The Gillett City Council on March 6 approved a resolution designed to help advance grant applications for a new playground and other improvements at Zippel Park.
Fundraising activities have been underway for about a year toward a $1.5 million plan to build an inclusive play area, walking trails and paths, ADA signage and picnic/seating areas, along with improvements to the sports courts.
The council also OK’d a request that the proposal be added to Oconto County’s Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (CORP).
Art Bahr, senior community development administrator with consulting and planning firm MSA, said the grants are contingent in part on the project being included in a comprehensive plan.
“All I’m really looking for is just a motion so I’ve got official permission from Gillett to have a one-page section put into Oconto County’s Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan describing this project over in the park,” Bahr said. “That’s a requirement of the stewardship grant application being that Gillett does not have a CORP of their own. We have to be listed in somebody’s, so we have to be listed in the county’s.”
Bahr told the council that the process of preparing grant applications to the state stewardship fund and federal Community Development Block Grant program is on schedule.
“Everything’s on schedule, May 1 for stewardship and I think it’s May 14 for the CDBG,” he said. “Everything’s going fine in getting them written. I will be getting with Jerry (Luther, alderperson) for some letters of support, some letters of partnership and letters of donation; we’ve got those to include in the grants.”
The CDBG application also requires that a public hearing be held, which is scheduled for 6 p.m. April 3 prior to the council’s regular monthly meeting.
In addition to the state and federal grant applications, Bahr said the city plans to resubmit an application to the Oconto-based Leon H. & Clymene M. Bond Foundation in April. The foundation declined an application last fall but encouraged the city to try again, he said.
wbluhm@newmedia-wi.com
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