City OKs ARPA requests

The awarding of $2.2 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding was approved on a 7-0 vote at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Brookings City Council.
The money, which is half of the $4.4 million in total ARPA funds that Brookings will receive overall, will, according to a resolution presented at the meeting, benefit the following projects:
• $1.2 million will go toward Brookings Behavioral Health & Wellness. The funds will be used as part of a project to expand The Ivy Center at 211 Fourth St., which houses the agency. The total cost is expected to be $3.6 million.
• $500,000 will go toward the Brookings Economic Development Corp. for a proposed facility in Brookings that will have an initial 80 licensed childcare slots for children ages newborn to 5. The total cost is expected to be $1.5 million.
• BEDC will also receive $80,000 for a childcare coordinator position as part of a three-year program to increase registered and licensed childcare slots by 40. Matching funds at the level of 2:1 will be secured, according to the BEDC.
• $110,000 has been allocated to Brookings Area Habitat for Humanity to assist with affordable housing development in Brookings.
• Inter-Lakes Community Action Partnership will receive $110,000 to assist with affordable housing projects in Brookings.
• $200,000 will be applied toward the workforce housing project in Brookings at 15th Street South and Seventh Avenue South.
The projects, their goals and the efforts in getting them to where they are now were praised six ways from Sunday on Tuesday.

“I think our goal from the beginning was to engage with the community to understand where the highest level of priority was, and we had outstanding response from community members through surveys that told us that childcare and behavioral/mental health and housing were the top three priorities across all demographics,” City Councilor Nick Wendell said. “It’s a phenomenal opportunity to work with community partners that were well-positioned to take these dollars and in many cases match them multiple times over and do really good work.”
He added that, “It’s a pretty unique opportunity, and I actually think it’s a unique way to invest the ARPA dollars relative to what other midsize communities in our state were able to do with the dollars and I think it just demonstrates how much partnership there is in Brookings to tackle big issues.”
City councilors Holly Tilton Byrne and Brianna Doran both had positive things to say as well.
“I think that the discussion that we had around all of these projects was really productive and I think the decision that we’ve come to … is a really impactful way to spend a one-time chunk of change that we are fortunate to be able to receive as a community,” Tilton Byrne said. “I’m really excited to see the long-term impacts that this one-time expense is going to have on this community for years to come.”
Tilton Byrne was also thankful for the community’s involvement. “Without that input it would have been very difficult for us as a council to kind of move forward and make any decisions in terms of how we spend these dollars and so … I just want to thank everyone for all the work that’s been done.”
Doran respected the urgency shown by the parties involved in the process. “The urgency of this funding, and the urgent action that the council and community took, and the partners as well, that when we talked about how we wanted to use these dollars in the community and what projects we wanted to use, we wanted to make an impact soon, because that’s what the community was asking for with these needs, that these are critical and urgent needs,” she said. “So I really appreciate that was a factor considered by council and city staff  as well as the community projects.”
Mayor Oepke “Ope” Niemeyer spoke up as well, saying, “I appreciate the community being involved in this whole thing. It’s not always an easy job to distribute funds – it’s always helpful when we get cooperation and involvement from the community. Our survey was answered well, and I think we’re going in the direction the community wanted us to do.”
In other business at Tuesday’s meeting:
• Councilors approved, on 7-0 votes, ordinances 22-027 and 22-028. Both deal with wording changes to regulations that oversee apartment construction in Brookings.
• Councilors gave the green light, on a 7-0 vote, to Resolution 22-062. The change centers on the city’s special assessment policy as it pertains to municipal financing of assessed projects, such as sidewalks, alleys, roadways and utility work.
• Councilors heard first reading of Ordinance 22-029, dealing with a budget amendment. Second reading is set for the Aug. 23 meeting of the City Council.
• A proclamation was read by Niemeyer regarding “A Day to Celebrate the Cultures of Our Community.”
• A presentation honored city personnel for earning the Special Achievement in Geographical Information System Award.
• City councilors listened to the second-quarter report from Chief Financial Officer Erick Rangel.
• City councilors entered into an executive session for, according to the agenda, “purposes of consulting with legal counsel or reviewing communications from legal counsel about proposed or pending litigation or contractual matters.”

— Contact Mondell Keck at mkeck@brookingsregister.com