Past deficiencies hinder City’s Community Development Block Grant applications
By: Jose G. Landa, Copyright 2015, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc.
The Eagle Pass City Council held a public hearing on its 2015-2016 Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) application at its January 6, 2015, regular meeting, wherein the needs of the City for public infrastructure projects in low to moderate income areas were discussed as well as how past deficiencies stemming from an eight year old CDBG grant hinders the City’s current and possibly future TDA CDBG grant applications.
Agenda Item No. 1 called for a public hearing on the development of the application for the 2015-2016 Texas Community Development Block Grant.
During the public hearing, Eagle Pass Mayor Ramsey English Cantu stated that the City of Eagle Pass will be submitting an application to the Texas Department of Agriculture for grant funds from the community development fund. “These funds are designated to improve public facilities, improve housing conditions, expand on economic opportunities, and to eliminate hazardous conditions primarily to benefit low-to-moderate income persons,” said Mayor Cantu.
Mayor Cantu stated the City of Eagle Pass is eligible to apply for the maximum allowable funding of $800,000.
Eagle Pass City Manager Gloria Barrientos stated that the biennial grant is administered by the Texas Department of Agriculture with federal funds from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The funds are intended to benefit mainly low-to-moderate income persons.
Eagle Pass Interim Finance Director Jesse Rodriguez presented how the TDA CDBG grants work and what they are for.
City Council member Gloria E. Hernandez asked Administration what would be the preliminary plans and needs for these 2015-2016 CDBG funds. Barrientos responded that there are several proposals for certain projects that these funds would be used, if granted.
City Public Works Director Hector Chavez noted the City needs to determine and analyze what areas and projects in the community would meet the low to moderate income criteria and benefit the most from these grant monies.
Chavez stated that the City of Eagle Pass had done a study in 1988 regarding the drainage and public infrastructure needs in the community. Chavez noted that some of these drainage and projects may fall within the CDBG grant criteria of low to moderate income persons.
“Some of the big issues with flooding are in Las Quintas, Cedar Ridge and other areas. Those are areas that we could consider,” said Chavez.
Chavez noted that Westlakes subdivision has drainage issues which need to be addressed and might be willing to contribute part of the monies needed to repair these issues if it exceeded the CDBG grant monies.
Chavez noted that although the City has addressed a lot of issues with past CDBG grants there are still many areas within the community that need improvements concerning storm drainage issues. “We still have a lot of storm drainage issues,’ said Chavez.
Council member Hernandez asked Chavez if the City would use all of the CDBG funding for drainage projects. Chavez replied “Yes” because that was the most pressing issue affecting the City.
Chavez noted that in 1998 the City passed its first storm drainage ordinance which held real estate developers accountable for all water leaving their property/development. Chavez added the 1998 City Ordinance requires that each real estate development can not drain more water than what existed in that property before development.
Chavez noted that the City has added and developed certain retention ponds within the city limits to alleviate some of the flooding issues seen in subdivisions within the city limits.
Mayor Cantu asked if there were any public comment from any citizen present at the public hearing. There was no public comment from any citizen.
Mayor Cantu stated the City currently has close to $400,000 in CDBG funding that it is working with, but that the City needed to meet some threshold requirements by a certain time frame; otherwise, the City would not be eligible to apply for any more funding. “My question for Finance is where are we on that particular grant? And are we going to make that threshold?,” asked Mayor Cantu.
Mayor Cantu stated he had done some research and the City was close to not being eligible for this funding. “ I don’t know what the issues are at hand at this point in handling them from the inside in-house perspective. What are we doing to assure our City is not going to lose out on large amounts of funds, anywhere from the first $400,000 to the possibility of the next $800,000,?” asked Mayor Cantu.
Rodriguez advised City Council that the City had to meet certain requirements by February 27, 2015 and he had met with Public Works Director Chavez and Administration regarding this deadline and the City would be meeting this February 27th deadline.
Mayor Cantu stated his ultimate question is, “why is the City running late on these grants.?’ Cantu added “That’s my biggest concern.”
Rodriguez advised City Council that a certain construction contract had not been approved on time, causing a three months delay in the current CDBG grant of $400,0000. Rodriguez stated he was confident the City would meet the February 27th deadline.
Mayor Cantu raised another concern regarding what administration measures needed to be taken to ensure that all CDBG grant requirements are met on a timely basis so that the City and its taxpayers do not lose these important grant monies in the future. “Other communities contract these grants out. Is there anything that you are projecting to recommend under these particular contracts? At this point are we not capable from within our department to handle this? I don’t know what the issue is. If it’s an issue of us being behind because of previous grants that really worries me as Mayor,”said Cantu.
Mayor Cantu noted that he has had to accompany City Administration to Austin several times to meet with TDA representatives to ensure them that the City would correct past deficiencies and comply with all requirements. Mayor Cantu stated that he has had to save face with grant representatives and he does not particularly enjoy having to do that.
City Manager Barrientos replied that the problem had arisen from a previous CDBG grant from eight years ago and Administration had resolved the issues from that grant. “That issue was resolved and we started in on these projects,” said Barrientos.
Barrientos advised City Council that one of the recommendations from TDA was that the City hire a grant administrator to manage its grants. Barrientos noted the City had tried to secure grant administration through the Middle Rio Grande Development Council (MRGDC) but that they were notified by TDA that MRGDC lacked an environmental certification and did not qualify to manage the grants.
Barrientos opined that Administration could manage the CDBG grants, but if it would please everyone, then Administration would concur with City Council to hire an outside grant administrator.
City Council discussed the time frame difference between Administration managing the grants compared to going outside to hire a grant administrator.
Mayor Cantu stated City Council needed to address all issues in order to assure that the City does not put itself in a predicament to lose important funding from such grants due to issues being faced. “The question is, how fast we can get this taken care of? and how fast is administration willing to get that taken care of?” said Mayor Cantu. “I want to make sure that from this point forward we are moving in the right direction,” said Mayor Cantu.
City Manager Barrientos replied that ” In the last three years, I believe that’s what we have been doing. I have moved forward to address whatever issues were there. If you recall the issue that brought all of this, is coming from a grant issue of about 8 years ago. In the last 2 to 3 years, we have been addressing and trying to resolve that. It’s taken a while to build up a rapport with them as far as what they will allow us to do and how they will allow us to resolve the issue and it has delayed these newer grants.”
Barrientos noted that the City is very fortunate that it has been allowed an opportunity to have a second chance.
“We have been very aggressive in correcting the errors that were made in the past so we don’t lose the funding for our residents in the future,” said City Manager Barrientos.
To date, the City of Eagle Pass had to de-obligate (return funds or lost) a $95,000 grant in order to not lose any bigger grants during the process of setting a corrective action plan to address these past grant deficiency issues.
Mayor Cantu suggested the City should conduct a Texas CBDG workshop to see where the City is at in regards to these grants and other issues that could be addressed to remedy and find a solution immediately, if possible.
The public hearing was then closed.
According to the CDBG public hearing, it is apparent that past deficiencies from an eight year old CDBG grant as well as meeting current deadlines by February 27th is hindering the City’s current and future TDA CDBG grants. City taxpayers stand to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal and state CDBG grants if the City fails to comply with and correct past and present deficiencies and deadlines.
