The Clarkdale Town Council voted to pursue grant money from the Northern Arizona Council of Governments [NACOG] to fund the connection of Broadway Road to Cement Plant Road and build a new Bitter Creek Bridge.
The town has wanted to pursue the projects in question for some time now and included them in the Fiscal year 2022-26 Capital Improvement Plan, but has yet to determine a source of funding to complete them.
Both projects would work to improve the Bitter Creek Industrial Focus Area. The first is an extension of Broadway Road from northeast of the train station to connect with Cement Plant Road to the west. The second project would be to build a new bridge adjacent to the existing Bitter Creek Bridge. The current bridge would then be turned into a pedestrian bridge with bicycle access.
Clarkdale Town Council Public Works Director Maher Hazine said the total cost of the Cement Plant Road project would be approximately $19,255,000, while the Bitter Creek Bridge project is estimated to cost a total of $3,730,000.
In an attempt to fund these projects, Hazine suggested the town apply for a grant offered by NACOG for regional transportation infrastructure and planning projects. The projects that are submitted will be ranked based on the demand and need for the project and then placed on one or both of two lists in order of priority.
The first list, a high priority project list, will make the project eligible for immediate government grant funding, of which around $2.76 million will be available for Yavapai County. The second list, a regionally significant list, will contain all of the eligible projects for the region, including those that were on the first list. Projects on this list will be reviewed from time to time as new funding becomes available. Private sponsors will also have access to the list and may choose to offer funding to projects of their choice.
Hazine said the town broke its two projects into four to give them a better chance of receiving funding — a design application and a construction application for each project.
Even though, at this time, the NACOG grants don’t require the municipality to provide a match in funding, some members of the council expressed concern about how the town would pay for the rest of the project if the grant, which would only cover a portion of the project, were given to them.
Interim Finance Director Rob Sweeney said the town has a couple of options for the rest of the funding if its project is chosen for the design grant, including the town’s street fund, the capital construction fund, reallocating HURF funds, which would require the town to put off other projects in the works, or other grant opportunities.
“If we need to put skin in the game, there are funds that this council is setting aside for capital infrastructure,” Sweeney said. “There are a myriad of different ways to solve this. It just depends on do you want to put your money up front, or do you want to then pledge it for some future time, or do you at least want to get on alist knowing that this might be a multi-year journey for these particular projects to perhaps see the light of day.”
Vice Mayor Debbie Hunseder said considering that once the design portion of a project is done, that design is only valid for about two years, that wouldn’t leave the town with much time to come up with the money to finish the project.
“I guess we’re kind of gambling against time as far as what do we feel is the likelihood that we would see any further grant money coming to fulfill those projects and not wasting that money,” Hunseder said. “And two years is a pretty short period.”
Hazine said he thinks it makes sense to at least get the projects on the list, as the council would still have the option to turn down the funding if they were selected for the high priority funding, though he thinks they have a much more realistic chance of being placed on the regional funding list.
Mayor Robyn Prud’homme-Bauer said while she would love to see these projects completed, she doesn’t want to commit to something long-term that they don’t have a strong plan to complete.
“I don’t want to apply for anything that we aren’t going to be fully committed behind,” she said. “We need to be behind this, or we need to not be behind it. … I’m just having a real hard time even taking this step without us saying we’re going to commit long-term for this, and I’m not sure we have the real foresight of what that means.”
Hunseder agreed, but also thought it wouldn’t hurt to at least get the projects on the list for future funding opportunities.
“I think that the Bitter Creek Bridge is a pretty good size priority. I mean, it’s something that’s aging, it gets traveled on a lot, there’s safety hazards. … It sounds to me like it’s very vague, very open-ended, but if you have a project that has potential it probably needs to go on the list and then we just determine later. There’s nothing but time that we need to invest at this moment.”
The motion was passed 3-2 with O’Neill and Prud’homme-Bauer casting the dissenting votes.
