GOED). Social Services Director, Shannon Ernst made a presentation regarding the program which is administered through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and then passed through to GOED.
Any project that the county does using the CDBG money must expand economic opportunity, improve the suitable living environment in the community, and 70% of the money must benefit low to moderate income populations.
“Priorities that commissioners have set in the past,” said Ernst, “we’re looking at how can we create jobs, economic development, education, workforce development, infrastructure, good quality of life and address social issues.” She said the one CDBG project of which she is the proudest is the City/County Gym.
“We leveraged our applications together with the city and we applied together so we could bring more into our area to do a larger project, because $2.9 million for all rural counties really isn’t that much money,” Ernst said.
Last November the county released the priorities out to the community and now various groups can apply for funding through the county. In the past the county has worked on projects for water and wastewater, community service and facilities with technology, and mentoring programs for minority groups to build strong education programs and get jobs.
“Economic development is always a big thing,” she said. “One of the big priorities last year was the industrial rail park and we put this on here because there may be a piece of that project that would qualify under CDBG and it is something we could utilize these funds for.” Additionally, workforce housing is also a priority.
This year there have been multiple funding rounds for the program, and this second-round funding of $91,898 must be used for increasing access to emergency sheltering and medical services, community-based strategies to conduct testing, tracing and reduction of infectious disease, and provide access and education to health services that prompt reductions in spread of infectious diseases.
“Anyone can apply to us for part of those funds,” said Ernst.
The third round of $2.5 million for the rural counties must be used for the same priorities, but this process requires a public comment period, a hearing, and the county to set priorities of what they want to apply for.
The deadline for applications to the state is April 23.
In an effort to identify priorities, Ernst said that during the past year each of the three priorities were demonstrated in our community through the county response to the COVID pandemic.
The public comment period was opened at the commission meeting, and Ernst will bring any applications received in her office to commissioners on their April 1 meeting at 8:15 a.m. Comments must be returned through the form on the county website prior to March 31 at 3:00 p.m. and can be submitted through the county website at: https://churchillcountynv.gov/Civi- cAlerts.aspx?AID=345
In other business, Commissioners heard and approved the issuance of a Revenue Bond to finance the Civic Center. Marty Johnson of JNA Consulting Group discussed the loan bids received from financial institutions, and the county will award the bid from Sterling National Bank for $9,068,000 on a 20-year term and 2.35% interest.
“We are borrowing a lot of money,” said Chairman Pete Olsen. “We have a couple of wants for the county, one of them is to in the near term finish the events center, but also we want to grab these rates while they’re still here because we plan on building a court- house and really this money is what’s going to help us do that. These are very attractive rates.
Comment
Comments