Ranier awarded $337,000 grant

“This is a very good thing,” Mayor Dennis Wagner said of the city receiving the grant.

The grant helps cities and counties with funding for housing, infrastructure and commercial rehabilitation projects that benefit people of low and moderate incomes. Cities with fewer than 50,000 residents and counties with fewer than 200,000 residents are eligible.

In February, Dick Grabko, owner of Community Resource Development, who spearheaded the city’s grant application effort, said funding would serve two purposes. The first would be for the Three Points North water project. Some assessments to property owners during last year’s project exceeded a price tag of more than $13,000. The grant is expected to alleviate costs to those identified as income eligible, according to Grabko.

In addition to the Three Points North component, the grant would focus on rehabilitating housing. Income eligible households could receive up to $25,000 for improvements. Funding can help homeowners afford to hookup up to city services as well as rehabilitate areas of their home that could be seen as a threat to public health and safety, Grabko said.

“We’re not talking chunck change,” Wagner said. “These are big dollars. It’s great news.”

City Clerk Kim Nuthak told The Journal that it has been predetermined which households are eligible to receive grant funds and those property owners will be notified by officials from KOOTASA Community Action, who oversee the distribution of funds, on how to access those dollars.

In other business, support was given by the council for a bill that would allow for public-private partnerships to develop land port of entries.

Shawn Mason, Falls economic and community development director, along with Falls City Councilor Gail Rognerud, told the council that a proposed new port of entry would be located along Rainy River where Boise Inc. currently parks semi trailers.

“People would still come through our town and past our businesses to (enter Canada),” Rognerud said.

She continued that the project may not happen in the next few years, but “we want to be in position to have it happen in the future.”

The Falls officials said current law does not allow for such partnerships in developing port of entries. Several studies were conducted and plans designed by the General Services Administration, the federal agency involved in federal agency support functions, including realty.

A letter drafted to U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken as well as Congressman Rick Nolan, said the new land port of entry (LPOE) design would be in accordance with the modern requirements of the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection and the Federal Inspection Service to provide an adequate LPOE for a minimum of 20 years.

The letter continued that such an effort would contribute to the economic prosperity of the region.

“We understand it will take a significant federal and local commitment to bring this project from its current status to construction, and are fully committed to its completion,” the letter concluded.

Councilor Fred Woods wondered if it was wise to support building more government buildings along the city’s waterfront.

“I see all these government buildings destroying that waterfront,” he said. “Why is it we have to build all those private buildings so the private citizen cannot access the water?”

Mason said at the Voyageurs National Park Headquarters building, the access to Rainy River was improved and she shares Woods’ vision to allow for more enjoyment of the water by private citizens.

“You’ll be happy to know that it is part of our strategic plan for the EDA (Economic Development Authority), to have that be hospitality,” she said.

Also Monday, the mayor said a conference call scheduled for Thursday with officials from Canadian National Railway will discuss local concerns of train delays and noise at the County Road 20 crossing in Ranier.