Casper gets $8 million in grants for skate park, pool improvements, pedestrian bridge

CASPER, Wyo. — The city of Casper received about $8 million in federal grants since passing its fiscal year budget last summer, and the Casper City Council approved a budget amendment allowing it to spend those dollars at its regular meeting Tuesday, Oct 1.

The grants include money for a long-desired pedestrian bridge across the river along Poplar Street, improvements to Marion Kreiner pool, construction of a skate park near the pool, improvements to other athletic facilities and expenses fighting wildland fires.

The budget amendment also reauthorizes spending for projects and contracts that were included in previous budgets but not completed before the end of their fiscal years. The $10 million amendment ultimately calls for only $767,000 in new city spending, according to the information submitted to the council by the city’s financial department.

City Council candidate Ross Schriftman was the sole speaker during the public session and asked about the need for the pedestrian bridge.

Councilor Amber Pollock recalled that it was identified as a vital linkage for the Platte River Trails network as well as for general access.

City Manager Carter Napier affirmed her recollection and added that the original plans for the current WYDOT work along Poplar Street called for an expansion of the bridge to add sidewalks, but the project was scaled down.

“The problem that created for us was it eliminated safe pedestrian access across the river, so that people weren’t walking in the highway, which is our current vulnerability across that facility right now,” Napier said.

The amendment reflects a $3.5 million ARPA grant for the project, and the $439,690 remaining to complete was set aside in previous budgets, the memo said.

Other highlights

An extra $210,640 in city spending is requested to pair with a new $2.8 million federal grant for improvements to the North Casper Athletic Complex, including upgrades to lighting, turf, fencing, scoreboards, landscaping and playground improvement. The project would also decommission the aging concrete skate park and replace it with a specialized ball field for for children and young adults with disabilities.

A new above-ground skate park would be built near Marion Kreiner Pool, replacing the playground equipment there. Other aspects of the same project include replacing the pool’s boiler and filtration system and upgrading the locker rooms. The $1.8 million grant covers 90% of the expense, the city memo said.

The city was also awarded $250,000 in federal dollars to reimburse Casper Fire-EMS’s expenses for past and future wildland fire deployments. 

Rollover projects include the $20.7 million budgeted for the conversion of the Casper Business Center into the new police headquarters, as well as $4.6 million for large-diameter steel piping to treat incoming wastewater at the Wastewater Treatment Plant. Failure to do so could result in Department of Environmental Quality violations, the memo notes. Nearly a million dollars of federal funding was awarded to the overall $5.6 million project.

The new budget also defunds two projects: the now-defunct minimum-revenue guarantee with SkyWest Airlines for the Salt Lake City flight and a “lift haul rope project” at Hogadon that has been put aside to cover the repair of the chair lift that broke down in April.