{"id":31707,"date":"2023-09-15T23:20:17","date_gmt":"2023-09-16T05:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sen-michael-bennet-briefed-on-arpa-funds-in-durango\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:45:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:45:16","slug":"sen-michael-bennet-briefed-on-arpa-funds-in-durango","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sen-michael-bennet-briefed-on-arpa-funds-in-durango\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Michael Bennet briefed on ARPA funds in Durango"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Michael Bennet, center, met with recipients of the county's American Rescue Plan Act dollars at the La Plata County Administration Building Friday. He also heard from county commissioners Matt Salk, left, on broadband, and Clyde Church, right, on the social impact funds. The event was moderated by Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton. (Reuben Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Reuben M. Schafir<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Sen. Michael Bennet made a stop in Durango Friday afternoon for a listening session with the recipients of the $10.9 million allotted to La Plata County from the American Rescue Plan Act.<\/p>\n

The visit was an opportunity for the lawmaker to see firsthand how the funds were put to use, and a moment of celebration for the La Plata County commissioners charged with dispensing the unprecedented influx of cash.<\/p>\n

The bulk of the funds \u2013 $10 million \u2013 was broken down into three categories: $4 million for housing, $2.5 million for broadband infrastructure and $3.5 million for various social impact<\/a> projects.<\/p>\n

Each county commissioner briefed Bennet on one of the three categories before the recipients of social impact grants went around the room to share how they have leveraged the funds.<\/p>\n

\"Commissioner
Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton, left, moderated an event Friday at which Sen. Michael Bennet met with recipients of the county's American Rescue Plan Act dollars at the La Plata County Administration Building Friday. The meeting was a rapid round-robin of various La Plata County nonprofits. (Reuben Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Reuben M. Schafir<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The meeting was a rapid round-robin of various La Plata County nonprofits.<\/p>\n

Housing, food equity and access, children\u2019s literacy \u2013 the money has had a wide reach across the county.<\/p>\n

Mardi Gebhardt, board president of the La Plata West Water Authority, extolled the virtues of the new water dock in Kline<\/a>; Ashley Gonzalez, the supervisor of San Juan Basin Public Health\u2019s opioid risk reduction program, shared the successes of the program, which has now saved 1<\/a>8 lives; and Durango Fire Protection District Deputy Chief Randy Black took the senator on a brief tour of the department\u2019s new mental health ambulance.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Michael Bennet met with recipients of the county's American Rescue Plan Act dollars at the La Plata County Administration Building Friday. (Reuben Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Reuben M. Schafir<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cThat is incredible,\u201d Bennet interrupted, visibly amazed, as Alejandra Chavez shared the story of how the residents of West Side Mobile Home Park formed a co-op<\/a> and purchased their own park using, in part, a loan from the county drawn from ARPA funds.<\/p>\n

At the event\u2019s conclusion, Bennet offered both the county commissioners and the grant recipients an enormous pat on the back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish everybody in the country could have listened to the conversation we had today because it\u2019s a reminder of what it looks like when thoughtful people have a chance to collaborate together,\u201d he said. \u201c \u2026 \u2018Inspirational\u2019 is the word I want to use to describe the conversation we\u2019ve had today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Standing next to DFPD\u2019s mental health ambulance, Bennet said he was impressed by the Board of County Commissioners\u2019 self awareness in recognizing that another entity \u2013 the Community Foundation Serving Southwest Colorado \u2013 would be better positioned to review grant applications.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chance for these projects to bear durable results that are going to last beyond the pandemic is one lesson we can take; the importance of collaboration is another lesson we can take,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawmaker stopped at the La Plata County Administration building Friday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,28,475,612,610,25],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-31707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-colorado","tag-social-conditions","tag-social-issues","tag-u-s-sen-michael-bennet"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81538,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31707\/revisions\/81538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31707"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=31707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}