During the September 6 meeting, the Fallon City Council heard two options for Community Development Block Grant funding for fiscal year 2023/24. City Engineer Derek Zimney provided the council with the background and objectives of the CDBG program and presented the top two projects for discussion. The two projects are the Kaiser Street Roadway and ADA Improvements and the Laura Mills Park Improvements.
“I've included our map of the City of Fallon that HUD puts out, listing the LMI low- and medium-income areas. The project has to be located in an area that is greater than 51 percent of LMI, so it's most of the city with the exclusion of the north-northwest side. Staff has carefully evaluated four proposed projects, and while all of them present a need in the community, we felt that the Kaiser Street Roadway and ADA project is probably our best chance at meeting eligibility and our best chance of being funded as the CDBG Advisory Committee is very focused on the development. With Industrial Way, the lower income housing, and everything in that area of town, we felt that could be our strongest case.”
Mayor Ken Tedford agreed that Kaiser Street was a good candidate project. “I think it should be a number one priority.” Councilwoman Kelly Frost said, “Mr. Mayor, I know Laura Mills Park is also high on our list, but I don't think it will be well-received for the economic development portion of CDBG, but I think that's something we can still work on.” Regarding the Laura Mills project, the mayor replied, “Maybe we do that as an alternative. We can always send two projects; I wouldn't be opposed to that. The LMI percentage is 64.1 where the park is. We've found in the past, there may be (CDBG) money that isn't used, and they would call to say, 'Would you like to use funds for another project?' So that would be good. We are trying to do some general projects over there anyway.” Zimney said the park needed major upgrades to the walking loop, the grass and sprinkler systems, and the playground equipment, and not all of those upgrades would be covered by a CBDG.
Councilman James Richardson said, “I'm for the Kaiser Street Improvements. I don't know if you've been down that road, but it's pretty bad. We've got all these new roads and new businesses, and it really sticks out. We have these brand new landscapes and surfaces, then you go on Kaiser near New Frontier and the state offices, and it's real bad. I think we can tie this to economic development just aesthetically. We've got a nice street. We've got Port of Subs going in down there, so overall it would help the businesses down there.”
The mayor agreed with the positive impact street improvements can have saying, “When we did Front Street near Humboldt and Ferguson, it transformed that neighborhood. It took us almost five years to save the gas tax to do that neighborhood, but it transformed it.”
When discussing just repaving Kaiser Street, the mayor said, “There's repaving Kaiser Street, then there's redoing Kaiser Street. The north side of the street has power poles in all the sidewalks. There's a bend in that street that requires the acquisition of some land. You can do the street and spend four million dollars, but that's why Kaiser Street hasn't been done. We would want to take the bend out and move all of the power poles. It's not just the power poles, there's significant infrastructure on those power poles too and that really raises the cost to straighten that street. There's also some drainage issues when we have flash rains and flooding, the cars are in about two feet of water. You come around that blind corner, and all of a sudden, you're in a river. That's how the price tag jumps to four million. You can do the project right or you can just repave and still have what you've got now. We don't have passable sidewalks on the south side, it's a dilemma to do and CDBG will only pay to repave the street. There are a lot of interesting facets to Kaiser Street, and I agree that it should be the one, and then maybe send Laura Mills as a secondary project. We did send Broadway and Sherman as two projects at the same time and both were approved.”
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