The status of Atlantic’s application to Vision Iowa for a CAT (Community Attraction and Tourism) Grant, is in limbo. That was the word from Atlantic Parks and Recreation Department Director Roger Herring, during Monday evening’s meeting of the Parks and Rec Board. Herring said he and Assistant Director Seth Staashelm met with the Vision Iowa/CAT grant committee in Winterset on May 11th, and while the meeting was cordial, and he was the last presenter of the mid-day group, it was clear things weren’t going to be going as well as he’d hoped.

He said the Committee hadn’t seen the City’s application for the CAT grant prior to Herring’s presentation. Nor had they seen the dvd that was created, that gives a virtual/drone tour of the Schildberg Recreation Area and a summary of the plans for improvements to the park. He had a total of 10-minutes to make his pitch. The Committee did get a chance to see a shortened dvd presentation by Herring on the project during the presentation, but the second blow came when he learned from Vision Iowa’s legal counsel that a big element of consideration was the amount private funding the project has.

Atlantic’s project has raised money through private fundraising, but the Chairman said in a follow-up letter Herring read, that it fell short of level the CAT grant board wanted to see. He said “I don’t know where we stand for sure, other than we’ve got two weeks to do [more] private fundraising to their satisfaction.” He said, “That’s obviously not going to happen,” but he added that he would, despite his upcoming retirement, continue to work on helping the project move along.”

Roger Herring (Far right) talks about the CAT grant)

In addition, Herring said Vision Iowa’s legal counsel explained that because the State was re-aligning the Iowa Economic Development Department, the current Vision Iowa Board was in the process of being “dissolved,” and replaced with an “Enhanced Iowa” program, that there are few few details about. Their Board will be in place by Nov. 1st.

The bottom line is, June 8th is the last date CAT grant awards will be given. That means no further consideration will be given to any projects, certainly not until the new Board meets later this fall. Herring said he left the meeting feeling discouraged, because of what he learned. For now, he’ll call for a meeting of the Schildberg Recreation Area Committee and “Go back to the drawing board” with the new “Enhanced Iowa Board.”

He said “We’ll work with it, and make the best of it.”  The City, he said, can move forward with some aspects of the project using funds from the Hotel/Motel tax, but things won’t be coming together as quickly as they’d hoped.