Another chance for Moorcroft Town Hall put on hold

Moorcroft’s council, like many others in Wyoming, has been struggling to find funding to rehabilitate former school buildings like the Moorcroft Town Center (MTC). Several years ago, such help as grants and loans from the state benefitted many communities, but ended with no more funding obtainable until recently, when possible capital in the form of a grant was made available from the Wyoming Business Council through the Community Facilities Rehabilitation Grant Program.

The council has been working diligently to prepare the requisite aspects to send a complete and comprehensive application into the agency before the deadline. However, the business council called all perspective applicants a couple of weeks ago, saying the process has been “put on hold”.

According to Moorcroft’s Clerk/Treasurer Cheryl Schneider, “I don’t know the reason why.”

The moneys were made available from a motion at the last legislative gathering so she, as well as Mayor Ben Glenn and Councilman Dale Petersen, have been seeking a response from Senator Ogden Driskill since then, as yet to no avail. They hope to have the senator discuss the situation at a meeting soon.

HDR Engineering’s Heath Turbiville reassured the governing body, “It’s not stopped completely, it’s delayed for some reason, they’re going to open it back up at a later date.”

Glenn expressed his concern over the hold, “It’s hard for us, we’ve put a lot of time and Cheryl’s put a lot of time into this grant application. Dale and I have spent several days down here, then, at the state level, they’ve decided they’re going to shut it off for now so there is a cost to everybody’s time. That’s the frustration at our level and that’s why we’re going ahead as if they didn’t shut it off. We’re going to have all our ducks in a row so if it does reopen, hopefully, we’ll be shovel ready and able to move forward.”

Petersen explained his angst, “We’ve put a lot of work into it, we’re looking at trying to do one portion of the building that is basically where the current cafeteria, senior citizen center and library is. When you look at our grant application, our priorities would be roofing for the areas…we talked about doing some ADA upgrades, some potential electrical upgrades and HVAC – basically, we’re going to be asking for about $1.34 million…$1.3 million does not go very far, by the way…you can burn up most of that just by putting a new roof on there.”

When first setting up the application, the council was advised to break the work into three phases and the newest, most used section will be first to receive a facelift.

Though town hall plans to move into the space in the future, “The rehabilitation money is not really designed for that. That’s not what we’re going to use that money for, we’re going to use it on other parts,” the mayor assures citizens.

When resident Trina Sassy expressed her appreciation of applying for this grant whenever it is made available again, Glenn suggested she contact Driskill and Chip Neiman to assure them of her desire to see the building remain an active part of the town as they have, “I feel that, as a group, we’re doing everything we can to keep that building there.”