RUMFORD — Town Manager John Madigan told selectmen Thursday that he thinks officials are not ready to submit an application for a Community Development Block Grant to repair downtown water and sewer systems and sidewalks.
Rumford was notified recently by the Office of Community Development in Augusta that the letter of intent has met the CDBG requirements and they are eligible to submit a full grant application, due March 4, with a decision made by early July.
For consideration was scheduling a public hearing and a special town meeting prior to March 4 for a public hearing when authorization will be required for the town to submit a CDBG grant application, as well as for the town to seek a bond.
Madigan said, “It’s a big project, and I don’t feel comfortable that that’s together properly in a way that would make me feel good about getting an award, given the competition.”
He said one of the issues was an engineering cost update on the project provided by Main-Land Development of Livermore which increased the cost estimate of around $3 million last August to $4,363,000.
Rumford is seeking a grant of one million dollars, the limit allowed for an infrastructure grant. There were 12 other applicants in this round, with combined requests of nearly $10 million. The program has $2.7 million to allocate.
“Because of the competition and the limited amount of money, if we don’t have an absolute 100 percent complete application, we’re not going to score well,” said Madigan.
“The only thing we could do to get an application in on time is to call a special town meeting, have the public hearing, request that the town let us borrow at least up to $2 million. But there’s no way, given the time we have, that I can tell any of the citizens that this is what we need. I can’t give a realistic estimate. It’s not concrete. We have it in some respect, but not in the way I think we need it,” he said.
Knowing that this is a two-year project, Madigan suggested that they could wait until the next round of CDBG funding in December and have ready all the necessary engineering, put together the bid specs, and borrow the money they think is needed.
Instead of unit costs used by engineers, Madigan said “This really has to be bid in light of what it is. It’s a major street, a major business district. There’s going to be a lot of extra work involved. You’re really not going to know what it’s going to cost unless you have bid documents that are put together in a way that a contractor can come in and bid this.”
Selectman Frank DiConzo asked Madigan that rather than call for a special town meeting, “Let the people vote for it in June. Is that what you’re advocating?”
Madigan responded, “I’m not advocating anything specifically. It’s my gut feeling telling me that’s what we should do because we’re not ready enough. This is too big of a project to have a more accurate cost estimate.”
He said that by the June town meeting, the town will have a more accurate dollar figure and a better designed plan.
“The project is definitely three million-plus. There’s no question about that. Whether it’s $4.3 million, I don’t know,” said Madigan.
Jennifer Kreckel, one of several downtown business owners in attendance, asked that if they withdraw their CDBG application, how will that impact the project next year?
Madigan said he’s recommending going for the next CDBG round in December, but not delaying the project. However, he did add that if they are not able to win an infracture grant, they might have to reduce the scope of the project.
Construction is slated to begin in the spring of 2017.
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