Typed or handwritten, emailed or hand-delivered, Boulder residents’ letters of support for renovating and expanding City Hall could help the city get state funding to help pay for it. Letters are due 5 p.m. Friday.
The Boulder City Council, at a special meeting Monday night, authorized Great West Engineering to apply on the city’s behalf for a $419,685 Montana Department of Commerce grant. The application is due Sept. 30.
The grant is available through the Delivering Local Assistance program, created by House Bill 652 in this year’s legislative session. The bill appropriates $21.5 million for infrastructure projects in communities impacted by “a growth or decline associated with coal, oil, gas or timber development,” according to the Department of Commerce website. The grants are to be distributed equally between local governments and local school districts.
Craig Erickson, a grant writer with Great West Engineering, explained at the meeting that Boulder and Jefferson County are eligible for the program due to reductions in timber-related receipts. The City Hall expansion proposal is eligible because it would “solve a deficiency related to … facilities for government administration,” the department’s website states.
The Boulder application is one of three in Jefferson County Great West Engineering is working on. The other two are for a proposed centralized water system in Clancy and for Jefferson County’s effort to update solid waste management infrastructure in Montana City.
Erickson said the three applications are not competing with one another, and together seek funding that falls within a $1.5 million per county cap set by HB652.
“Letters of support would be beneficial,” Erickson told the City Council. Residents should express “in their words why they think this is important,” and their letters “don’t need to be long or even typed.”
Hand-written letters are typically “well received” by the Department of Commerce, he noted.
The estimated cost of renovating City Hall is $486,685 — $67,000 more than the desired grant. That amount will be sourced from the Boulder Development Fund.
Boulder residents interested in showing support for the project can email letters to cityclerk@cityofbouldermt.com or drop them off at City Hall by 5 p.m. Friday.
Erickson invited residents with questions or concerns to contact him at cerickson@greatwesteng.com.
Erickson said that the Department of Commerce would name grant recipients by year’s end.
The Delivering Local Assistance program was authorized only for the 2021 Biennium, but Erickson suggested that the program could possibly be reauthorized in a future legislative session.
“This is going to be a very competitive program,” he said.
