Upcoming Events

Open Modal

Enhance Iowa Board Wants To Set Carroll Up For Success–Asks For More Buy-In From Carroll Community In Support Of Over $600,000 In Grant

Photo: Dick Collison speaks before the Enhance Iowa Board on Wednesday in Cedar Falls

 

There was a strong showing from Carroll Wednesday morning at a meeting of the Enhance Iowa Board of Directors in Cedar Falls. Some of those people traveled to this meeting in support of an application for more than $600,000 in a Community Attractions and Tourism (CAT) grant for the Carroll Public Library. Others came to voice their concerns on the overall more than $6.5 million price tag to renovate the Farner Government Building for the library and the Commercial Savings Bank building on North Adams for the new city offices. The first to speak was Dick Collison, who has been a very vocal opponent in opposition to the current library plan. He told board members that he represents a group of Carroll residents who have concerns that the costs will not be completely covered and the community will be left with an incomplete library. However, he says his group has other plans that would scale back what has been approved by an estimated $2 to $3 million.

Another Carroll resident who also has experience with the Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA), CJ Niles, told the board about how vested the community is in moving this project forward. They passed a referendum by nearly 62 percent and there is ongoing fundraising with the Library Foundation pledging to contribute at least $2.5 million.

City Manager, Mike Pogge-Weaver, and Library Director, Rachel Van Erdewyk, provided a project update and discussed their current funding gap of just shy of $207,000. The CAT committee and members of the Enhance Iowa board agreed they wanted that gap closed before they felt comfortable with approving the request. Some said they would prefer to see it lowered to $575,000 or $600,000, while Enhance Iowa vice chair, Emily Damman of Indianola, said she was uncomfortable with approving the award now and setting two precedents—one on the dollar amount and one on the gap amount. Board member, Kyle Carter of Davenport, didn’t see where the risk was for approval. If they gave it, the community would still have to fill that gap in an identified timeframe before the dollars would be dispersed.

Retiring board President, Derek Lumsden of Osceola, says he did not see delaying the grant request one month as a stumbling block. He wants to see what the city, foundation and community can do between now and their next meeting on Aug. 8 in raising funds. He says he wants to use this a means to set up the community for success instead of failure, and to provide an opportunity to show that there are donors in the wings, just waiting to fill that gap. The motion to approve a $650,000 grant request for the library died for a lack of a second with the CAT Grant Committee. And now, the work begins for this community in rallying and providing the dollars needed to fill that gap and to bring it back to the board in August.

Recommended Posts

Loading...