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City explores opportunity for grant funding
By Kenny Green, kgreen@starlocalnews.com
The Rowlett City Council gave its endorsement for the city to proceed with an application for an outdoor grant through the Texas Parks and Wildlife recreation grants branch. The branch recently announced a special call for applications including the outdoor recreation and urban outdoor recreation grant programs.
“Approximately three weeks ago the Texas Parks and Wildife sent out an email and made an announcement that there is grant funding available for parks development,” said Jermel Stevenson, parks and recreation director.
“I think it’s a great opportunity,” said Todd Gottel, Rowlett Mayor.
The state legislature suspended all funding for Texas Park and Wildlife grants during its last budget session. The federal government then made some funds available for grants with the passing of the omnibus spending bill. Under the bill, Texas received $2,302,679 through the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).
The state has made $1,151,339 of the grant money available for the Aug. grant review. Of the funds available, 40 percent is set aside for the urban outdoor recreation grants and
60 percent is set aside for outdoor recreation grants.
“There are two types of grants under this funding. The first is the outdoor recreation program grant. That is a 50 percent match funding grant that funds municipalities or counties for populations of less than 500,000. Our city and park system will qualify for that one,” Stevenson said. “The other one is the urban outdoor recreation grant. It’s the same criteria; however it’s for municipalities with populations over 500,000. So we would not qualify for that funding.”
The city staff determined that Scenic Point Park would be the city’s best choice to try and obtain funding for.
“Since we have done a great deal of work on Scenic Point Park, we have a site master plan that we have worked on for over a year, it makes sense that that would be the park that we would apply for,” Stevenson said. “One of the grant criteria is that the plan must be endorsed by the city council. Part of the application packet will have to have a resolution attached to it.”
The city will also have to have matching funds available to apply for the grant. The city will be responsible for a 50/50 match of funds received through the grant. The maximum amount of funding available through the program is $100,000.
“We do have that with funding that has already been approved,” Stevenson said.
Another requirement is there has to be a project manager assigned to the project that can report progress to Texas Parks and Wildlife. There also has to be a local public hearing so they community can ask any questions or voice any concerns they may have.
The city council is expected to hold the public hearing and vote on the resolution for the grant during its July 17 regular session.
“I believe that we do have a good shot [at getting funding],” Stevenson said.
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