by Devin McCue, Sumner Newscow — The Wellington City Council met Tuesday to tackle an issue they put off the last meeting and pass four resolutions.

American Rescue Plan Act

At the last meeting on March 2, the Council was tasked with awarding or declining six local nonprofits’ applications for funding from the Travel and Tourism Grant. The grant comes from a portion of the American Rescue Plan Act designed to target nonprofits in rural communities and increase tourism.

The reason they tabled the issue for the next meeting is that they didn’t understand the grant’s funding, nor any of the individual applications up for review, despite having all the relevant information in their agenda packets. This week they were slightly more prepared.

Of the six, three were approved without any substantive problems:

• Chisolm Trail Museum received $8,000
• Depression Glass Museum received $4,200
• The Wellington Public Library received $3,380

Two of the nonprofits received a reduced amount of their requests.

The Wellington Rec Center asked for just over $136,500 for a new sign and a few big purchases including maintenance equipment for Worden Park. They also hoped to devote some of the funding to build a fourth field. The Rec asked for the most of any applicant, but considering how they weren’t given any assistance from USD 353’s grant, it’s not a surprise.

The Council awarded the Rec a slightly reduced amount of $125,000.

The Wellington Heat asked for $20,000 to recoup the losses they accounted for during the canceled 2020 season and the 2021 season, still greatly hampered by the ongoing pandemic. Councilmembers Rick Roitman and Kevin Dodds originally attempted to award the team nothing on account of a change in ownership, but their vote failed.

Eventually, the council decided to award the Heat $10,000.

Finally, one nonprofit’s application for ARPA was rejected wholesale. The Family Tree Resource Center applied for $10,000 in assistance because they haven’t made 10 percent of what they used to annually. Their application was already rejected once by the Travel and Tourism Committee because their services don’t qualify as travel or tourism.

Their services do qualify as religious, however, which is far more relevant. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, federal funds (like ARPA grants) can’t go to support inherently religious activities due to the separation of church and state lined out in the first amendment. It’s perfectly legal for religious organizations and nonprofits to take out government loans like the PPP loans from 2020 through the CARES act, but direct assistance is a different issue.

The council rejected their application, not because it would’ve broken the law, but for more financial reasons. Roitman argued that once 5 Sisters Mercantile, the profit arm of the organization, goes out of business, the City wouldn’t get that money back. Hamilton pointed out that the fact this money would go to a business rather than a nonprofit at all qualifies it as an “obvious no.” A majority of the Council agreed.

Aside from the Travel and Tourism Grant, there were other important decisions regarding ARPA funding in the form of resolutions.

The first continued the process to establish parts of downtown as a Rural Housing Incentive District (RHID). Roitman first broached this idea in January, and this resolution is capitalizing on those early discussions. The City hopes this will enable the renovation of buildings and structures more than 25 years old on Kansas main streets and downtown districts for residential use and revitalize downtown.

It passed unanimously.

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The ongoing sewer project is one step closer to getting off the ground thanks to the second approved resolution of the evening. They employed Mayer Specialties, LLC out of Goddard to start the project. The improvements will include a cured-in-place-pipe (CIPP) lining of approximately 1250 feet of 8-inch sewer main that runs from 8th St to Lincoln between Jefferson and Washington.

The project will cost $57,205, but not out of the taxpayers’ pockets. ARPA will be footing the bill for this. The resolution passed unanimously.

ARPA is also funding a purchase from Salina Supply Company for two water flushing stations for $37,992.04. These flushing stations will allow us to monitor water quality and track trends within the distribution system. If the water quality drifts outside our parameters, it will turn on the flushing system until the parameters are met again. It passed unanimously as well.

The last major purchase of the evening is getting paid for by the citizens, but it’s worth it. The Worden water tower needs to be cleaned and repainted in order to pass its next KDHE inspection. In order to do so, Wellington’s City Council authorized a contract with Central Tank Coatings from Elgin for $74,250. It passed unanimously.

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In much lighter news, there were two final stories worth mentioning from this meeting.

The first was a proclamation commending Wellington High School’s girls and boys wrestling programs for their achievements at the State Tournament. Avery Burns and Kaitlyn Hain placed second and third at the Class 4A state girls tournament and their teammates Nexy Young and Anna Cullens also qualified. Additionally, Hagen Wright won the tournament on the boys’ side.

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Finally, Senator Roger Marshall came to town last week for a photo-op and an ironic media release. Before his town hall meeting at Cowley’s Sumner Campus, Senator Marshall met with Laura Lombardi, Barry Dicker, and City Manager Shane Shields at the firehouse. They spoke about the city and received some mutually good press.

Then, Senator Marshall posted an interesting press release.

On his website, Marshall praised his efforts to fund the Wellington Municipal Airport. He mentions that Ron Estes announced $13,000 to the airport and he couldn’t be happier because “municipal airports provide essential services to our rural communities”.

If you look even slightly below the surface of the press release, however, you’ll find that the money comes from the American Rescue Plan Act, which Senator Marshall voted against.

The meeting adjourned after an hour and 16 minutes.

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