Local Government Not at its Finest
This will give you some idea of the level of competence of the local government.
To start with, the state is not releasing FEMAs money to the County to pay the contractors who are removing debris. Evidently, the contractors did not keep timesheets! The contractors have done $40 million worth of unpaid work and have stopped working until they get paid! So, trash (mountains of moldy drywall, refriderators, sheds, cars, you name it) has started to collect on the sidewalks!
Here is another example. The feds set aside 7.5% of all disaster relief money to prevent, or minimize future disasters. Jeff Davis County has $11 million in its own pot and then can apply to the competitive grant proposal for TONS more. The money can be used to buy out residents in flood prone areas (and demolish their homes), raise houses so they do not flood, add safe rooms to public buildings, or do small scale levee, canal or pump work.
The grant is the most complicated form I have ever seen. It is HUGE and requires cost benefit analysis and detailed engineering information. It also requires home owners to volunteer to participate, so you need a list of names of willing participants.
The county has until April 1st to get their grant in for the $11 million. They have not started yet!!! What is worse is that there have been two four day trainings on how to apply. The County missed the first one, but we got them to agree to send a Community Development person to the second. But then Boss Hogg decided that he was going to make some changes in staffing so it did not make sense for the people to go to the trainings, so no one went!!
So now, the deadline is looming, we are going home and they have no one that knows what to do.
What is worse is that they don’t even know what projects they want to do. You can’t write the grant until they identify what it should be for! I was at the Council meeting today (my boss finally agreed that I could go to Council meetings) and they started talking about. A colleague and I impressed the urgency on them and they agreed to have a special meeting on Monday to identify what projects they want to use the $11 million for.
I have to say, part of the blame goes to us. We should have been working with the County from the beginning to avoid this situation.
To start with, the state is not releasing FEMAs money to the County to pay the contractors who are removing debris. Evidently, the contractors did not keep timesheets! The contractors have done $40 million worth of unpaid work and have stopped working until they get paid! So, trash (mountains of moldy drywall, refriderators, sheds, cars, you name it) has started to collect on the sidewalks!
Here is another example. The feds set aside 7.5% of all disaster relief money to prevent, or minimize future disasters. Jeff Davis County has $11 million in its own pot and then can apply to the competitive grant proposal for TONS more. The money can be used to buy out residents in flood prone areas (and demolish their homes), raise houses so they do not flood, add safe rooms to public buildings, or do small scale levee, canal or pump work.
The grant is the most complicated form I have ever seen. It is HUGE and requires cost benefit analysis and detailed engineering information. It also requires home owners to volunteer to participate, so you need a list of names of willing participants.
The county has until April 1st to get their grant in for the $11 million. They have not started yet!!! What is worse is that there have been two four day trainings on how to apply. The County missed the first one, but we got them to agree to send a Community Development person to the second. But then Boss Hogg decided that he was going to make some changes in staffing so it did not make sense for the people to go to the trainings, so no one went!!
So now, the deadline is looming, we are going home and they have no one that knows what to do.
What is worse is that they don’t even know what projects they want to do. You can’t write the grant until they identify what it should be for! I was at the Council meeting today (my boss finally agreed that I could go to Council meetings) and they started talking about. A colleague and I impressed the urgency on them and they agreed to have a special meeting on Monday to identify what projects they want to use the $11 million for.
I have to say, part of the blame goes to us. We should have been working with the County from the beginning to avoid this situation.
posted by JNA | 10:32 PM
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