If you knew there was money sitting out there, just waiting for you to ask for it, you would ask, wouldn’t you? Well, here you go, Boulder. There is money sitting out there just waiting for the community to ask, and the time to do it is now. Actually, time is running away from us quickly.
Several options for grants and loans are now open for application, including some that sound ideal for what Boulder has said it wants to do to ‘make Boulder’s future bright.’ (See the article in this issue about Department of Commerce grant applications.) Main Street Montana grants come due in August. The Jefferson Local Development Corporation is ready and willing to help Boulder apply for money, and the community has $500,000 available to use as matching funds to leverage more funds through those grants.
Available Boulder business owners were scheduled to meet Tuesday morning to get the ball rolling on a Main Street Montana application. Before many of the grant applications can go in, though, the Boulder Development Fund (BDF) must be formed.
The community promised the state legislature we would create that board to oversee the city’s use of the $500,000. That board needs members from the city council, county commission, chamber, schools and Jefferson Local Development Corporation. Each of those members can be appointed by the bodies from which they come, and some have already designated their representative.
The board also needs a representative from the community of Basin, a Jefferson High student, and two Boulder citizens. The city is now soliciting applications for those slots. We urge everyone who is interested in serving on the BDF to get an application to the city NOW.
If you spent time on the community study circles, if you participated in of the committees that came from that, if you have been watching the Boulder Transition Advisory Committee, or if you care about the direction the community will take with the help of the $500,000 from the state government, apply NOW.
The longer we delay, the less likely we will get any of the grant money we need to improve the downtown, to get our story out to potential visitors, to attract and retain businesses, to make Boulder better. The pots of money are limited, and after the application period opens, the applications flow in and the money flows out. That money just waiting for us to ask won’t wait forever. We need to be acting NOW. Even if you don’t want to serve on the BDF, contact your city council members and tell them how vital it is that they appoint members to the BDF NOW. And say thanks when they do.
