County joins REAP in HUD grant application

For the past few weeks, the Butler County Commissioners have been discussing the ramifications of lending their support to a regional U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grant application.

At their Tuesday meeting, the commissioners decided to join other members of the Regional Economic Area Partnership of South Central Kansas (REAP) in supporting the grant application.

The grant application had previously been discussed and tabled before being approved by a 4-1 vote Tuesday.

Commissioners Bruce Harris, Jeff Masterson, Mike Wheeler and Dan Woydziak were in favor, while Commissioner Peggy Palmer was opposed.

“Why would you ask the federal government for help?” Palmer asked. “Their vsion is different than our vision. Why would we do this?”

Palmer was also concerned that Butler County might not have much say in how the grant money should be spent and that acceptance of the grant funding would subject the county to additional regulations.

Masterson also expressed some concern about accepting the grant, but said he wanted Butler County to be able to have a voice in the discussion if REAP is awarded the grant.

“We won’t have any say about what’s going on in our region,” Masterson said of what would happen if Butler County didn’t support the application.

Woydziak pointed out that the commissioners have 120 days after getting the grant to review it and rescind their support.

“You can get it and review it and if there is something you want to pull out for you could,” said Woydziak.

If received, the Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant would spread $1.5 million over the REAP region, which includes Butler, Cowley, Harper, Harvey, Kingman, McPherson, Reno, Sedgwick and Sumner counties.

The objective of HUD’s Sustainable Communities Initiative is to stimulate more integrated and sophisticated regional planning to guide state, metropolitan and local investments in land use, transportation and housing, as well as to challenge localities to undertake zoning and land use reforms.

This Initiative has four main tasks.

First, the office partners with the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to offer Sustainable Communities Planning Grants.The purpose is to catalyze a new generation of integrated metropolitan transportation, housing, land use and energy planning, using state of the art data, analytic tools and Geographic Information Systems.

Second, the Initiative funds Sustainable Communities Challenge Grants to provide a local complement to the regional planning initiative, enabling multi-jurisdictional partnerships to establish policies, codes, tools and critical capital investments needed to achieve sustainable and inclusive development.

Third, the Initiative supports capacity-building and a clearinghouse designed to support both grant recipients, as well as other communities interested in implementing sustainable community strategies.

Finally, the Initiative provides funding for a joint HUD-DOT-EPA research effort designed to advance transportation and housing linkages on a number of levels.

In other business, the commissioners:

• approved refurbishing the ambulance chassis on a 2003 E-450 ambulance with 200,000 miles.

• voted to allow the EMS department to seek bids to purchase two EMS supply dispensing machines.

• approved agreements with the City of Augusta to give consent for the new levee project to cross Thunder Road and railroad property.

• received and opened bids for the purchase of pipe culverts for the highway division of the Public Works Department.

• approved an agreement with KDOT related to the proposed BNSF crossing closure on N.E. 80th Street.

• approved the purchase of a Peterbilt tandem axle chassis for a dump truck for the Department of Public Works in the amount of $109,000. The motion passed 4-1 with Commissioner Mike Wheeler opposed because of the price of the truck. Public Works director Darryl Lutz explained this truck was the lowest bid that met all required specifications.

• approved a contract renewal with Preferred Health for employee health insurance.