Meeting of February 18, 2021

this is a public hearing held at the davis county courthouse on thursday february 18 2021 at 5 p.m the only item on the agenda is the corona virus response utility assistance project for all those folks who are watching out there if you have any comments during or at the end of this hearing just text them in or email them in and we will we will get them and try to either answer if you have any questions we'll try to answer them or we will get your comments our comments to tom lovett who is with the green river area development district and uh tom is here to tell us what we're doing and why we're doing it so tom if you would approach the podium uh i i would suggest since we are socially distanced that you can remove your mask and that way we'll hear what you've got to say is it on yeah yep one more

tap it there we go yeah it's it's better did anybody bring the batteries there you're doing fine that way she's bringing you another one that one's on okay yeah this one's on okay uh judge mattingly commissioners ladies and gentlemen my name is tom lovett i'm with the green river area development district here in owensboro or here in davis county actually and i am here tonight uh as part of as a public hearing as part of an application on behalf of davis county for the cdbg block development grants cv utility assistance program what this is is it's a grant maximum amount of the grant award is two hundred thousand dollars the money will be used to assist people who are in arrears on utility bills because of covid related issues the way this would work is

davis county is applying fiscal court is applying and they will choose a partner agency someone along the lines of audubon area community services probably but that's not been decided yet who will administer the money people who are in arrears or in jeopardy of having their services cut off will apply to them and then audubon area will oversee the money and that money will be paid directly to the utility on behalf of the customer okay uh we have to have a public hearing for this that's what we're doing here this evening uh like i said i'm i'm helping davis county with its application process and you guys have any questions or concerns anything i can answer um yes sir i have a question uh if we do get this grant how long will it take before we get it do you know or is there a time i'm not a hundred percent sure be very honest this thing is moving very very quickly uh there are a lot of questions that are there they're still coming up with answers to on the fly i know that uh one of the things we had to do as part of the grant application was a clearing and e-clearing house with kentucky with the state of kentucky where you have to get um all the different agencies to sign off on on the proposal that's a 30-day process and we did that on january i think sixth fifth fourth somewhere around there like the first of january right after we got back

and so we can't do anything until around the 4th or 5th of march and we can't actually file the application until then and then you know it could be 30 to 45 days after that before before we get an approval assuming you know the the grant the application is is good when it goes up there and i'm hoping it will be but i just don't have a timeline any more specific on that commissioner we applied immediately whenever we found out this was available i told joanna shake with grad that we wanted to be the first ones there yeah and and that's that's been that's been the mandate they came to me and said this one will be the first one that goes in the mail that's right yeah secondly 60 to 90 days generally and that includes the 30 days for the clearing house so 60 to 90 days 60 days from you know would be in april 90 days would be in may and we might talk in terms of the the issues that you have well people are out of the need for heating assistance and all that but the good thing this is not just heating it's gas electric water and sewer or waste water it could be any of those yeah and in having a conversation with

all of an area two days ago uh about the potential for them to be the ones to distribute since they have what's called a laggy program low-income uh assistance the the they have a lot of money right now they're able to help a lot of folks but they may run out of that money and they're looking at this money it might not be a bad thing if this money comes in a little later in in the season so but really we don't know i think the city of the city was promised money back in april they prepared to do everything and they got the money in november the uh one of the things they told us with glg is yes it can be used for any utility but they really stressed uh water and sewer because lie heap is available to assist with heating assistance and some of the other issues uh there really is no assistance for people who are at risk of losing their water utilities so you know it can be any utility but that's probably the for the focus is going to primarily be i think water and sewer is my understanding at least but again that's up to that's up to fiscal board whatever you guys want to do tom you you talked about you said in arrears with their bill

or behind so a disconnect notice is not going to be required if somebody is running along and they're they're a month behind or whatever secondly typically with cdbg funds there there is a low to moderate income folks are they can get the assistance yes my understanding is that that is waived it's not going to be low to moderate i don't believe that yes i believe you're correct sir yeah it's just if you are in arrears uh with your utility bill as long as it's as long as you can right under explain it it is coveted related you know someone just decides they're not paying their bill anymore okay but yes commissioner any a couple questions tom were you on the the the i guess the information meeting that they held uh yeah but i had i didn't i didn't hang around for the conversation you had with blake i had to i had to bail out after the the official meeting ended yesterday well know i know that already rwra said they they've got a substantial of uh they could use up the whole 200 000

and and not and not be made whole for their customer base so so i guess two questions one is is this money that has to be spent and then we get reimbursed or is this money that we're going to be handed a bucket of money to spend uh my understanding is it's the second you will be given money to spend you're not going to be getting reimbursed for this okay the other thing that uh that's worth mentioning is the way the program is set up uh any entity that applies can apply for up to two hundred thousand dollars in funding to pay for this and then once everybody has received to everybody who applies has received whoever they apply you know if let's say mclean county applies for a hundred thousand dollars you know they don't apply for they only need a hundred thousand once all the first rounds is through then communities can come back and reapply for more money for situations like just like rwra where you know right yeah i mean i've seen their they they sent me their awareness numbers and yeah you're right they they could they could eat the whole tuna or thing are you saying that that entity could apply our local government i like the cares

funding after davis fiscal court could come back now uh david asked me this beforehand i don't what i don't know is whether that would mean it would be an entirely new application or that whether it would just be like a reauthorization of and it makes sense reauthorization i think that's what it's going to be that's not the way government works but that honestly as far as i know that hasn't been decided yet uh but i believe what they're going to do is go with that second option we don't have to do a whole new and the other the other thing you just said that i didn't pick up from that training meeting or that dlg meeting we were on is is so everybody who could apply has to apply and and get whatever they're going to get before we could if we went through our 200 000 real fast we can't just reapply to everybody else that's honestly i don't know the answer to that i i'll check with i gotta i'm supposed to talk to glg tomorrow i think the question commissioner would be is there a cut off date for the first round of applications if that's what we want to say yeah they're the but the cutoff type for the first round of applications is june of 2022 june 30th of next year okay oh my god so i don't but i don't think they're going