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Bowie council accepts EDC budgets that include $1.2 million pickleball project
Summary
The Bowie City Council voted to accept balanced 4B and 4A Economic Development Corporation budgets that include a $1.2 million allocation for a pickleball court project and rely partly on a pending $1.4 million EDA grant for a Gardner Road spec-building effort.
Bowie City Council voted to accept budgets for the Bowie Economic Development Corporation's 4B Sales Tax Corporation and the 4A economic development budget at its meeting, approving plans that include a $1,200,000 pickleball-court project and contingency funds.
The approved 4B Sales Tax Corporation budget was presented as a balanced package of $2,925,332, which the presenter said "includes the $1,200,000 pickleball court project, and that also includes 2,127,319 in contingency funds." The council then voted to accept the 4B budget. The council later accepted the 4A EDC budget, which its presenter described as balanced while noting projected income of about $2.2 million and a $1.4 million Economic Development Administration (EDA) grant tied to a Gardner Road spec-building project.
The budgets drew several procedural and line-item questions from council members. Councilmember (last name) asked how many employees the 4B entity has; the presenter responded, "1." Council members asked about differing salary lines between the 4A and 4B budgets, phone and board-portal charges, and building maintenance accounts. The presenter said some salary costs are shared across the BDC, 4A and 4B entities. On maintenance questions, the presenter said items such as parking-lot restriping and air-conditioning replacement account for the 4B maintenance funds.
On 4A, the presenter said the EDA grant for the Gardner Road spec building remains under federal review: "We're still waiting on approval from EDA for all of that." The presenter said the spec-building work has been scaled to what is affordable given current prices and that previously approved bond items remain in the budget.
Councilmembers voted on both budgets by roll call; council members recorded “aye” on the motions to accept the 4B and 4A budgets. The motions were approved.
Why this matters: the budgets set the EDC’s near-term spending priorities, commit sales-tax revenues, and earmark a large capital allocation to a recreation project and contingency funds while relying on a pending federal grant for a spec-building on Gardner Road.
What’s next: the EDA grant approval remains pending and the council did not change the budgets’ key allocations during the meeting.
