Architect's drawing of proposed Rico Shop building

source:
Rico Board of Trustees December 2022 Meeting Packet
color enhancement added by Ore Cart

Contents

1. Town Shop grant application opens March 1
2. Town Park improvement plan grows
3. Wastewater project needs updated "preliminary engineering report
4. SMPA to seek Colorado microgrid "resiliency" grant for Rico backup power

Rico Board of Trustees meeting
December 21, 2022

by Allyn Svoboda
Publisher

1. Town Shop grant application window opens March 1

Details from Town Manager's comments in Trustees Meeting Packet

• Construction documents are on track to be completed prior to the start of March and the project is within budget.
• Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) EIAF Energy/Mineral Impact Assistance Fund grant application will open on March 1st and close on April 1st.
• If Town of Rico is awarded a grant for this project, it will cover 50% of the cost.
• Expenses to arrange financing will be about $37,500, which may be paid with Town's cash on hand or added to the financing.
• Sale of the commercial Main Street property will provide some funds to reduce Town's amount to be financed to about $400,000.

Town Manager Chauncey McCarthy provided additional information in response to a December 29, 2022 Ore Cart email inquiry:

• Town of Rico received a $25,000 grant from Colorado Department of Local Affairs to pay for some of the Shop site plan and basic structural design.
• total planning expense is expected to be about $80,000.
• design and engineering teams have been instructed to keep the project cost around $1.5 million.
• Main Street property pending sale is the current bike shop location on Glasgow Ave. Sale price was $195,000 which was determined through broker's opinion. Property is under contract and closing cannot happen until an ordinance is passed and becomes effective 30 days after second reading due to the charter.

Proposed Rico Town Shop floor plan

Source:
Rico Board of Trustees
December 22. 2022 Meeting Packet

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Proposed Rico Town Shop site plan

Source:
Rico Board of Trustees
December 21, 2022 Meeting Packet

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more info
Ore Cart - August 25, 2022
scroll down to 3) Town shop planning update

2. Town Park improvement plan grows

Consultant Fischer Project Management and Consulting (FPM), hired by Town of Rico to review possible park and recreation improvements grant funding opportunities, has completed its research, reported Town Manager McCarthy. The scope of the proposed project has expanded to include improvements in Town Park and within the river corridor south of the Town Shop. These improvements may include:

• skate park
• bike jumps and pump track
• pavilion/covered ice rink
• primitive campground
• RGS trail improvements and early childhood development features

FPM identified five funders who align with this project and believe Town of Rico may reasonably request upwards of $625,000 of funding. Seven other funders "may align with the project depending on the finalized scope who could bring an additional $500,000 of funding."

more info
Trustees approve Town Park and Shop improvement projects planning
> Ore Cart - August 25, 2022

3. Wastewater project needs updated "preliminary engineering report"

United State federal government agencies which developed Preliminary Engineering Reports standards for community infrastructure funding applications

Source: January 16, 2013 INTERAGENCY MEMORANDUM included in December 2022 Rico Board of Trustees Meeting Packet

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Note: wastewater, sewer and sanitation terms used in Town of Rico and consultant's information refer to the same proposed project.

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Town Manager McCarthy conferred with civil engineering firm Bohannan Huston representatives in November about prospects for Federal and Colorado funding to construct a Rico central wastewater system. The multidisciplinary engineering company has offices in New Mexico and Colorado. A followup correspondence from Bohannan Huston advised that Town’s previous Preliminary Engineering Reports (PER) are inadequate for Federal funding applications. Town Manager summarized the conversation and correspondence in the Trustees Meeting Packet:

An acceptable PER is one that meets the USDA RUS Bulletin 1780-2 and is normally required to be current, which is deemed to be five years or less by most agencies. None of the town’s past PERs currently meet both criteria.

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from:
Todd Burt and Donzil Worthington
Bohannan Huston

to:
Rico Town Manager Chauncey McCarthy
November 15, 2022

. . . Your Rico Centralized Wastewater project is a critical and challenging one, however, it may be progressing at just the right moment in time. With the current newly anticipated funding opportunities, we may be able to access adequate grant funds to not only get it started, but potentially fund the full endeavor. As this may be the best opportunity to pull this off, it is important that your project team can optimize efforts to fund it, but also ensure the project is planned to accommodate both growth and increasingly restrictive effluent limits in the future. The goal is to maximize subsidized capital funding now and minimize future operations and capital costs over the life of the facilities. To facilitate this process, an amendment to the prior reports would aide with the funding requests to various agencies.

. . . the chances of receiving funding for your wastewater project without a good current approved planning document will put the Town in a much less competitive position based on our experience. Also even more critical, the project planning documents are the basis for successfully accessing the maximum project capital funds.

source:
Rico Board of Trustees
December 2022 Meeting Packet.
See Appendix for more of excerpt.

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Cost of PER update

The engineering firm proposed an amendment be prepared to combine previous wastewater treatment Preliminary Engineering Reports, at a cost of $50,000:

. . . an amendment would be developed that will include a compilation of the prior PER's and utilization of some of the previously developed information in order to maximize value from prior PER investments. This should allow a more economical approach while still generating a document to meet state review requirements as well as support state and federal funding efforts."

Town of Rico 2023 Budget Sanitation Fund (AKA "Sewer Fund") includes "$50,000 for miscellaneous engineering and legal which will be needed as town pursues a sanitation district."⁽¹⁾ The Sanitation Fund reserve balance at year-end 2022 was $235,415. It's primary revenue source is a 3.939 property tax mill levy.

Town Staff has drafted Request for Proposals (RFP) and Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for the wastewater project Preliminary Engineering Report update. Bohannan Huston may bid on the work, stated Town Manager McCarthy in a response to an Ore Cart email inquiry. Asked if funding wastewater funding applications will be for the Rico commercial area only, or for the entire town, Town Manager responded: "This has not been determined. We need a current PER to pursue funding from most entities."

⁽¹⁾ source:
2023 Town of Rico Budget

4. SMPA to seek Colorado microgrid "resilience" grant for Rico backup power

Power pole with transformer and service cable conduit at Rico, Colorado

Ore Cart photo
January 12, 2023

San Miguel Power Assoication's microgrid plan for Rico includes electric battery energy storage and a large array of solar photovoltaic panels. SMPA key accounts representative Terry Schuyler phoned Ore Cart publisher Allyn Svoboda on December 21, 2022, a few hours before the Rico Trustees meeting to explain the concept. Ore Cart publisher reported SMPA's proposed backup power design and funding sources at the evening Trustees meeting.

Colorado microgrid grant opportunity

The Colorado legislature approved House Bill 22-1013 Microgrids For Community Resilience Grant Program last year. SMPA discussed this funding opportunity with a Colorado Microgrids for Community Resilience representative in the first half of December 2022. Grant application period begins in February 2023.

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HB22-1013
Microgrids For Community Resilience Grant Program

Concerning the creation of a grant program to build community resilience regarding electric grid disruptions through the development of microgrids, and, in connection therewith, making an appropriation.

Session: 2022 Regular Session
Subject: Energy
Bill Summary

The act creates the microgrids for community resilience grant program (grant program) to be administered by the Division of Local Government (division) in the Department of Local Affairs (department), in collaboration with the Colorado Resiliency Office in the division and the Colorado Energy Office. A cooperative electric association or a municipally owned utility (utility) may apply to the division for a grant award to finance the purchase of microgrid resources in eligible rural communities within the utility's service territory that are at significant risk of experiencing severe weather or natural disaster events and in which one or more community anchor institutions, which institutions are important community, educational, health care, or other institutions, are located. The microgrids, which can be connected to or be disconnected from, and work independent of, the utility's electric grid, can increase an eligible rural community's ability to avoid or remediate interruptions to the electric grid, such as those caused by severe weather or natural disaster events.

- text highlighting added by Ore Cart

Microgrid examples

• A remote village with no connection to a regional electric "grid." The community generates all of its electric supply locally.
• A group of electric consumers, or a community, which receives normal electric supply in grid-connected mode, but switches to self-generating islanded mode during interruptions in normal service.

more info
Microgrids for Community Resilience Program
> Colorado Department of Local Affairs

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Federal funds also available from legislation approved by U.S. Congress in 2022

The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress includes direct pay incentives for electric cooperatives to deploy new energy technologies, including carbon capture, nuclear, energy storage, renewable energy and more, according to an August 12, 2022 text and video report by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association in Washington, DC.

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