Town opts not to apply for POS grants

(4/15) The Town Council unanimously agreed not to apply for State Project Open Space (POS) grant money this year based upon the recommendation of Burgess Barnes.

Barnes told the Council that the State funding for the project is the lowest he has seen since he’s been Burgess. The funding available for all of the Towns in the County this year is only $469,000, and when divided among 10 Towns, Woodsboro could, at most, receive $42,000. Since Woodsboro is one of the smaller Towns and there are a number of projects already underway in the larger Towns, Barnes doubted that the Town would squeeze out even $10,000, if anything at all.

In support of Barnes’ proposal, Commissioner Bill Rittelmeyer commented that when he was the Town’s Burgess, Towns would routinely "pass" on submitting requests for grant moneys to allow other Towns access to larger grants to finish higher cost projects. Now it seems, everyone is always submitting a grant request, which is making it increasingly harder to get any project done.

Project Open Space funding can only be applied to new projects, not maintenance costs of existing projects. "As we have no new projects on the books right now," Barnes said, "we would have to come up with something first, then put the grant request together, then sit in a room with all the other Towns and argue for the money."

"Let’s be honest," Barnes said, "we’ve been very fortunate over the past four years. We’ve received over $600,000 in POS funding which we’ve put to use building the skateboard park, and the Bandshell and bathrooms in the park."

"We’ve more then gotten our share of POS funding, let other Towns now get what they need for their projects," Barnes said to an approving Council.

In a related topic, Barnes told the Council that he has been notified by the contractor who is building the new bathrooms in the park that the cost is going to be higher than expected.

"Fortunately, we overestimated what it was going to cost us, so we have excess POS money to cover the cost. All it means is that some of the other minor things we had hoped to do in the park will not get done this year."

The increase in the cost of the bathrooms, Barnes told the Council, was due to the County requiring the bathroom be designed by an architect, whose plans would then have to be approved by the County Office of Permits.

"Honestly, all we had planned to do was build a cinderblock building and put in five toilets, why we need an architect to design the layout of five stalls is beyond me."