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WILKES-BARRE — It wasn’t the end of applications for Local Share Account grants seeking city council’s approval after all.
Four more applications are on the agenda for council’s combined work session and public meeting on Dec. 19.
At its Dec. 5 meeting council members asked City Administrator Rick Gazenski if there were any more expected besides the eight applications before them. There were none, Gazenski replied, adding none were held back by Mayor Tony George.
Council approved the eight requesting a combined $2,573,923 in funds distributed by the state from revenues at the Mohegan Sun Pocono casino in nearby Plains Township.
“These just came in this week,” Gazenski said Friday of the final four.
Whatever the mayor received, he forwarded, Gazenski said. “He doesn’t want to say no to anyone,” Gazenski added.
The latest applications, totaling $483,500 in funds, will meet the end-of-year deadline for submission to the Commonwealth Financing Authority in Harrisburg.
The city, as host municipality, does not award the funds. Instead it passes them onto the CFA for review and approval of the requests for, among other things, private economic developments, municipal programs and capital improvements and the same for nonprofits.
The four new submissions are:
• $10,000 for the Institute at Wilkes University Workforce Pipeline Project.
•$250,000 for the Phase II of the Volunteers in Medicine’s Increase to Access to Care program.
• $188,500 for the Phase II of the F.M. Kirby Center’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning improvement project.
• $35,000 for the Wilkes-Barre Connect Command Center project to develop and launch statewide programs for the America250PA initiative marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.