City staff outline stormwater grant program using scored application and capped city match

Corey Raben, presenting staff recommendations, described a proposed stormwater grant program that would accept applications through an online Survey123 form and score projects across two categories: preventative measures to keep runoff on site, and reactive measures to repair eroded channels and drainage corridors. Raben said staff would compute technical factors (distance to impaired streams, extent of service) on the back end and offered sample project scores: "With this scenario, it would score 90 out of a 100 potential points" for a residential example and a commercial example that scored 52 out of 100.

Raben explained the planned review process: an open four-week application window, numerical scoring, and funding by priority until the year’s allocation is exhausted — "if we have $400,000, we could then say, alright. We can fund the top scoring 20 projects," he said. Staff proposed match tiers (around 20–75 percent) and a city contribution cap of $50,000 per property; several councilmembers pressed to reduce that cap to $30,000 to increase program participation. Staff also described incentives for multi-property corridor projects (extra scoring points if three or more adjacent properties participate).