The Alfalfa County commissioners had a short agenda Monday but spent quite a bit of time discussing the potential allocation of funds from the federal government's American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Oklahoma received $1.9 billion to be used on water, sewer and broadband infrastructure.
Cherokee City Manager Mike Jones attended the meeting, formally asking Marvin Woodall, Jay Hague and Mike Roach for 10 percent of the county's ARPA funds to help with water projects in Cherokee. Jones said it would cost $13.3 million to redo water lines and build a new water tower. He said 100 percent of what the City gets from ARPA would be applied to that project and that he is even willing to finance 20 percent of that.
"We're willing to take on a huge deficit of our own if we can convince the state that we need that," Jones said.
He said he has corresponded with Oklahoma State Senator Casey Murdock, who encouraged him to apply individually and as a group. (Major, Woods and Alfalfa counties may come together to write one large grant.)
The city manager said Cherokee's water lines were constructed in 1932, and some are even asbestos-cement pipes. An even more significant percentage is old iron lines that need replacing. With upgrades, water distribution will improve because there is untraceable water loss, he said.
Based on conversations with Oklahoma legislators, Roach said he believes that the funds would probably have a better chance of being approved if the counties applied together. He said he recommends applying both ways, though, as Sen. Murdock suggested.
Northern Oklahoma Development Authority is spearheading grant writing, which will cut costs in hiring someone to do it. Another advantage is NODA understands grant deadlines. Time is of the essence, and to make sure each municipality in Alfalfa County has a chance to communicate its needs, commissioners set a meeting date for Wednesday (the day of this publication) at 7 p.m. at City Hall.
Jones said he recently reached out to all the city administrators to get all hands on deck but to no avail. The county's emergency manager, Shana Smallwood, offered help to contact them. County Clerk Laneta Schwerdtfeger reminded the group that the board of commissioners is responsible for the money distribution and that all their usual statutes apply.
After much discussion, Woodall, Hague, and Roach made it clear that they are willing to participate and would take great care to distribute the money equally between all municipalities in Alfalfa County. The three men said a resolution for ARPA fund allocations would be on next week's agenda.
Other business items addressed in the meeting were the approvals of previous meeting minutes, payroll warrants, M&O payment warrants, and one blanket purchase order. Lastly, two signature corrections were approved: one on the Project Agreement and Resolution for District 1 for bridge and approaches on NS 252 over Little Mule Creek Project #J3-5415(004)RB and State Job Piece #35415(04). The other was for Project Agreement and Resolution for District 2 for bridge and approaches on NS 2550 at 0315 for DDIR 0820-02-01 Project #J3-5426(004)RB and State Job Piece #35426(04).
A complete video recording of this meeting can be found under the Videos tab on http://www.AlvaReviewCourier.com.
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