The City Council approved adding $27,000 to the budget for repairs to the Crescent City Cultural Center, bringing the project cost to more than $112,000. Original budgeted amount was $40,000. Photo: Andrew Goff

Staff told the Crescent City Council that the city is on schedule in pursuing $200,000 in state Proposition 68 dollars for Beachfront Park.

But, despite holding four town hall meetings and getting input from community groups over one or more proposed projects to spend that money on, City Manager Eric Wier said they what the exact dollar amount will be. Wier told the Council on Monday that Crescent City expects to receive that $200,000 per-capita grant in early 2020 and would finalize the design of the project, procure construction permits and begin building it in the summer.

The City Council on Monday unanimously approved a resolution authorizing city staff to apply for the grant. The resolution also authorizes the city manager and finance director to sign necessary documents if the city receives the grant.

According to recreation director Holly Wendt, the decision starts the application process for the non-competitive Proposition 68 grant.

“The resolution does not require the city to identify the projects we’ll be going for with that $200,000,” she said. “We’ll work with community members more extensively on a project scope and cost plan. We’ll come before the Council for approval before the application process in January. This summer we’ll hopefully be able to begin the project.”

Wendt recapped the public outreach city staff conducted, including two public meetings in September and two in October to come up with and narrow down project ideas for the first $200,000. Among the top four were a pump track, improvements to the park’s disc golf course and Kidstown, and a labyrinth, Wendt said.

Since the only stipulation for the first $200,000 grant is to conduct extensive community outreach, the city is using a $20,000 grant from the California Endowment. A $90,000 grant from the California Coastal Conservancy will allow the city to continue to develop the Beachfront Park master plan, which was created in 2012.

Proposition 68 does include competitive grant opportunities for funds ranging from $200,000 to $8.5 million, Wendt said.

According to Wier, those per capita dollars go to multiple agencies. Del Norte County, for example, is eligible for $400,000, he said.
When hearing that the county is eligible for $400,000 in Proposition 68 dollars, City Councilor Alex Fallman suggested banding together with other local organizations and agencies to pool their funding together.

His colleague, Crescent City Mayor Blake Inscore wanted to clarify that the Proposition 68 money hasn’t been allocated yet. Though the City Council is expected to approve a project in December, receive those dollars in March and possibly start working on a project in June or July, that timeline could take a lot longer, he said.

Though he praised Wendt and Wier on their outreach, Inscore said he didn’t want the city to make a promise it couldn’t deliver on.

“One of the things that will really undermine our community outreach is identifying a timeline that we can’t control,” he said. “The reality we have to face is that the state allocation of these funds, my experience has been they never come as quickly as they say they will, and they will tell us that.”

In other matters, Public Works Director Jon Olson told the City Council that a gargoyle at the Cultural Center is responsible for the water damage that resulted in a need to replace the building’s redwood siding.

The City Council approved amending the 2019-2020 budget to add $27,000 to remove the gargoyle and install a cricket, which would allow water to flow off the roof better, according to Olson. This request brings the project cost from an initial budgeted amount of $40,000 to $112,000, according to Olson.

“What happened with the gargoyle is it trapped water and made it go behind the siding,” Olson said. “As we were digging into this project, we were able to see evidence of previous repairs and new water damage or rot at the exact same location of previous repairs. We don’t know when the previous repairs were performed, some time in the last 28 years, it leads us to believe the gargoyle was a problem.”

Repairs to the Cultural Center were anticipated to be finished by the end of the 2018-19 fiscal year, but the siding wasn’t delivered until July, according to the city’s staff report. The project was originally budgeted at $40,000, which was transferred to the 2019-2020 fiscal year budget in July. At that time, the City Council also approved an additional $25,350 to cover the cost of project materials, according to the staff report.

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