The Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency met on Wednesday for a brief session to discuss and ratify a change order to the North Main Street mill and overlay project.
"The project was funded with money from the CDBG program, which is why the Urban Renewal Agency was involved," said Mickey Sorensen from the Department of Public Works. "All of the members of JURA were consulted and approved of the changes to the contract."
The Community Development Block Grant, or CDBG program, is one of the longest-running programs of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The program is used to fund community development projects including housing and infrastructure development.
According to Sorensen, many items from the original contract were lowered in either quantity or amount, and although there were overages in some unit prices, the overall contract quantity saw an overall decrease.
"This year we actually had two major infrastructure projects from a CDBG vantage point where generally we only have one," said Sorensen. "We took a larger hit than normal in that line, and with the funds that we have left over, we'll be trying to get that money drawn down before the end of the year because we actually have some need for it for a couple of line items."
Mayor Sam Teresi said that the sum effect of the various change orders resulted in a net decrease in the total project costs of $16,877.85.
"The money that is left over goes back to the infrastructure line of the CDBG program to be used on other CDBG eligible street projects in the future," said Teresi. "If other projects come up in the target eligible areas of the city, the city working in conjunction with JURA will proceed with road projects that are paid for using the grant funds"
According to Teresi, there are 150 miles of streets in the city of Jamestown and as much as 120 miles of the streets are included on the official rebuild list, so there's no shortage of infrastructure projects available.
"The DPW is very good at coming up with additional road improvement programs that we can use the CDBG money on, as well," Teresi said.