City seeks new transportation funding, other grant opportunities

The San Marcos City Council met Friday for a special-called meeting to discuss how best to move forward with information gained from a recent trip to Washington D.C. to promote legislative priorities and to encourage stronger relationships with federal agencies.

According to Mayor Jane Hughson, the main purposes for the trip were relationship building and to learn more about grant opportunities available in this post-COVID era, as towns and cities across the U.S. are dealing with funding challenges.

The Normandy Group Founding Partner Christine Pellerin and The Normandy Group Managing Partner Ron Eritano participated in the meeting off-site, through a streaming connection. The Normandy Group is a Washington, D.C.based bipartisan government relations firm, employed by the city to assist with economic development.

In addition to Hughson, present at the meeting were City Manager Stephanie Reyes, City Attorney Samuel Aguirre, City Council Member Matthew Mendoza, City Council Member Mark Gleason, Communications and IGR Manager Nadine Bonewitz, Director of Communications Lauren Surley and Assistant City Manager Laurie Moyer.

Reyes said that they have struggled to receive assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the past, and the trip was an opportunity to gain a better understanding of how the city can move forward in having a better day-to-day relationship with the agency.

“I think establishing, with FEMA, a relationship could be very helpful and beneficial to us,” Reyes said. “Because we know we’re going to have other disasters.”

Eritano discussed why the city may have struggled with FEMA in the past.

“They keep everything within the regional offices, so they want communities meeting with their Region 6 offices, rather than folks in D.C.,” Eritano said. “We were able to do it after the floods in ‘15 or ‘16 because of the urgency and immediacy of the issue. But after that, they don’t communicate directly, FEMA national folks, with communities.”

He said the regional office for FEMA is in Fort Worth.

Gleason said this was a good point, one to keep in mind for the future.

“Those local connections can mean a lot and sometimes be more powerful than those on the national level,” Gleason said.

Reyes said city staff had not been notified of this structural change, which took place sometime in the last six months to a year.

“It took us to go and actually hear from them, that now we know that there is somebody there that we can reach out to more locally,” Reyes said.

Gleason noted that it is difficult to keep up with everything that goes on at the capital in Austin, let alone D.C.

“Restructuring, how things are formulated, change of administrations– it’s very fluid, and it's a lot for everybody to keep up with,” Gleason said.

Reyes said the grant opportunity that she learned about that she would like the staff to focus on is one called “Reconnecting Communities.”

Reyes said the city knew about this program prior to the trip, but insights were gained regarding aspects of this program that brought it higher on the list for consideration by the city moving forward.

Gleason said they had previously applied for funding from Reconnecting Communities but had their application denied, but program funding here has increased. The city is awaiting to hear back from the federal government on its status with seeking funds from this program once again.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation website, a bipartisan infrastructure law established the Reconnecting Communities Pilot discretionary grant program, which is now funded with $1 billion over the next five years.

The grant program is dedicated to reconnecting communities that were cut off from economic opportunities in the past due to transportation infrastructure issues.

In addition, eligible facilities 'are a highway, including a road, street or parkway or other transportation facility, such as a rail line, that creates a barrier to community connectivity, including barriers to mobility, access or economic development, due to high speeds, grade separations or other design factors.'

The funds available here may support capital construction and planning grants in order to restore community links through mitigation, removal or replacement of eligible transportation infrastructure facilities. Conversely, planning grants may be used to study the 'feasibility and impacts of removing, retrofitting or mitigating an existing eligible facility or to conduct planning activities necessary to design a project to remove, retrofit or mitigate an existing eligible facility.'

Staff said they were also interested in applying for the Railroad Crossing Elimination Grant Program.

This federal transportation program is meant to fund projects for overpasses and underpasses in communities, as well as track relocations, closures and improvement or installation of warning devices at crossings.

Texas is a state that has seen accidents at these crossings in recent years.

Hughson said that it would be important to find out what opportunities are available for the Job Corps through the U.S. Department of Labor.

San Marcos is home to the Gary Jobs Corps Center, one of the nation’s oldest and most well-respected, physically located in Caldwell County, but servicing San Marcos and Hays County.

Reyes said that she recently spoke with Gary Job Corps Business Engagement Liaison and Apprenticeship Coordinator Randolph Goodman about the possibility of setting up a meeting between city staff and his team to talk about new workforce development opportunities.