When the Danville City Council first committed about $13 million of $24.7 million in ARPA COVID relief funds to a new Garfield Pool and Garfield Park; it was not known how much costs would go up once the bidding process began. And with the pool under construction and still scheduled to be open next May, progress on the park has been very slow, because millions in ARPA money had to be moved over to the pool side.
But on Tuesday evening (Aug 15th), the City Council approved applying for an Open Spaces Acquisition and Development (OSLAD) Grant from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. They could receive up to $600,000 to help replace the dissipated park funds; and they had to act fast, without going to committee first, because the deadline to apply is the end of this month. Now comes the hard part; in that the city may not know whether they’re getting the money until next spring.
Danville City Engineer Sam Cole explains plans behind application for up to $600,000 in OSLAD Grant funding from the State Department of Natural Resources.
City engineer Sam Cole says, that simply means the new Garfield Park will be making little progress for now. Cole says the one thing to keep in mind when things end up being more expensive is that you can always add things at a later date. But when grants are available, you need to pursue them aggressively.
AUDIO: (For) the park operations, the extent of the work there has been we’ve moved in a lot of soil that’s needed for fill. Whether or not we continue with city funds on some of the work, or with APRA funds or whatever on some of the work; before hearing this, or we wait to package it together; honestly we still have a coordination call with IDNR (Illinois Department of Natural Resources) to figure out how they view it best to structure this thing. It’s a lot easier to add things to a park over the years than it is to a pool.
The one “no” vote cast among Danville City Council members in attendance was by Jon Cooper. He was not on the Council when the Garfield Pool and Park ARPA funding decision was made; but his point at this time is; if you’re applying for $600,000 in funding, why should it all go to one new park effort, and not the other existing Danville city parks.
AUDIO: There’s a lot of parks in town that could use some of that money, I’m sure. I’d like to see it divided among them, instead of going all into one place. That was my point.
Danville mayor Rickey Williams, Jr was absent from Tuesday evening’s meeting, as he is on vacation.
