The grant for Riverfront Park could be rejected.
After waiting years for all the information, some city officials do not like what they see.
A Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) grant for $86,995 was applied for in 2009 and received in 2010. The grant requires a 20 percent match by the city, bringing the total to $104,000.
Parks and Recreation Committee chairman Mike Neal says the grant contains a lot of “baggage” the city was not aware of until now.
“It sounds good, but there is a whole lot of baggage that comes along with this grant,” Neal said.
According to city administrator David Rutherford, the city has been trying to obtain specifics about the grant since it was awarded, but only the amount of the match was given.
“We never had any actual documentation on it,” said Rutherford. “We’ve had conversations with TWRA through the former McMinnville Parks and Recreation director about some possible money that would be available for upgrades at Riverfront Park.”
A list of necessary upgrades was submitted to TWRA, including boat ramp and dock work.
“When we received the grant, I asked what kind of requirements we were going to have,” said Rutherford. “I was told not to worry about it. It’s an 80-20 grant. You pay for the work and you get reimbursed, which is the way most of them work.”
In December, the paperwork was finally received. Rutherford says it provides upgrades to two docks, one boat ramp, dredging and bank stabilization. But also included were items and stipulations the city does not want.
“It’s like a federal grant,” he said. “It has lots of little things that can come up and bite you. One of them is we have to pave the parking lot. A parking lot was talked about being paved. I thought I had been able to kill that project in lieu of gravel.”
During heavy rains, the parking area at Riverfront Park floods two to three times a year and paving would be a waste of resources, says Rutherford.
“If you put asphalt down there, you are going to have it break up. Then you will have a bigger mess than you had to start with,” he said.
The grant is not an automatic reimbursement once the work is complete.
“Repayment is divided over three years,” said Rutherford. “As I told Mr. Neal, if we had known all these things four years ago, we could have gone ahead and done the work rather than waiting and waiting and waiting for this.”
Given the repayment schedule, the city can look forward to keeping all the paperwork for three years and being audited.
“They will audit us,” said Rutherford. “They always do an audit. If there is anything wrong with it, then you get to start paying money back or try to explain why it was done that way.”
The city would also be required to bid the project out rather than doing most of the work in-house using city employees.
Given the pain outweighing the gain, Rutherford suggested officials return it and allow city employees to move forward with the work.
“I have recommended to the chairman to send the grant back,” said Rutherford. “Thank them very much. Let us go ahead and do the work and be finished with it. It’s a simple project. If we hadn’t been tied up waiting on this fabulous grant, we could have already done the work.”
Neal asked for a motion to accept, or deny, the grant from fellow committee members.
“I make a motion we return it,” said Alderman Billy Wood. “We are going to spend more of taxpayers money to accomplish something we can do in-house. This is going to be cumbersome and it won’t be worth it by the time it’s over.”
Wood’s motion failed due to lack of a second when Vice Mayor Ben Newman, an attorney, asked for more time to review the grant with some of his colleagues.
“I have some friends who work with government grants and I would like to run this by them before I make a decision on it,” said Newman.
The measure was tabled until the committee’s next meeting Jan. 22 at 6:45 p.m.