By John Huxman
Freelance Reporter
Special to the Tribune
At its October 21 regular commission meeting, the Pratt City Commission approved a Statutory Partnership Agreement with the Climate and Energy Project. This agreement is necessary in order to make the Municipal Building eligible for some of the EPA grant money, should the grant be approved.
“The climate and energy project is this EPA grant that we have been discussing. It involves a number of entities including the Filley Art Museum and the Hope Center,” said City Manager Gina Goff, as the city again discussed some of its responsibilities in pursuing the federal grant.
“The purpose of the grant is climate and energy resilience,” she said.
The applicants for the grant are actually Jessica Travis and Dr. Chisty Hesed, Pratt would be a sub-recipient of the grant while the Hope Center and the Vernon Filley would be sub-sub-recipients.
City Manager Goff explained that the grant funds from the EPA would pay to upgrade the Municipal Building’s HVAC system [and] electrical system, provide a generator, and also provide supplies like a hundred or more first aid kits… [and] a hundred or more food supply kits for two weeks.
“They would call the Municipal Building a community resiliency hub, the purpose of that is that if there was some catastrophic event that requires us to house people or provide climate control for a number of people, the Municipal Building would be available to our population,” Goff said.
If the grant funds are awarded, the Statutory Agreement obligates the city to oversee the retrofit of the Municipal Building, to maintain the building, and to provide certain services to the community at the building, including workshops on energy efficiency, and training in disaster preparedness and CPR. The commission readily approved the Statutory Agreement.
In other business, the city also:
* Approved the Kansas Corporation Commission Agreement for the Grid Resilience Grant
*Approved a consulting agreement for Heather Morgan to do consulting for the grid resiliency program.
*Heard a more extended presentation by Brandon Scott on the Enterprise Fleet Program. This actually took the majority of the time in the meeting, though at this stage nothing has yet been decided. Enterprise provides the vehicles to 86 different government entities within the State of Kansas, including city white fleets, school districts, counties, and police departments. Enterprise promotes itself as being able to provide new vehicles to its customers which it then sells while they still have optimal resale value, giving the city excellent value for their money and preventing them from sinking funds into vehicles that need frequent repairs.
*Heard a report from the City Manager that all of the promised money for the city pool has been turned over in advance of the national election, out of concern by the Cromer family donors for potential market volatility in the aftermath of the election.
*Pratt Resident Shannon Du Toit addressed the city commission about the cat problem in town.
“I think its an overall town issue from what I’ve been told and I can see. It seems like we don’t have an immunization program, we don’t have a spay and neuter program, we’re not enforcing our ordinances that we do have. These animals are being neglected,” Du Toit said. “My neighbors don’t like their yards being used as a litter box.” She said she would like to see these loose cats captured or destroyed. Chief of Police Nate Humble said that state law no longer allows cats to be captured.
