By Charles Romans
Carter County Times
Grayson Sports Park Manager Grant Harper reported to the Tourism Commission last week about grant opportunities that might be pursued in the future. Harper said that he and Tourism Director Lana Axtell had met with Business Cultivation Foundation (BCF) at their office in the log cabin.
“We talked about a lot of different grant opportunities, and things they might be able to do for us or help us with,” Harper said.
“Obviously those are not free services, but they gave us a copy of two different contracts,” Harper told the commission. “And both of those are monthly retainers. But I don’t know if that’s the direction we would want to go.”
Harper added that the price differences between the sample contracts reflected the level of services offered, and that those services included grant writing, monitoring, and follow-up. The two contracts were $2,500 and $4,000 per month, respectively.
Harper acknowledged that in cases such as the grant written for the Olive Hill Library, the work was done on a percentage basis. But he also pointed out that the commission should consider that on grants with a larger balance, that percentage could be substantial versus the monthly retainer fee.
“At grants of $250,000 and up that percentage grows,” Harper said. “But I think for our current situation the monthly retainer is not the way to go.”
Harper said he believed BCF had a “really good path” to the opioid funds, and that working with them would be a good relationship to have. Harper said that BCF informed him there were grants which provided matching funds, which could be applied to the Land and Water grants where the commission was already involved in the application process.
Tourism director Lana Axtell said she thought it would be advantageous to speak with the city council about the retainer option, given that BCF already is on retainer with Carter County, and if the city should do so then the tourism commission might fall under that retainer.
In other business, councilwoman Deana Miller provided the commission with the latest findings in her ongoing research of the Blue Goose Project. Miller said that she had a meeting with USDA in Lexington to gather more information about funding.
“We discussed what the grant was for, and how it could be used,” Miller said.
She also said she was trying to determine if there was any way those funds could be used to get an engineer’s report, but that expense did not fall under the guidelines of how the money could be spent.
“The only thing this can be used for is a singular use building that houses businesses,” Miller told the Commission.
She had told the USDA representative that their vision was for a multi-use community center, and was told that the funds could not be used in that manner, Miller said.
“What she (USDA representative) did give me was a name and number for someone in Morehead that has a Community Facilities Grant,” she told the commission.
Ultimately the commission voted to return the unused grant, and apply for another grant that would better benefit a broader application of tourism goals. The commission discussed options on what would be done with the building itself, given that renovations and/or repairs to the structure needed to make it safe and habitable had been determined not to be cost effective. No definite plans were determined, however.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
