With $5 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to spend, and potential federal infrastructure funds on the way, the Tillamook Board of County Commissioners is seeking project requests from the community.
“We need an inventory of unfunded projects in Tillamook County,” said board chair Mary Faith Bell, “both for use of ARPA funds, as well as infrastructure dollars that may be coming our way.”
An application for project funding is available on the county website (see link below.) “We’re looking for all kinds of projects,” said commissioner Erin Skaar, “ideally projects that have additional funding sources available. Five million in ARPA funding won’t go far, especially if we have some big projects to fund. We would like to see ARPA funds leveraged as matching funds for other grant sources.”
With the possibility of the influx of federal infrastructure dollars, the county needs to have potential projects on tap. “We get very little notice when federal funding becomes available,” said commissioner David Yamamoto. “When our legislators reach out, we have to be ready to come to the table with projects with budgets, timelines, engineering and permits, if possible.”
“We won’t be able to fund every application we receive,” said chair Bell. “However, we anticipate more money may be coming, and we want to capture as much as possible for Tillamook County. To do that, we need to be ready.”
The deadline to submit project applications is December 15, 2021. Please go to https://www.co.tillamook.or.us/bocc/page/american-rescue-plan-act-arpa-project-funding-request-press-release-and-form-and-covid to access the online application portal.