Compromise gets ARPA funds flowing in Richardson County

FALLS CITY – After two motions to spend American Recovery funds failed at Tuesday’s Richardson County Board meeting, commissioners arrived at a compromise that offered partial funding for some requests and left others on the sideline.

The scene was set last winter when commissioners hired Austin Duerfeldt  to help them administer ARPA funds. They emerged from a public hearing in March with seven requests. Three of those were approved Tuesday, but at reduced amounts.

Rural Water District No. 2 will receive $200,000 for infrastructure upgrades, Humboldt Rescue will receive $130,000 for a new ambulance and District 7 drainage will receive $97,000.

Commissioners disagreed on the amounts, with Board Chairman Dave Sickel advocating cutting two-thirds from  each request. His motion failed for a lack of a second.

Commissioner John Caverzagie moved to fund each request at half of the original amount, but that also failed.

Caverzagie then compromised by cutting nearly $50,000 more from the rural water district request to gain the vote of Commissioner Rick Karas. The final vote was 2 to 1, with Sickel dissenting.

Karas said the amount in Caverzagie’s first motion was too high because the other rural water district in the county was not receiving any recovery funds.

Gayle Swisegood of the water district said the $200,000  will have big benefits.

Swisegood: “It’ll help us get started upgrading some of our infrastructure, which is really badly needed.”

He it means the people of the rural water district will not have to bear the cost to rebuild the 50-year-old system by themselves.

Swisegood: “We’re going to have to spend more funds than what this is  and we will have to be adjusting our water rates, in my opinion – I’m just one member of the board – we’ll have to be adjusting our water rates anyway, but this will certainly help. It will be a big benefit to us. We won’t have to adjust them as much as we might have had to.”

 Funding for the House of Hope, Rulo Library and a Falls City EDGE housing initiative stalled.

Lucas Froeschl of EDGE said he remains optimistic that the county can establish a home construction program.