Poplar Bluff city officials are considering whether or not to open COVID relief funds to applications for use by non-profits.
The city received approximately $3.4 million in American Rescue Plan Act money, which can be spent on almost anything except paying debt, retirement benefits and some other smaller items.
“The American Recovery Plan Act allows for cities to do a wide variety of things with their funds. One of those things is to grant it out to non-profit organizations,” said city manager Matt Winters.
Council representative Jerrica Fox said people from several non-profits have approached her about that possibility.
“All of our constituents know, no matter what ward you’re in, our community has a long list of projects that we could probably use all of these funds on,” Fox said.
The council plans to bring the item back for future discussion.
City officials want to put together a list of possible criteria that would be used for applications and discuss the amount of ARPA funds that might be set aside for the effort.
Some cities have opened the funds to non-profits, and others have not, Winters said.
For those that have, the Community Foundations of the Ozarks has helped establish an online application process. The foundation receives a fee of 1% of what is set aside for the effort, Winters said. All decisions on who to award the funds to would remain local, he said.
Winters suggested that if the city moves forward, items such as salary or operating expenses for non-profits would not be considered.
Fox said she would like to see the type of applications other cities have used for this process.
“We can use every penny of the dollars received on bettering our community with city projects alone, but this was something we thought we could step up and help do,” Fox said, because of the questions from the public.
The city has already set approximately $200,000 of the ARPA money for the demolition of the top portion of the downtown parking garage and the removal of a badly deteriorated building in the 200 block of South Main Street. Work will include the clean-up of concrete on city-owned vacant lots between the parking garage and Fire Station 1 for the creation of a green space.
The city has also discussed using $500,000-$600,000 to purchase three removable basketball courts that could be used in the Black River Coliseum.
The Coliseum currently has one court which is difficult to set up and cannot be separated into the multiple spaces needed for a tournament, officials have said previously.
“Tourism is a big deal for a lot of this money and that’s where a lot of this money is going to go,” Winters said at a March meeting where the item was discussed.
The basketball courts are an idea that has been discussed at length with park department director Lanny Corcimiglia, he said.
“A big tourism draw would be to get new basketball courts for the Coliseum,” Winters said. “The benefits to that are going to be pretty big for our community, I think... the Coliseum could be used a whole lot more.”
Another approximately $70,000 has been used to purchase a tractor to provide more frequent mowing of fields near the Poplar Bluff Regional Business Airport. The mowing is a safety concern for the airport, to reduce habitat for animals that could interfere with the landing or takeoff of planes, officials said in February.
The city has also approved the use of ARPA funds to give temporary 3% raises to staff to be paid quarterly over the next three years and for help building a new city park on Shelby Road, near the site of a new police department.
Information regarding the amount of funds remaining was not available at press time.
In other business, the council:
• Approved the annexation of 3395 S. Westwood Blvd.
• Approved an agreement with the Missouri Department of Transportation relating to a new entrance from Highway 142 to a new manufacturing location.
• Accepted a bid for demolition of 211 S. Main St., a portion of the downtown parking garage and associated projects from Strack Excavating for $193,140.
• Approved a proposal to create lieutenants’ positions within the Poplar Bluff Fire Department at stations 2 and 3.
• Approved a motion calling for a public hearing in relation to the annexation of property at 3260 Mystic Lane.