LYNN – More than 60 project proposals with community suggestions — all seeking funding from the American Recovery Project Act (ARPA) — have been received by the city as of Tuesday.
“The city is evaluating the projects for feasibility, and we will share the projects with the community as soon as they have all been reviewed,” said Nichol Figueiredo, CEO at Capital Strategic Solutions.
She said that Mayor Jared Nicholson, the City Council, city departments and community agencies, non-profits, and individuals have all greatly contributed to the process and it has been a wonderful experience to see so many people come together for the health and well-being of the community.
“We’ve had some great discussions about projects that are being submitted, how they will impact Lynn not only in the immediate future but in years to come,” said Figueiredo.
Lynn residents got the opportunity to suggest possible uses for the ARPA money last month. Concurrently, the city was making sure the projects met the ARPA criteria.
The next step — departmental review — will last through early June. The city will then do a Project Selection Survey in mid-June, allowing the residents to give their feedback concerning how the projects should be prioritized.
After that, the city will do the project selection that will review the community’s feedback from the surveys that have been conducted through the ARPA process. This phase will last late June to early July.
“We will use the community’s feedback to drive the selection process of the projects and present a package to the City Council in July,” said Figueiredo.
Lynn is eligible to receive more than $75 million in direct ARPA funds, which will complement ARPA funds obtained from the state. It will then be obliged to obligate those funds until the end of 2024 and to spend them until the end of 2026.
The funds are intended to be used for households’ assistance, as well as for the small businesses and nonprofits, and to aid impacted industries such as tourism, travel, and hospitality. They cannot be used for depositing funds into any pension fund, debt, and settlement payments, stabilization, or matching funds for other federal grants.
Calvin Anderson submitted seven proposals through his volunteer beautification group, known as the Gateway Project for Lynn. The submittals concerned public and open space “pocket parks” – to reclaim the Eastern Burial Ground on Union Street as accessible public space, to add some safety gates at some problematic alleys in the city where people are doing “illicit things.”
Anderson also suggested implementing a “3:2 Arboreal Renewal Program, ” intended to improve the city’s trees’ canopy, by replacing every two trees removed, with three new ones, over the course of a year. His other suggestions included establishing parks in commemoration of 9/11 and the Civil War.
Some of other communities that intended to submit their proposals were the Flax Pond Association to make sure that the water in the pond was clean; Pathways Inc., offering adult education funded by the U.S. Department of Education, to use ARPA funds to offer an insurance stipend for the part-time employees and for a computer lab, and LEO Inc., the region’s community action agency that helps low-income individuals access resources to improve their stability and upward mobility, for a renovation of office space at 156 Broad St. to a 15-classroom preschool for low-income children in Lynn.
ARPA was signed into law March 11, 2021, and it is intended for the creation of the Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (CLFRF) to provide support to state, local, and tribal governments in response to the pandemic.
“We are excited to move forward with this first phase and are looking forward to continuing our work with the administration and community members as Lynn progresses through the ARPA process building a healthy sustainable future together,” said Figueiredo.
Oksana Kotkina can be reached at [email protected].
