In April, Jefferson County learned it would receive nearly $2.4 million from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), federal legislation aimed at repairing the damage done to communities by the coronavirus pandemic.
As it confronted the windfall, the county realized it would need help—someone dedicated to managing and reporting on the grant, and to finding new funds that could build on the first round of activities. “There’s a ton of money out there, and we don’t have the expertise or the time to understand it all,” County Commission Chair Leonard Wortman said in May. “We need someone to guide us through that.”
In November, the county found its guide. Terri Lewis, 70, grew up in Boulder (she is the sister of Patricia Lewis, Boulder City Council member and The Monitor’s office manager) but has spent most of her life far afield. She built a nonprofit corporation in Tennessee that hired people with severe disabilities to make food products for government contracts, and she taught rehabilitation administration at a university in Taiwan.
