Proposed Projects for Community Block Grant

A Public Hearing on Community Block Grant Proposed Projects is scheduled during tonight’s 7:30 p.m. City Council meeting in Council Chambers. Clerk of Council Casey Brown sent us the following communication from Committee of the Whole Chairperson Donna Laake to all members of COW, which we failed to publish days ago. Our apologies to everyone.

COW met and finalized the requests for the next 3-year funding cycle. Remember that we are likely to get $200,000 per year at best, perhaps less. We decided to go with projects that had been funded in the past and that were dependent on CDBGF funds. The request will be the same each year for 3 yearsas follows:

1. Norwood Youth Dental Program $10,000
2. Norwood Service League $15,000
3. Streets/Curbs/Sidewalks $100,000
4. Park Improvements $50,000
5. Clearance/Demolition $55,000

While there were several worthy additional projects, there simply isn't funding to do everything, and we wanted to make sure that the above projects had a good chance of funding.

Donna Laake, Chair
Committee of the Whole

Casey Brown added for our readers, “You will notice that the numbers add up to more than $200k. Council decided to ask for a little more than the $200K; if the funding is cut off at $200K they would reduce the "Clearance/Demolition" category and not the others in order of importance.”