The economic stimulus funds could make it a lot “cooler” to live in Winnsboro, sort of. The Town could use some of the funds to improve the energy efficiency of public buildings, maybe even the energy efficiency of their citizens’ homes.

The Town of Winnsboro wants to take full advantage of the economic stimulus funds that will be coming to the state and local governments. Some possible areas where the Town could seek funding are grants to make public buildings more energy efficient, a grant to help build a firefighter training center that could benefit not only the Town’s Department of Public Safety but also other fire departments including the firefighting force at V.C. Summer Nuclear Station, and funds to help with neighborhood rehabilitation. Funds that help the Town hire summer student employment could also be sought.

Members of Town Council met in a worksession with attorney and “grants lobbyist” Kyle Michel and Town grants coordinator Connie Shackelford this past Monday night to explore what grant programs funded through the economic stimulus money they might like to apply for.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, popularly known as the “economic stimulus act”

will pump $787 billion into various programs. According to the USDA website, the economic stimulus ‘is an unprecedented effort to jumpstart our economy, create or save millions of jobs, and put a down payment on addressing long-neglected challenges.’

The Town of Winnsboro wanted to make sure they were in line to get their piece of that large pie.

“These are some areas where I think we ought to take a look at applying for some funds under that program...or we need to be ready to obligate the funds in areas where they’ll be putting the money,” Michel said.

For example, the WDPS had already been allocated $22,647 under the Justice Assistance Grant.

“At the end of the night, I don’t expect that we’ll have a whole lot of grants (we can apply for) but you owe it to your citizenry to say ‘we sat down and took a look at everything (in the stimulus bill) land we have a direction and plan for the Town of Winnsboro.’

Michel said that some of the Town’s projects may be “shovel ready,” but there might not be a place or an agency to apply for that project.

On the other hand, not all projects that are applied for have to be “shovel-ready” construction projects, he said.

Michel said, especially with smaller municipalities, “the biggest crunch people are finding is the resources time it takes to put these applications together.”

He advanced the opinion that if the government really wanted to get the stimulus money out into the communities, they would have perhaps streamlined the application process for these grants.

Energy efficiency is one of the three pillars of the Obama administration--the other two being healthcare and K-12 education improvement--Michel pointed out.

“Those are the three top priorities for the administration that they’re going to keep throwing money at,” Michel said.

He suggested under the energy efficient heading that the Town seek to make some energy efficient upgrades in their buildings, instead of studying and installing alternative power sources (which the grants would also fund).

“If the Town owns 18 buildings, it’s a lot easier to upgrade them and make them more efficient than it is to figure out how to install solar power (in Town Hall).”

Michel said there would likely be more money for energy efficient programs in the next Fiscal Year as well.

Some of the energy efficient grants that will benefit Winnsboro citizens but the Town doesn’t have a decision point on, are weatherization assistance.

Michel pointed out that the money for this would likely go to Carolina Community Actions, who will be in charge of administering this grant.

Under the heading of Homeland Security, council and Michel discussed the possibility of funding a firefighter training center, located on property the Town already owns at the reservoir.

Since the funding could come from the Department of Homeland Security, Michel pointed out that the training center “has to resonate with something that...meets a national threat.”

Having the V.C. Summer firefighting force also training at the facility might fill the bill, Michel said.

Council has not yet set priorities for which of these grants they will apply for, until they know how much money may be available, Shackelford pointed out Tuesday.