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Council updates: FEMA BRIC application, rural opportunities grant closeout and COG funding process
Summary
Council received updates on two grant efforts — a submitted FEMA BRIC application for an inlet tied to a planned fish pond and the closeout of a $455,000 rural opportunities grant — and discussed how the Council of Governments (COG) funding process is being used to finance local projects.
Councilmembers provided grant and intergovernmental funding updates during the Feb. 11 meeting.
Ty and staff reported the city submitted a FEMA BRIC (Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities) application for an inlet at State Street that would serve a planned fish pond and reduce State Street bridge floodway constraints. The BRIC project is roughly a $2.7 million request; staff said the application was the result of two years of hydrology work and technical preparation. Staff stated they do not have high expectations of being awarded the full amount but filed the application to pursue the inlet and related resiliency benefits. If the BRIC grant is not awarded, staff said the city can still construct the fish pond by altering a diversion and sequencing the inlet work differently.
Council also noted the closeout of a rural opportunities grant tied to the depot and a city entrance project. The city spent about $800,000 on the project and will receive final reimbursement of $45,500 (10% of a $455,000 grant) as the grant closes out. Councilmembers described the project as completed and beneficial to the depot and event space.
Separately, councilmembers discussed the Council of Governments (COG) funding process. Staff and council praised recent COG functioning and explained two primary pots of COG-administered funds discussed at the meeting: the third-quarter local option sales tax allocations (used as the anticipated $315,171.69 toward the Yonge Street West trail) and a Corridor Preservation Fund derived from vehicle-registration fees. Councilmembers stressed that COG ranks projects and forwards recommendations to the county commission, which must give final approval. Councilmembers credited staff for preparing projects in advance and noted that projects the city submitted scored highly in recent COG rankings.
A councilmember also mentioned a small county project to extend a trail from the bus garage to a pickleball court that received roughly $39,000 in COG funding during the same cycle.
Implementation and next steps: Staff will await county-council action on the COG allocation that would reduce the city's share of the Yonge Street project, and will continue grant monitoring and project preparations for BRIC and other applications.
