The Town of Culver held their follow-up meeting with OCRA on Friday after not receiving an Indiana Stellar Communities designation.
Culver applied for the designation following a months-long planning and application process. The lake community was named a finalist in the small population category, one of two categories, but ultimately saw its hopes dashed by former state capital Corydon when the announcement was made.
Stellar Communities is run through the Office of Community and Rural Affairs and fast-tracks future grant applications made by the winning town to help fund the projects outlined in their projects list through Stellar Communities application.
The state also provides grant application assistance to the winner. Previous Stellar Communities winners have been able to garner grant applications in the millions.
Culver still has an opportunity to apply for the Stellar Communities designation next year. Town officials were looking forward to the opportunity to discuss 2016’s application further following the disappointment.
Town Manager Jonathan Leist says OCRA provided several recommendations to the Town’s Stellar Communities Committee on September 23rd. Committee members were specifically interested in recommendations to alter their next application. Leist says the state recommended tying the projects together into a comprehensive vision. They also recommended adding more projects and improving the scope of the existing projects to impact population growth or assessed value.
OCRA strongly encouraged the community to continue working on their project list through other grant opportunities.
Culver spent nearly an entire day with officials from the state transporting them to the different project locations and providing data and information about the community to the state.
