LSA hearings for 71 projects to be held Thursday, Friday
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More than 70 projects requesting nearly $18 million in grant money will be vying for gaming revenue this week when the Local Share Account committee listens to pitches during public hearings Thursday and Friday.
The LSA requests that seek a piece of the $6.6 million in gambling revenue range from the largest requests from two separate sewage expansion projects asking for $1 million each to the smallest request of just $10,000 by the Literacy Council of SWPA for the Tutor Library Expansion Project.
The LSA committee has scheduled five-minute hearings for each of the 71 projects, and the members expect to vote Friday afternoon on which ones they’ll recommend to the Washington County commissioners for final approval to receive the grants.
Tap or click on the above image to preview the full list of LSA projects on your device.
The hearings, which will be held in a virtual setting that the public can view online, begin at 1 p.m. Thursday when officials from the Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village pitch a plan to receive $522,919 to improve public access to the rockshelter site near Avella. There are 43 applicants scheduled to speak Thursday.
The hearings for the remaining 28 applicants continue at 8 a.m. Friday when TRIPL makes its case to receive $250,000 for a consumer/personal care attendant training kitchen.
The requests fall into four categories of economic development, community improvement, public interest and job training. The most requests are under public interest, with 38 projects asking for $9.5 million. That category is followed by community improvement, with 26 applications requesting $5.85 million; economic development with five projects for $2.3 million; and two grant requests for a total of $245,327 in the job training section.
The largest two requests are for $1 million each by Cecil Township Municipal Authority for its Lawrence Sewage Facilities Project and the Mon Valley Sewage Authority for the third phase of its long-term control plan.
Bill McGowen, executive director of the Redevelopment Authority of Washington County, which processes the applications and administers the grants for the projects once they’re awarded, said the requests are “pretty typical” of what they’ve seen in recent years, despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Of the 71 total requests, 26 of them are asking for $100,000 or less, while a dozen are requesting $500,000 or more.
McGowen said they were fortunate to receive $6.6 million from the state Department of Community and Economic Development for this year’s allocation, considering casinos were shuttered in the spring and again in late December.
“So we’re sort of pleased about that because we thought it would be lower because of the pandemic and (the casinos) were shut down for a while,” McGowen said. “We’ll see how that proceeds this year into next year.”
The LSA committee met last Friday to review all 71 applications before it hears from the organizations themselves about the projects Thursday and Friday. Those hearings are expected to be streamed online, although a link to view the meetings has not yet been released.
Economic Development – 5 projects – $2.3 million
Community Improvement – 26 projects – $5.85 million
Public Interest – 38 projects – $9.5 million
Job Training- 2 projects – $245,327