If at first you don't succeed

Reflecting on the city’s lack of success in securing American Rescue Plan Act funding to pay for several important infrastructure projects around town, the Sundance City Council has agreed that it’s worth giving it another go.

“You could say we’re the first loser,” said Public Works Director Mac Erickson as he reported the situation to the council, explaining that it was a tough group of applicants to compete against and the city’s projects were actually pretty high up the list.

Unfortunately, there was a lot less money to give out than there was funding requested. For a total of $50 million, the State Lands and Investments Board received 113 applications for a total about 4.5 times higher than what was available.

Many of the successful applications, said Erickson, came from larger towns, who had more time to prepare. Mayor Paul Brooks added that larger towns often have permanent staff members for whom grant applications is their main function.

“They studied it and they knew how to get every point out of it,” said Erickson.

With this in mind – and on hearing that another $50 million may be made available shortly – the city is planning to give it another shot.

“We were reaching for the stars pretty good,” said Erickson, stating that the city learned from the experience and can focus next time on the most important projects and solidify the applications, fixing the areas where projects were marked down.

For example, said Brooks, the project to replace the culvert over the creek on 3rd Street was marked down because there was not enough “public involvement”, which can be solved by holding a meeting to hear public comment.

On this basis, said Erickson, it was probably a blessing in disguise to have that opportunity to apply.

The projects for which Sundance is seeking funding include one that will replace a steel water line installed in the 1940s that feeds 19 individual taps, and one that will fix a leak under the creek on 3rd Street that is “so blessedly deep,” said the mayor, that it’s almost past the ability of the city’s equipment to reach. According to Erickson, the city will likely focus on the 3rd Street culvert replacement and leak issue for the new application.