When Lake County and Cook County formed a joint powers agreement to pursue government grants for housing, it was just the sort of collaboration that municipal granting agencies were looking for.
But, according to Nancy Grabko of Community Funding Solutions (CFS), that partnership is now in danger because of one contentious Lake County official who serves on the Lake County Housing Rehabilitation Authority (HRA). Conflict resulted last month in termination of the Lake County HRA’s contract with Grabko. Grabko said she had been having administrative difficulties with Lake County HRA for several months.
And although there was an agreement that each county should take turns every other year serving as the fiscal agent for awarded grants, Lake County HRA plans to continue to serve as fiscal agent for all awarded grants.
Cook and Lake County were the recent joint recipients of a $370,000 grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). Grabko wrote and submitted that grant application on behalf of both counties. The money will be used to rehabilitate houses and commercial buildings selected under rigorous grant criteria.
“If this collaboration falls apart, these funding agencies will likely give us nothing,” said EDA board chair Mike Littfin.
“They have made that very clear to us,” said EDA Director Matt Geretschlaeger, adding that DEED was already aware of this current dissension between the two counties, and that “this is a red flag to them.”
“From an EDA standpoint, this is too important to let go,” said Littfin.
A joint meeting with the Lake County HRA will be held on Monday, July 18 in Lake County and all of the EDA members said they would be able to attend.
“We don’t want this meeting to be testy or contentious. Too much is at stake here. Cooperation between two counties is the key,” said Littfin.
“Our residents are counting on us,” added Grabko.
Cedar Park paving nearly complete
In other EDA news, Geretschlaeger said that KTM Paving finished paving the Cedar Grove Business Park.
“The work went well and I have some good news for you,” Geretschlaeger told the board.
“KTM’s original bid was for $152,359 if they paved before June 25; if they paved after that, their bid was $158,000. However, they ended up submitting a bill for $14,000 under their pre-June 25 bid. KTM has been a very reasonable contractor.”
The shoulders in the business park haven’t been paved yet, said Matt, because the pavement was still too soft. “They will come back and finish those in the near future.”
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