A pair of grant applications appeared on the Ridgefield City Council's recent consent agenda at the Feb. 12 meeting that aim to bolster public safety staffing as well as advance long-planned transportation improvements that align with the city’s growth.
The grant applications follow a financial policy adopted in recent years that requires council approval before staff pursue funding opportunities.
“It’s just a way to manage the flow of those grant applications,” Ridgefield Mayor Matt Cole said. “Otherwise, you start getting a ton of grant applications. So, they show up on the consent agenda and the ones that showed up last week were the CJTC grant. It’s related to our public safety sales tax as well as the DOT grant, it’s a bill grant, I believe, for the 11th Street overpass.”
Cole added that both are in alignment with larger priorities for the council and city staff.
Voters approved the public safety sales tax last fall and it took effect at the first of the year. In order for the city to qualify for a Criminal Justice Training Commission grant, the city must have the public safety sales tax in place, Cole said. The grant would provide $125,000 per officer, up to $250,000 total, to support salaries for two new full-time police officers.
“We identified two new full-time officer hires that we want to bring in,” Cole said. “So, this grant would essentially cover those two positions. And then the ongoing, long-term funding of it, you know, there’s an initial grant and the ongoing cost will be supported through the public safety sales tax.”
The officers will have to be lateral officers, Cole added.
“We do have a need to grow our police department,” Cole said. “We want to make sure that we have adequate public safety, and so this grant is going to help us get us to our full capacity. And by the way, getting those extra two officers would put us for the first time at our full capacity, which we haven’t had since I’ve been on council.”
The second grant application from the Feb. 12 meeting is a federal Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) grant through the U.S. Department of Transportation to support the 11th Street overpass project. The grant would cover approximately 80% of the cost with the remaining 20% footed by the city, Cole said.
Under current estimates by Cole, Ridgefield would contribute roughly $618,000 with the federal government providing approximately $2.4 million to $2.5 million, if the grant were to be approved. The funding would ultimately go toward engineering and design work, moving the long-discussed overpass closer to construction readiness, Cole added.
“This is actually a really important thing,” he said. “This has been on our agenda the last couple of years, and it’s in our capital facilities plan for the long term because it’s going to improve the connectivity in a city that’s already grown rapidly.”
Currently, the Pioneer Street overpass serves as the main east-west connection across Interstate 5. As traffic steadily increases with more residents and the commercial development in the Junction Sub Area featuring the Union Ridge Town Center, Cole said an additional crossing would be essential for citizens and emergency services, too.
Clark-Cowlitz Fire Rescue has expressed concerns about its response times from Station 21 along North 65th Avenue to the west side of Ridgefield, Cole added. An additional overpass, especially the 11th Street overpass concept that would connect the east side to Royle Road via 11th and South Wells Drive, would provide a key new route for emergency responders.
Not only does Cole see the project as a way to improve connectivity and public safety routes, he believes an additional overpass will support business access as well.
“It supports future business development that can take place on the east side of town,” Cole said, “and really overcomes some barriers to economic vitality that really unifies the city, in my view.”
To streamline efforts, Ridgefield employs a grant writer who has secured a couple million dollars in funding over the past few years, Cole highlighted. Cole further explained how the newer policy of putting grants in front of council to approve in the consent agenda helps ensure staff capacity is focused on projects that align with priorities.
As not every application is successful, Cole said the city typically pursues several grants each month. Cole added that both the public safety and overpass grant applications reflect feedback by the community regarding the needed improvements on transportation networks and prioritizing public safety.
“It would be a huge win for the city and a huge win for the people who live here,” Cole said of the two grant applications. “We’ve heard that a lot from them, that they just want better ways to travel across town. I’m optimistic about it. We have a great grant team and I’m pretty confident that we’ll be successful in one or both of these.”
