City accepts, matches amount from TPWD for park improvements

The Graham City Council approved a Recreation Grant Agreement between the city and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Thursday in which the city will accept and match $450,950 for planned park improvements at Fireman’s Park and the planned new park on Salt Creek.

The city of Graham received $1.3 million from the Brazos River Authority for park improvement projects in June 2018. The funding was received for the Salt Creek park project to turn the floodplain along Salt Creek into a park for the city with a waiver of liability to the BRA.

Since then, the city has been attempting to obtain Recreational Trails and Local Park grants to help extend the scope of the projects using the funding from the BRA.

Phase one of the parks and trail project include additions and improvements at Fireman’s Park. In an interview before the council accepted the agreement Thursday, City Manager Eric Garretty said the step would allow them to start the construction portion of the project.

“The process is we officially accept the grant of the federal monies from the National Park Service. (...) What that allows us to do is then we send that resolution to Texas Parks and Wildlife, they sign off on their side of it. (...) They give us a notice to proceed and that allows us to go out for the construction portion of this portion of the project. Construction, in this case, is all the stuff for tearing down all the existing playgrounds and then putting up the new,” he said. “So that’s where we’re at is we’re waiting to get that notice to proceed. That allows us to go out for bids for contracts. (...) There’s a timeline that you have to go through to put your notice out, get bids, consider the bids and then award the bids.”

For the full story, see the Wednesday, Dec. 28 edition of The Graham Leader.