Starke County Park Board Denied Operation Round Up Grant for Bass Lake Beach Improvements

As the Starke County Park Board works to raise the necessary funds for improvements to the Bass Lake Beach, another one of its grant applications has come up short.

County Attorney Marty Lucas says a request for $2,500 from Kankakee Valley REMC’s Operation Round Up program has been denied, but the county was invited to reapply. “There was some information that they wanted in the application, some additional information that they wanted, and that’s going to be supplied, and so it will come up in their next cycle,” Lucas says. “They do cycles quarterly, so that won’t be that long off, before that comes up again.”

The grant application was one of a few that the park board submitted for the project. It would involve buying 80 cubic yards of stone and 500 tons of sand, in an effort to prevent and repair erosion at the Bass Lake Beach.

The total cost was estimated to be just under $15,000. While the park board was awarded a $5,000 Community Support Grant from the Starke County Community Foundation, a request for $5,000 from Arrowhead Country Resource Conservation and Development was denied, along with the Operation Round Up application.

The park board hopes to lower costs by using the Starke County Highway Department’s crews and equipment. The Starke County Park Board does not currently have a dedicated source of taxpayer funding.