There’s still lots of damage here in the County of Grimes from the disasterous flooding of May 2015, and as the county’s emergency management coordinator recently told commissioners, more disaster recovery dollars are possibly available through General Land Office Grants.
And David Lilly told the court that while he’s still reviewing possible projects to submit, the first step is to try to actually get a piece of the grant. Primarily, he said, several bridges are in need of replacement, as well a lots of culverts.
Lilly reported he’d learned from Grantworks that a narrow application window will shortly open, accepting applications only until sometime later this summer. And while this grant is only applicable to the May 2015 flooding, Lilly said there should be an expansion shortly that would include 2016, during which the county declared two additional federal disasters.
Should we be successful, Lilly explained, there’ll be a one-percent cost-share in-kind, but that will easily be covered by our road and bridge actually doing the work. And Grantworks will also get ten to fifteen percent for its services.
The maximum we could get on this grant is a million dollars, Lilly said, adding that Grantworks was honest, saying we should not expect that much. But, he reminded Judge Ben Lehman that while he understands Grantworks is very effective in getting these sorts of grant funds, the county has been unsuccessful so-far in two efforts to get hazard mitigation funds.
So, on a motion by Commissioner Barbara Walker, the court unanimously voted to solicit an application for grant management and construction engineering services from Grantworks.
