Grants a must to upgrade Long Lake Park in 2024

Contributed photo
The City of Vergas will seek a grant to complete work as part of the Long Lake Masterplan. The hope is to receive grants in 2024 to complete the work.

By Robert Williams

Editor

The Vergas City Council held a special meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 27 to clarify and approve additional grant applications for the Long Lake Park Master plan renovations. 

The council approved a Widseth Engineering proposal at the Feb. 13 council meeting, but reconvened to confirm grant specifics. An original cost to the city for the grant application was approved at $2,500.

According to City Clerk/Treasurer Julie Lammers, the $2,500 is for architectural plans for the proposed new building in the park. There is an additional charge of $500 to update the master plan to accommodate the grant application, after speaking with Gail Leverson, Widseth Senior Funding Specialist. The total cost is $11,500.

The $2,500 is scheduled to come out of capital outlay, the other $9,000 would come out of engineering and/or the grant application.

The Park Board currently has $5,000 budgeted, however, Lammers contacted the League of Minnesota Cities for further pecuniary assistance.

The League of Minnesota Cities (LMC) has created a pilot Grants Navigation Program in which LMC will provide grants up to $5,000 per city to use with industry partners to ease the process of identifying matching funds to city projects and aid in the grant application projects.

The special meeting was held to approve a resolution to apply to receive that $5,000 from the LMC.

Every city is eligible once for the grant. Should the LMC grant the funds, the city would be left with a total cost of $4,000. The grant application must be submitted by April 1, which is why the special meeting was called.

The options for the council were to keep moving forward with the project as it is or delay it one year.

The Park Board approved moving forward with the Grants Navigation grant and recommended if the city does not receive the $5,000 grant to put the project on a one-year hiatus.

The council voted unanimously to do so. 

Upon acceptance and approval of the LMC grant, the city will continue its plan to use a Minnesota DNR Outdoor Recreation grant to assist with the renovations.

Plans are for approximately $200,000 of work to be done at the park in 2025. The DNR grant is a 50/50 grant and the city would need to match $100,000.

Portions of the project in that scope include: a retaining wall; building a new pavilion; the bathhouse and the cost of adding a bathroom to the shelter at the end of the beach, closer to the trail.

Engineers have estimated the cost to bring sewer to the current bathhouse at approximately $70,000. To bring sewer to the proposed shelter would cost roughly $30,000.00.

The grant would add $80,000 to the capital outlay budget in 2025. 

On Feb. 13, the council agreed to match the $80,000 to the 2025 budget should fundraising not come through. The $80,000 council match, should fundraising fail, is a non-committal agreement by the council and can be denied during 2025 budgeting, if necessary. 

Plans for the Park in 2026 include parking and making the road through the park a one-way with a new exit.

The current master plan for the park improvements can be found on the city website at www.cityofvergas.com/community/parks