County Commissioners Approve Variety of Funding Grants

Prowers County Courthouse

Darren Glover, PATS Operations Director, provided the Prowers County Commissioners with ridership numbers and finances for the county transit service during their meeting, Thursday, November 15.  Glover also discussed the 2013 CDOT Transit grant which provides PATS with some of their administrative and operating funding each year, totaling $315,000.  The local share of the funding is $147,000.  Total PATS expenses for the year are at $199,177.84.  Ridership numbers to date is 20,178 with 53,710 miles driven.  General public accounts for 13,383 riders with handicap riders at 3,810.  The average cost per mile for PATS services is $3.71 and cost per trip is $9.87. 

Reva Phillips, owner of SE and EC Recycling Association reviewed her business operation for the commissioners as part of her annual funding agreement.  The county is one of several municipalities which contribute to the regional recycling operation, serving over three dozen communities.  Prowers County provides $4,000 a year to the operation, or about $0.70 per resident.  Phillips business has recycling receptacles in Lamar and Prowers County including ALCO, Safeway, The Pit Stop, Thriftway Grocery Store and locations in Holly and Wiley.  Refuse is collected and assorted for sale or recycling in the Front Range.  Phillips said that her rates have not increased since 1993, but she has realized some savings since hiring several full time employees to replace supervised prison workers from Bent County.  Recognizing a growing national trend, she said newspaper collections have continued to decrease over the past several years. 

Mary Root, County Land Use Administrator, recapped the DoLA Energy and Mineral Impact Assistance Program Application for the county’s Floodplain Map Modernization Project.  Root said last year, the program just ran out of funding and now that the county is being moved to the head of some lists for mapping and levee construction, the funds are critical to the project’s success.  The maps will update levee and flood hazards information for the communities in the county.  Identified areas of the study include:  Wild Horse & Wolf Creek levees, Willow Creek & Willow Creek levee and the Arkansas River from the Bent/Prowers Line to two miles east of Lamar.  Holly, Wiley, Lamar and Granada communities are in need of funding to help pay for their mapping program, as well as for any future levee improvements required to prevent area residents from having to purchase flood insurance for their properties.  Prowers County is requesting $38,381.  This amounts to half of the 10% share requested from the Department of Local Affairs.  The cost of the program, including FEMA and Colorado Water Conservation Board funding comes to $767,629.  The breakdown is $17,836 for Prowers County, $7,856 for Lamar, $1,111 for Wiley, $5,289 for Holly and $6,290 for Granada.

Lamar Community College President, John Marrin and LCC Women’s Basketball Coach, Timm Dixson discussed the basketball team’s current success at 4 and 0 for the season.  Dixson joined LCC from Arizona where his family still resides.  He said his three teenage boys and wife will make the move to Lamar next year.  Marrin said the college is happy with the current athletic program and will broaden its scope to develop more JV and club sports teams, allowing local students to compete in non-league sports programs.  Marrin added that the recent ‘adopt an athlete’ program with the LCC Boosters Club has been successful with more host families available than the school has team members at the moment.    

In other action, the commissioners approved a CDBG grant for SECED to continue the lending agency’s Housing Rehabilitation Program, the commissioners okayed an agreement for a grant with Alloy, LLC to provide security video for court cases.  These funds are originated from the state court system and allocated to county courthouses and judicial districts.  Information was provided showing the fairgrounds and Home Ec building has received some use this past year with over 80 events for 2012 including 29 for miscellaneous activities such as weddings or receptions, 21 were for 4H events, five for rodeos and others for such events as a tent revival, demolition derby and a circus.

By Russ Baldwin