Grants receives $300k to improve drainage
Community Development Block Grants used to help infrastructures

By Mike Marino
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — The New Mexico Community Development Council awarded the City of Grants a block grant of $300,000 at its meeting on April 25, 2007. The 13 member council awarded a total of $14,000,000 in state Community Development Block Grant money to 31 communities. The money awarded to this area is for the Storm Water Drainage Improvements Project that is currently underway.

"It's a long process in securing these funds. Area income surveys have to be completed first and that is a large part of the criteria in order to qualify for the funding," Bob Horacek, city manager of Grants said.

Communities are growing rapidly in New Mexico, and infrastructure has to keep up with that growth. This new funding comes at a good time.

Roberta Martinez, project coordinator for Grants said, "Our major project is the ditch dredging on Nimitz and we will continue with that project. We're not sure when the grant money will actually be given to us to use, as we have to hold an implementation meeting with the Development Council on May 16th in Albuquerque before the contract will be awarded. We also have to do an environmental study and those can take as little time as one week or can take up to a month to complete."

The local government division of the Department of Finance and Administration for the State of New Mexico, which administers the CDBG program and serves as staff to the Community Development Council, received 37 requests for funding this year for a total request of over $18,000,000. Of those requests, 33 were eligible but only 31, including the Grants request, were funded.

These grants are available to rural communities throughout the state, and the money can be used for improvements to basic infrastructure such as water, sewer, streets and drainage projects. The money can also be used for construction and improvement of public service buildings such as community centers, public safety buildings and health clinics in a community.