Linn County supervisors allocate $13M in ARPA funds to services, infrastructure

CEDAR RAPIDS — Thirty-three community projects received a boost Wednesday with a Linn County Board of Supervisors vote to allocate $13 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds toward area social service and infrastructure projects.

“That was an incredible heavy lift from the community,” board Chair Ben Rogers said. “I think these dollars will be absolutely transformational and they will be spread out all throughout the community.”

Among the projects helped Wednesday is the Cedar Rapids Public Library, which had the biggest ask of $6 million for a new west-side library and opportunity center — offering a wide variety of social services and a food pantry — to replace the Ladd Library, currently at 3750 Williams Blvd. SW. The supervisors allocated about $4 million toward that project, with the city planing to contribute more.

“We are very thankful to the Linn County Supervisors for supporting the Westside Library project with this allocation of ARPA dollars,” Cedar Rapids Library Director Dara Schmidt said in a statement. “This investment of public dollars will be foundational in supporting a new, permanent west side library that can serve all as a center for connection, community and resiliency.”

Cedar Rapids Community Development staff said it anticipates a resolution to provide another $6 million for the project to come to the City Council for consideration at its Oct. 25 meeting. The city was previously planning to allocate $4 million toward the project.

Community Development Director Jennifer Pratt said the library was always a collaborative project that only would have worked if both the city and the county contributed. She said the two entities had a shared goal of a $10 million allocation.

“We were waiting for the county’s number to make sure that we were able to meet the goal from ARPA funding,” Pratt said.

Like the supervisors, many who were waiting to find out whether their projects would be funded were letting out sighs of relief Wednesday. The supervisors had previously delayed the allocation decisions on the COVID-19 relief funds twice over the past week.

“This is the true compromise of where we started Monday,” Supervisor Louie Zumbach said. “This has the things that are most important to my colleagues and myself and leaves us closest to the figure we were shooting for.”

The applicants — among them not-for-profits and other local governments — had requested about $77 million. Some 53 eligible applications, totaling more than $34 million, remained unfunded from the first round of awards made in April. Since then, 72 more applications, totaling almost $43 million, had been submitted.

Other organizations that received funding Wednesday include the African American Museum of Iowa, Indian Creek Nature Center, Mirrorbox Theatre, Salvation Army, Tanager Place, Wellington Heights Neighborhood Association, Mercy Medical Center and Trees Forever, among others.

Various Linn County government departments also received funding, with the biggest being the Sheriff’s Office for a COVID-19 mitigation cell block at $1.7 million.

A handful of local governments also received funding to go toward infrastructure projects including the cities of Ely, Hiawatha, Marion and Springville.

Ely received $1 million, the most received in the infrastructure category, toward its water treatment facility and sewer projects after months of its mayor and council members advocating for it through emails and phone calls to the county as well as showing up at county meetings. Ely initially asked for almost $2 million.

“I appreciate the hard work the Linn County supervisors put into this undertaking of dispersing ARPA funds. I realize there was a large amount of requests for this funding making it even more challenging to divide it out,” Ely Mayor Eldy Miller told The Gazette on Wednesday. “This is the largest grant ever received by the city of Ely and our goal is to make sure it is used in a way to best benefit the residents of Ely.”

Supervisor Stacey Walker, who was an advocate for getting funding to various nonprofits, also said he appreciated being able to fund the infrastructure projects.

“I appreciate Supervisor Zumbach’s insights here. When we had a five-member board, we were able to have these different expertise areas and having Zumbach’s knowledge of the smaller community needs was helpful. I was glad we were able to do more in this category than we initially thought.”

Marissa Payne of The Gazette contributed to this report

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