By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News

Bowling Green City Council is taking the next step to determine what community
projects could receive some of the city’s remaining COVID relief funds.

At Tuesday night’s City Council Committee of the Whole meeting, members agreed to
review requests from an initial list of 27 organizations and make room for additional
requests gleaned from council members and the 900-plus comments from the city’s
questionnaire.

The projects are vying for a share of the nearly $3 million still available in the city’s
COVID relief funds, formally known as the American Relief Plan Act (ARPA). Bowling
Green received $7.3 million last year in ARPA funds designed to help communities
recover from the economic impacts of the COVID pandemic.

More than $4 million has already been allocated.

Council also approved a scoring guideline to provide a format for consistency in
evaluating the requests.

The scoring rubric, drafted by Council President Mark Hollenbaugh, includes eight
categories that council members will consider for each project:

How many times the topic was mentioned in the community survey.
The total dollar amount requested from the city’s available American Relief Plan Act
funds.
Ongoing annual costs or amortized replacement costs.
To what degree the request is addressed by other entities.
How closely the project relates to COVID or those adversely impacted by COVID.
How many BG residents would be positively impacted.
The potential for matching funds or in-kind contributions from partners.
The positive effect on the local economy.

The rubric was approved but not without some debate. Council member Bill Herald
offered an alternative to Hollenbaugh’s rubric. He suggested the process could be
simplified if each member review the requests using their own criteria.

“Each of us has different ideas of how to weigh the projects,” Herald said. The process
could be more efficient if each person used their own criteria.

Council member Nick Rubando said, “It’s extremely important that the public has some
transparency. It would be confusing to the public if we are using different criteria.”

“The more we can define the criteria, our constituents can better understand the
process,” Council member Joel O’Dorisio said.

Regardless of the ranking process, every project request will be looked at and the
merits debated, said Council member Greg Robinette.

Council also discussed the proposed 27-item request list and wondered if all of the
suggestions…