City Council Meeting Date: February 18, 2025
To: Mayor and City Council
City Administrator
From: Natalie Draper, Library Director
Title
Resolution of Support for the Approval of Minnesota Multi-Purpose Community Facility Projects to Support Community Revitalization, Connectedness and Equity by Promoting Education, Work and Health Grant Application
Body
Action Requested:
The Northfield City Council consider a motion to approve Resolution of Support for the Approval of Minnesota Multi-Purpose Community Facility Projects to Support Community Revitalization, Connectedness and Equity by Promoting Education, Work and Health Grant Application.
Summary Report:
Minnesota has been awarded $47.5 million from the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Corona Virus Capitol Projects Fund. Grants will be used to fund Multi-Purpose Community Facility Projects in areas that will benefit the most from support to address challenges exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic through supports for education, work, and health focused on advancing family economic stability, connections and educational opportunity for our state’s children and youth. Funding is available to family resource centers, full-service community schools, libraries, childcare and early learning facilities, and community centers.
Projects must be designed to enable work, education, and health monitoring jointly and directly, but these activities need not be the exclusive function or purpose of the Project. The Library has created a proposal for this funding that would allow us to install small, sound-proof reservable study pods, retrofit the director’s office to create a small private meeting space, replace the shelving in children’s with moveable shelving that will allow us to have more programs in the youth services area and relive pressure on the Bunday Room, freeing it up for more community use, and engage in planning for the library’s site to improve spaces for remote work, education, library programs, and community use. The library also plans to install a backup generator with this funding to prevent power outages from interrupting library services.
Alternative Options:
There is no direct local cost for the grant so we are not recommending alternate approval.
Financial Impacts:
The maximum grant award amount is approximately $500,000 for each qualifying applicant. The minimum grant award amount is approximately $200,000 for each qualifying applicant. The proposal created by the Northfield Public Library requests $347,000 from this grant. The City of Northfield has budgeted $45,000 for the retrofit of the director’s office and $45,000 for planning efforts for the library’s grounds.
Tentative Timelines:
January 3rd, 2025 Completed applications due.
April 2025 Anticipated date of grantee announcement.