The city’s wished-for $8 million flood property buyout program is looking more like a dream and less like reality.

Saturday, September 16, 2000

The city’s wished-for $8 million flood property buyout program is looking more like a dream and less like reality.

Tom Smith told Austin Housing and Redevelopment Board members that the pot of money officials were hoping would follow the designation of 13 counties – including Mower – as disaster areas is more like a saucepan.

"They have more like $3.5 million to distribute between the 13 counties," the HRA deputy director of community development said. "We’re probably asking for more than they have in total."

The "they" the deputy director was referring to was the Minnesota Recovers Taskforce, which is made up of a combination of state and federal agencies, which will review the preliminary application the city will send at the end of the month.

"I’m afraid we aren’t going to be able to help as many people as we’d hoped," Smith said. "Right now we’re putting together a priority list, with the worst and most regularly hit buildings coming first."

Originally, city officials were hoping to get $6 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, $1 million from the Hormel Foundation and contribute $1 million from city coffers. City staff knew it was a long shot, but hopes were high that if the funding could be attained, all of the homes regularly affected by the flooding could be moved.

Smith did say that the HRA wasn’t going to give up on other sources, but the way he saw it, the only other real recourse for the city was to approach Mower County’s Congressional representatives because the grant application states clearly that "no new supplemental state and federal funds are available."

The money now available is from the state’s regular allocation for disaster relief, but officials don’t anticipate more unless there is a special allocation by the Legislature.

On the engineering side of the flood issue, Public Works Director Jon Erichson said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is reviewing their previous study of area flood problems now. The Corps will be coming to Austin to review that study and the latest flooding at a future date; Erichson didn’t know when.

The Foundation has not yet said what requests from the city will and won’t be funded this year. City funds are available, but contingent on the other grant requests so the future of the $8 million plan is dubious indeed.