City Council meets today on TIGER grant
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on April 22, 2016 1:46 PM
The Goldsboro City Council will meet today at 3 p.m. in the large conference room of the City Hall annex to discuss a possible revote on allowing the city to apply for TIGER VIII grant funds from the federal government.
When the possibility of applying for the TIGER VIII grant funds was first brought before the council, the council voted against allowing the city to apply for the grant funds in a 4 to 3 split decision.
Now, after several downtown merchants spoke advocating for the city to apply for the funds at the first council meeting in April, District 3 council member Mark Stevens has indicated he is considering switching his vote from no to yes in favor of submitting the TIGER VIII application, which would allow the city to apply for the grant funds if each council member were to submit the same vote aside from Stevens.
Council member Stevens attempted to make a motion to allow the city to apply for the TIGER VIII grant funds at the council meeting on April 18, but after Stevens made the motion, no other council member seconded it and the motion never made it to a vote and was effectively killed on the cutting room floor.
"The meeting this Friday is a continuation of that discussion," said City Manager Scott Stevens. "The Mayor (Chuck Allen) has talked with the council members and believes there is enough support now to take another vote."
The deadline to submit an application to receive TIGER VIII grant funds is Friday, April 29. The scope of the project, if grant funds are received, would continue to include parts of the downtown area.
Stevens said "time would be an issue" should the council vote in favor of allowing the city to submit the TIGER VIII application given the short turnaround after the vote that is expected be taken this Friday.
But, Stevens said, he does not feel like the short turnaround time would adversely affect the quality of the application.
"This is not the same application entirely that we submitted for the TIGER VII grant, some parts are the same and some have changed," Stevens said. "The TIGER VII application included the renovation work on the historic Union Station, but the required amount to apply for the grant has been lowered form a $10 million project to a $5 million project, and Union Station has been removed. It's a different level of matching funds we would be required to provide since the grant amount would be smaller, and now we have more data supporting that the first infusion of TIGER grant money had a positive impact, and that strengthens the application, I think."