WAUPUN — The Waupun City Council discussed the establishment of next year’s Youth Sports Grant Program Tuesday evening, which allocated $75,000 towards the grant fund.
This comes after the City contributed a total of $200,000 to the Waupun Hockey Association and Waupun Baseball Complex to fund repairs to the respective facilities.
The considered draft was based on the previous grant program, which was presented at the August Committee of the Whole meeting. The previous program offered a total of $150,000 in grant funds, requiring only that the requesting organization have a price match of 50%. And while the previous draft provided no hard limit, the current draft caps funds at $5,000 per organization.
The Council discussed eligibility requirements for the program, one of which was that the projects fit the City’s long-term vision for capital improvement. Under the current grand rules, the funds can only be used for renovating facilities.
Alderman Jason Westphal suggested expanding the project to assist in purchasing equipment for the organizations under the same guidelines, using field groomers as an example.
One of the projects that Mayor Bishop suggested was upgrading the Meadow View Primary playground to make it ADA accessible, which he hopes to accomplish by purchasing the softball diamonds at Medema Fields from the School District.
“If we can get the all access playground and get softball on city property, it’s a win-win. Kiddos get the playground, and legion softball could sell beer which is a revenue source the guys have,” Mayor Bishop said.
Grant deadlines for the program were still up for consideration in the draft, but the previous grant had the deadlines set in mid to late August. No votes were taken on the draft at the meeting.
