City of La Grande receives massive funding from the American Rescue Plan Act

Published 7:00 am Monday, August 22, 2022

LA GRANDE — The city of La Grande received just over $3 million of funding from the American Rescue Plan Act and is seeking input from residents on where the money would best be spent.

The city council will host a virtual town hall meeting at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 14, in order to share information on proposed projects, answer questions and gather feedback on how the money should be allocated.

“This is once in a generation type of funding,” said La Grande City Manager Robert Strope. “We want to make sure it goes toward what will give us the most bang for our buck for the city.”

Passed in 2021, the American Rescue Plan allocated $1.9 trillion for economic stimulus to help speed with economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession. The money must be committed to projects by the end of 2024 and spent by the end of 2026.

When the funding was first released, there were a number of restrictions in place on how the funding could be spent, severely limiting the types of work to sewer or water projects. Only a limited amount could be allocated to revenue replacement projects — a broader category of projects, where funding could be spent on things like building renovations or park improvements.

These restrictions were relaxed and the maximum allocation towards revenues replacement projects was increased, allowing the city council to consider a wider range of projects for La Grande.

Department heads put together project proposals and these were submitted to the city council for review during a work session in June. The council cannot make decisions during a work session, however, they reviewed the proposals, asked questions and created a preliminary ranking.

Based on the work session, the top priority projects that would receive funding are road work on 16th Street, land acquisition for a new police station, an east-side housing water and sewer infrastructure project, purchasing a wildland fire engine and road work on 12th Street. Road work on N Avenue would also be partially funded.

“The city council is very interested in engaging the public to share details about the projects under consideration and hear from the citizens of La Grande before they finalize their decision,” Strope said in a press release.

Comments and questions can be submitted in advance to Strope at rstrope@cityoflagrande.org before 5 p.m. on Sept. 9.

Counselors will also address comments and questions live during the town hall. According to Stope, the comments feed on Facebook will be monitored and there will also be an email address shared during the meeting for people to submit inquiries.

The virtual town hall will be shown live on Charter Communications channel 180, on the La Grande Alive website and on the Eastern Oregon Alive.TV facebook page.

After the meeting concludes, counselors will come to a consensus on project priority. This will be an agenda item for the October city council session. Public comments will also be open during the Oct. 5 meeting before the council votes.

Seventeen projects totaling more than $7 million are vying for $3 million available. Those projects are:

• Eleven separate street and road projects for 16th Street, 12th Street, N Avenue, Willow Street, Division Street, Walnut Street, 6th Street, Monroe Avenue, Harrison Avenue, East L Avenue and Alder Street.

• An east-side housing water and infrastructure project to lay the groundwork for over 200 new residential lots.

• Downtown revitalization plan implantation.

• Destination retail development to help strengthen La Grande businesses.

• Land acquisition for a new police station.

• Wildland fire engine to help fight wildfires.

• New recreation center.