Joplin council to hear updates on ARPA grants

Dec. 5—Local residents can learn the status of Joplin's applications for federal grant money and the work to bring more broadband internet service to the city during a Monday night meeting of the Joplin City Council.

City officials at an earlier meeting had prioritized 20 major city projects to apply for funding through the American Rescue Plan Act.

A consultant to the city on the ARPA applications and city staff had conveyed in September that Joplin had been awarded ARPA and other state and federal grants that might provide nearly $57 million in project money for a variety of purposes.

At that time, grant applications had been filed for Joplin for extensive stormwater drainage work in the East Town neighborhood and the neighborhood around 17th Street and Annie Baxter Avenue, along with a drainage culvert project for the Crossroads Center Business and Distribution Park.

Also in the works as of that discussion was a Missouri governor's cost-share grant application for the widening of the Zora Street from Range Line Road to Missouri 249 plus the Dover Outdoor Recreation Area bike park, and funding for equipment for the police and fire departments.

Leslie Haase, the city's finance director, said at the September meeting that because the grant announcement draws so many applicants, city staff will file them quickly because the grants are made on a first-come, first-served basis.

"The goal of all of this," she said, "is to try to maximize our award of $13.8 million to leverage additional federal, state and county awards with the end goal of saving local tax dollars" and to do projects that may not happen without the additional grant funds.

Mayor Doug Lawson said then that Joplin residents send a lot of money to the state and the federal government in taxes "and I appreciate you trying to bring some of it back because it belongs here."

In the effort to bring a $17 million fiber-optic backbone for broadband service to Joplin, the consultant for the project, Alvarez & Marsal and Capital Projects LLP, was to issue a call for proposals in November seeking responses for any business interested in developing broadband service here.

Responses to the call for proposals are due in January.

Earlier in the project, 16 internet service providers indicated interest in looking further into providing service to Joplin, the council was told by city staff.

In other business, a presentation also will be made on the new solid waste master plan that has been worked on since December 2021, and the panel will hold public hearings on four zoning requests.