Cities discuss, plan for Hurricane Ike disaster money

By ROYCELYN BASTIAN
Updated: 04.24.09
The city of Splendora is one step closer to receiving its portion of $11.5 million in Montgomery County Community Development Block Grant disaster money due to Hurricane Ike.

Vina Whitley, city secretary, represented Splendora at a Hurricane Ike disaster recovery method of distribution planning meeting April 9 at the Montgomery County CDBG office in Conroe. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how the disaster money will be divided among the cities.

“The purpose of the disaster money is to help cities who incurred damage due to Hurricane Ike,” said Barbara Schoen, administrative manager for Montgomery County CDBG. “Since Montgomery County is an entitlement county, the state released $11.5 million in hurricane recovery and gave it to the Houston-Galveston Area Council to work with counties like ours.”

Once the money was received, HGAC set aside 60 percent, $6.9 million, of the disaster money for housing, leaving 40 percent, or $4.6 million, of the grant to go toward non-housing items. In the meeting, city representatives established a list of non-housing priorities that would receive money first.

“In Splendora, our main priority is roads and drainage, but we did agree to generators being the number one priority because that was what the majority of the other cities needed,” Whitley said.

After generators, the cities decided the next priority is roads and drainage followed by water and sewer projects then facility repair.

“The $11.5 million will be broken down based on the list of priorities, and each city that had a representative to attend the meeting will receive part of the money,” Whitley said. “Cities that did not have anyone to attend the meetings on its behalf will not receive any money and there were a lot of cities that missed out.”

To receive some of the disaster money, the city will have to submit an application to HGAC regardless if they want money for housing, non-housing or both.

According to the minutes from the meeting, city representatives agreed that they will work together to ensure that every entity would be judged so that at least one project was funded with the money.

“The money that we receive will be for future preparation,” Whitley said. “For example, cities that need generators will purchase them just in case there is another storm. In Splendora, we are going to use the money to get roads and drainage fixed so it will not flood during the next storm.”

The Montgomery County Commissioners Court met April 27 to discuss how much each city will receive from the disaster money. A decision was not reached before The Observer’s print deadline. Check online or in next week’s edition to find out how much money cities in East Montgomery County will receive.