April 21, 2018 – West Bend, WI – Taxpayers in the City of West Bend are sharing in some positive news this week as the State Joint Finance Committee voted 11 – 4 to approve a $555,000 DNR Stewardship Grant to help finance the downtown Riverwalk Project.
The $2 million project is being funded with a combination of grants from the Department of Natural Resources, funds from the City of West Bend and donations from private foundations and businesses.
The note below was sent to city staff from Park and Rec Director Craig Hoeppner.
Good afternoon-
I’m pleased to report the State Joint Finance Committee officially approved our DNR Stewardship Grant in the amount of $555K+ at 1:03 p.m. Wednesday.
There had been a lot of discussion with the State on this topic over the past three weeks.
This is a $100,000 reduction from what was tentatively awarded, but we are confident the project is financially sound and this keeps the Downtown Riverwalk – East Project on track for our expected 2018 construction schedule.
A big thank you to the Mayor, Jay Shambeau, Cindy Leinss and Sen. Duey Strobel for all of their efforts in making this large DNR Stewardship grant a reality. We are looking forward to a great project this summer. Craig Hoeppner
Mayor Kraig Sadownikow watched the process as it went before State Joint Finance Committee in Madison and cheered the 11-4 vote to award the grant.
“This is the final piece of the funding puzzle,” said Sadownikow. “I’m thankful to Sen. Strobel for supporting this project through the Joint Finance Committee. Everyone on the Joint Finance Committee recognized that we’ve got a very unique funding mechanism with some local dollars, some state dollars and then a very significant portion of locally, privately-raised money and that doesn’t happen very often in a public works project like this so it’s great West Bend stepped up to support something that’s been needed for decades.”
Watch meeting and vote at 35:52 at State Joint Finance Committee on Wisconsin Eye
