Politics & Government

Mineola Requests Over $600K in 2013 Community Funding

Money to be used for residential improvements, pocket park and village hall generator.

The Village of Mineola will be applying for just over $600,000 in community development block grants to help residents and make capital improvements aground the village.

Every year a pool of Federal money known as community development block grant funds are made available to villages like Mineola in order to improve the lives of residents in both public and private spaces.

This year – the 39th year of the program – Mineola is applying for $610,000 total in block grant funding: $125,000 for residential rehabilitation throughout the village, $75,000 for code enforcement to enforce illegal housing, $60,000 for construction of a pocket park on Emory Road and $350,000 for an emergency generator for village hall. The village must apply for the amount each year and does not necessarily receive the amount for which they apply. Last year the village applied for $125,000 in block grant funds, but received only $30,000.

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As part of the application, the village is required to hold an annual hearing to discuss how they would use Community Development Block Grant funds for the next calendar year, which the village board did during a work session on March 20 at the village hall.

Described as “Federal passthroughs,” the moneys are federal funds which are then distributed through the county government to the local municipalities. The Federal funds are distributed to the Department of Housing and Governmental Affairs of Nassau County and are administered to municipalities on a need basis.

Find out what's happening in Mineolawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The $125,000 requested for residential rehabilitation throughout the village will be used to maintain the stock of “safe and affordable housing” according to Mineola’s Community Development Block Grant Coordinator Bob Hinck. Grants will be up to $15,000 for low and moderate income family residential homeowners to repair, secure and improve energy efficiency. Some of the items which have been done in the past include roofs, windows and boilers.

A resident would go about applying for a residential grant by writing to Hinck care of village hall requesting for replacement windows, siding, boilers or even roofing. The letter is then sent to be reviewed by community development and based on funding availability and the income of the resident, it would be approved.

“Everybody should understand that this is just the start of scratching the surface and we will not hear anything regarding the positive results until November, early December,” Hinck said, adding that while there are funds left over from the current year, “they’re already spoken for; there are three pending applications that we’ve received.”

Over the past 10 years, a total of 98 residents in Mineola have been helped via the grants.

The $75,000 requested for code enforcement to continue would be to maintain an active, sustainable code enforcement program in the village that will monitor unsafe conditions in the village. The funding will provide computer software to improve efficiencies.

The $60,000 the village is seeking to construct a pocket park on Emory Road would serve residents north of Jericho Turnpike and south of Wilson Boulevard. It will be located next to the village water facility and will include fencing, paver paths, benches and playground equipment.

The $350,000 emergency generator would power the village hall and community center when regular power is not available. In the weeks following Hurricane Sandy, Mineola Mayor Scott Strauss made the acquisition of an emergency generator for the village hall a priority, mentioning it in his state of the village address and exploring various companies that manufacture fuel-cell generators.

“I want to acknowledge the heard work that you’ve put in over the years through this program,” Strauss said to Hinck. “Certainly the residential rehab is benefitting many of our, not only our seniors but others who have been in a time of need as well as these other projects that Mineola has benefitted from this money also, some capital projects that we’ve done.”

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