Sunday, May 19, 2024
The Coryell County Commissioners Court got an update on several grants the county is pursuing, including notification that one grant has been approved.
The news came during the July 11 meeting of the court. The Texas General Land Office (GLO) has approved a $300,000 Resilient Communities Program (RCP) grant that the county will use to update land use and subdivisions regulations.
"There is a potential we could have an RFP (request for proposal) for the court to review by the end of July," said County Judge Roger Miller.
"The main issue we need an answer on is if we want a grant administrator to bundle all that or if we want to do it ourselves," said County Attorney Brandon Belt. "We presented a plan to the GLO to do the administration of the grant in house. We will revise the old floodplain ordinance and master plan - the comprehensive plan with land use study.
"There will be a lot of things under building codes of all the different statutes which authorize the county to address things, kind of like a zoning ordinance. We've got a workshop topic for the future. The good thing is we have some funding to address it."
The county received a response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) regarding the county's hazard mitigation plan, and Reed said edits will be made to address new FEMA guidelines. We will go to TDEM (the Texas Department of Emergency Management) and then FEMA and the county attorney will also review.
The county will reprocure some items on its Community Development Block Grant Mitigation Plan (CDBG-MIT) to follow proper procedures.
On a procedural issue related to the RCP grant, an apology letter from the county was sufficient to resolve the matter, rather than reprocuring items.
Commissioner Scott Weddle asked the difference between the way the procedural items had to be resolved.
"One is $100,000 (the RCP) and one is $3.4 million (the CDBG-MIT grant)," Belt said.
Regarding anticipated grant money of several million dollars through the GLO for road construction projects, Miller said the amount of money available appears to be increasing.
Miller said Coryell County has 22 road projects outlined and ready to submit once that grant portal opens.
Manning said the county has worked with ACF on Army Corps of Engineers related projects and he has spoken with ACF about the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). Coryell County was among about 300 which the U.S. Forest Service did not award grant funding to for the development of a CWPP.
Manning said ACF would develop the plan for the county at no additional cost. That way the county could apply for other Forest Service funds to implement the plan.
"I would propose the county have ACF build the plan and submit it when the portal opens instead of waiting a year," Manning said.
"The ACF would be willing to fund the building of that plan at no cost to the county?" Miller asked.
"That is correct," Manning said. "The advantage is we jump ahead a year (in seeking additional grant funding for wildfire protection). Either way, the county will have a fire plan."
"That's very advantageous to the county," Miller said.
"I think that's a good course of action," said Commissioner Ryan Basham.
Belt noted that there were 400 applications requesting more than $525 million in fire protection grants nationally, and only 100 of those applications were approved in the most recent funding cycle.
Manning said the participation of volunteer fire departments throughout the county "is critical" in the process to get funds for wildfire protection. He said having the plan in place will allow the county to be ready "so we can apply for the big money."
