Sycamore to apply for $600,000 grant for new water plant build

SYCAMORE —  Sycamore Village Council passed a resolution Tuesday night to authorize Mayor Matt Boucher to apply for a $600,000 Community Development Block Grant for the new water plant project.
“We finally received the (permit to install) for the water plant, so now we are going for our next piece of funding,” said Rural Community Assistance Partnership representative Roberta Acosta, who is helping the village secure funding to build a new water plant.
“I’m going to be putting in this application for you next month,” Acosta told council members. “I think they are going to process it relatively quickly. You could get a grant award, probably in June.”
Council also approved an anti-displacement and relocation assistance plan, which Acosta explained is required as part of the grant application.
“It says if as a result of this project you demolish low-income housing, that you will replace it in-kind, to those residents who get displaced because of the project,” Acosta said. “This obviously isn’t going to be an issue for (the village), but they still require it.”
The third requirement of the grant application is two public meetings, which will be held May 1 and May 15, both beginning at 5 p.m. in council chambers.
“The first one is just to discuss CDBG programs in general,” Acosta said. “They have several different programs. There’s housing and formula, and economic development, weatherization and all this other stuff.
“If people ask about these public meetings, really the second one that they come to is the important one,” she added. “That’s when we talk specifically about the project, what we expect the cost will be, what we expect the rates to be and things like that, so that will be much more pertinent to anyone who is interested.”
The village already has received a $500,000 grant for the project from the Ohio Public Works Commission. The total project will cost $2.2 million. The village will apply for a loan to finance the rest of the project.
“At the current cost estimates, we’re still looking at financing $1.1 million and we are proposing right now to do that through the Ohio Water Development Authority,” Acosta said. “Their current interest rate is 3.82 percent.”
Council members will consider the terms of the loan and vote at a future meeting
In other business, council President Vicki Weininger announced First National Bank has donated $2,000 to the project to build a new shelterhouse at Veterans Memorial Park.
“We’d like to thank First National Bank for their generous donation,” Weininger said.

By CHANDA NEELY
Staff writer

Posted by Daily Chief on April 25, 2012. Filed under Local News,Recent Headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry