Dublin Council approves applications for more than $300,000 in grant funding

By JESSIE HORTON

TheFlashToday.com

DUBLIN (January 14, 2015) — For several months the Dublin City Council has worked closely with City Administrator Nancy Wooldridge and her staff at city hall to secure several grants for the city. Monday night, Wooldridge and Cloy Richards, with GrantWorks, presented the council with plans to move forward with pursuing more than $300,000 in funds to work on the city’s infrastructure.

“The larger of the two grants we’re looking into tonight is the application for the Texas Community Development Block Grant Program,” Richards told the council Monday night. “This will give the city approximately $275,000, if awarded, to work on the city’s infrastructure project of their choice.”

Wooldridge informed council members that the funds, if Dublin received them, would be spent on water and sewer improvement in the city. She said the city’s Public Works Director, Cory James, and his crew have been working on the city’s water systems for years, and with this money would have the ability to fix a large number of issues with the city’s current system. James added that the improvements to the infrastructure of the water systems would allow the city to apply for other grants that would further improve them.

The other measure presented to council members on Monday included an application for the 2015 Texas CDBG assistance under the Planning/Capacity Building Fund for an estimated amount of $49,995. Richards and Wooldridge told the council this grant would bring the city of Dublin in compliance with CDBG by allowing funding to purchase city mapping software.

“The last time the city did any kind of mapping like this was 2001, and with the grant funding, we will be saving money in the long run,” Wooldridge said. “We have to do this before we can go out and apply for any of the larger grants. It will allow us to bring the city into compliance and will give us a much better idea of where everything is. And the system is far easier to update.”

A previous map of the city’s water lines, sewer lines, and other pipes and lines was done professionally in 2001, but since that time, the city hasn’t had the funding to update the system. An assessment of the city’s records revealed the maps were being updated by hand in most cases. The new software will allow the city’s departments to update as they go and make maps easier to read for future use, Wooldridge and Richards told the council.

A public hearing was held for the application of these grants and no one from the community was on hand to comment. The public hearing was closed and the council approved the resolutions to apply for both grants and award the bid for the city’s engineers to Jacob & Martin LTD, a bid that must be approved annually.