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Council pauses Stewart Park phase 1/2 decisions as federal grant review continues
Summary
City staff told council the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership (ORLP) federal grant pre-award NEPA/Section 106 review is underway; state reviewers asked the city to treat Stewart Park as a single project and pause activity tied to phase 2. Council asked staff for more information and pulled the decision for later follow-up.
City staff updated the Beaumont City Council on May 6 about the status of a potential $3.1 million matching grant from the National Park Service’s Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership (ORLP) for Stewart Park Phase 2 and described options after the state asked the city to treat the park project as a single site for federal review.
Parks project manager Doug Storey told council that Beaumont had been selected by the State of California to be one of 14 jurisdictions forwarded for federal consideration. The city remains in the pre-award stage: staff have entered the federal requirements portion of the process, which includes NEPA and Section 106 review. Storey said the consultant’s cultural-resources report concluded the potential for subsurface historic or prehistoric deposits “is considered low and no further cultural resources work is recommended at this time,” but the state has requested the review period proceed as a single-site review covering both phase 1 and phase 2.
That change prompted the state to ask the city to pause work until the federal review is completed; the state initially estimated two 90-day reviews (about 180 days total) but gave no guarantee of a hard deadline. Storey described four options for council: 1) pause construction for the estimated review window to maintain full grant compliance; 2) proceed at risk of forfeiting grant eligibility; 3) revise phase 2 scope to fit existing city funds (withdraw from the grant); or 4) advance full phase 2 and identify additional funding sources.
Council members questioned likely cost escalation, contract impacts on the phase 1 contractor if work were paused, and the city’s current policies for conducting NEPA/CEQA. Several members urged staff to press the state for clearer timelines and to pursue options that would avoid harming the already-started phase 1 work. At one point a councilmember asked that staff “pull this item” so council could be presented with a fuller picture before taking action.
The council did not authorize a specific direction on the grant at the May 6 meeting. Staff said next steps will include confirming the state timeline, assessing contractor impacts and rebid risks, and returning to council with recommended direction and cost implications once staff can provide the fuller set of details requested by council.
Background: the city previously allocated $3.1 million as the local match in the capital improvement program when the application advanced at the state level. If the federal grant is ultimately awarded and agreements executed, the $3.1 million local match combined with the grant would fund a larger Phase 2 scope that the city would otherwise need to stage or find additional funding to complete.
