When you think of the finances needed for the improvements for the Fallon Theatre, the Fallon Food Hub, the City Pool, or the streetscaping projects on Broadway and Sherman, think Community Development Block Grant. All of those projects have been made possible through the City of Fallon sponsoring the CDBG grants which provided funding for those improvements.
CDBG is a program that brings federal money back to the states from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In Nevada, the program is administered through the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. There is a lengthy process leading up to a successful grant award. There is a total of $3.6 million dollars available to Nevada communities this year. Several steps are required to go through local community governments. The City of Fallon and Churchill County will be opening their separate processes and holding public hearings to hear proposals and comments from the public.
On Wednesday, the City Council held a public hearing to discuss the next fiscal year’s (July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023) CDBG program and ask for citizen input on possible projects that could be included in the application process. Derek Zimney, the city engineer, outlined the time frame of the program for the Council, with the next hearing to be held on October 13. At that time, the council can discuss possible projects, hear from community members, or organizations, with ideas for potential projects and hear from those interested in applying for specific projects that meet the grant qualifications.
The recent focus of GOED has been to prioritize choosing projects that encourage economic development. Eligible activities under the CDBG program could be housing rehabilitation programs, public facility and improvement projects, public service programs, planning studies, business assistance or microenterprise activities. Any project that is proposed must meet one or more of the national objectives of the CDBG program. These include benefits to low-income households or persons, the elimination of slums and blight, or meeting an urgent community development need.
The City of Fallon has had great success each year with CDBG program funding, using the money to make improvements to infrastructure, including streets and sidewalks, giving access to the economic corridor.
Mayor Ken Tedford said that over the years the program awards have changed with each governor having a particular focus. “What they have been looking for lately is economic development and improvement to lower-income areas,” he said. “It used to be capital projects, focused more on sewer, water, and ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) access, and Sandoval switched the program to focus more on creating jobs.”
This shift led to success in City-sponsored projects that were submitted by community organizations. The Save the Fallon Theatre group was awarded grant funding in 2016 to purchase the theatre, and the Fallon Food Hub group received a grant in 2017 to purchase the property on South Maine street where the new Food Hub building will be built.
On February 18, 2022, the City Council will hear final presentations and discuss, approve, and rank the applications prior to applications being submitted to the state. Bob Erickson, Chief of Staff, said it is a good idea to have more than one project ready to submit, ranked in order of preference. Often once GOED makes the awards, a community is sometimes unable to perform or take the funding and the state will come back to a community that has a project ready to go in order to make sure none of the funding is lost. “We have been successful on several occasions with our projects being funded after other communities have not completed their grant requirements,” reports Erickson.
For more information and to see if your idea may qualify for a CDBG, check out https://goed.nv.gov/programs-incentives/rural-community-economic-development/cbdg/, so you can attend your city or county public hearing prepared to do present your plan and grab your share of the action.
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