Boardman city officials learned Wednesday, Oct. 18, that the city will receive $250,000 from the Oregon Department of Transportation for road construction.
“It’s amazing,” City Manager Brandon Hammond said. “The fact that any assistance that we can receive as a city right now is huge. The cost of materials and supplies is just exponential, and this is just another shot in the arm to help the city and the citizens, so fantastic.”
According to ODOT, the money stem from $5.7 million that was doled out to smaller cities as part of the Small City Allotment Advisory Committee’s latest round of approvals for the 2024 Small City Allotment program.
The approved projects range from adding sidewalks to chip-sealing roads, from paving city streets to improving intersections — all in communities with populations of 5,000 or fewer, according to ODOT.
Mike Lees — project engineer for Anderson Perry & Associates, which is the city’s engineer of record — said the money will be used to overlay and reconstruct portions of Columbia Avenue between Main Street and Boardman Avenue.
The road project is tied to a venture the city is undertaking to replace aging water and sewer lines, Lees said. “And the road itself was past its service life. So there’s a lot of signs of fatigue and the road needed some attention. So along with the water and sewer line installations, we’ll make the road improvements to give a new driving surface.”
ODOT will reimburse the municipality upon the project’s completion up to $250,000, he said.
He added the project would be bid out this winter, most likely in January and that construction would being in March or April with completion of the project in July.
Hammond said he appreciates the hard work from Anderson Perry & Associates as well as the city’s staff in acquiring the ODOT grant.
According to ODOT, 69 applications were received requesting a total of $16.5 million. The annual amount available for the program is $5 million. However, additional funds were available from projects that were canceled or used fewer dollars than originally estimated, ODOT stated.
“We currently have an unprecedented participation rate: 84% of cities eligible either applied or already have an active project,” said SCA Program Manager Deanna Edgar. “Most of this year’s applicants requested the maximum amount – $250,000 – in part because inflation has increased the cost of projects.”
According to ODOT, Oregon House Bill 2017 from the 2017 Oregon Legislature created the Small City Allotment program to help communities fix local roads that are inadequate for the number of people they serve or are in unsafe condition. To include as many cities as possible, the program does not require matching funds.
