Cedar Park has been evaluating ways to help provide relief to drainage problems around the city, and in September, City Council added an item into the fiscal year 2017-18 budget to begin the initial work.

The item came about three weeks after City Council failed to garner enough votes in August to call for a November election that could reallocate a portion of sales tax revenue to fund drainage improvements and street repairs in the city. Council members have said they now wish to hold the election in May, and several requested that city staff explore options to help with drainage that could be done between now and May with available funding.

In September, City Council heard three options to help with drainage that ranged in cost from $100,000 to $1.65 million.

Cedar Park resident Deborah Childress said she does not personally have drainage issues at her house, yet she urged council to take action on drainage issues.

“I’m standing up here because of my neighbors,” she said. “I’m standing up here because of the other neighbors within the Cedar Park area. I really do believe that if we don’t handle this now, it’s just going to be more costly later on.”

City Council opted to allocate $150,000 to study the city’s drainage and street improvement needs, which was approved into the budget Sept. 14.  The total cost would be split as: $60,000 for public engagement, $40,000 to prioritize projects and $50,000 for grant preparation.

Cedar Park will use some of the funds on consulting firm Freese and Nichols, which was hired in spring 2016 to compile a drainage study. According to city documents, the consultant identified a list of 19 projects within six areas of town that would need street, drainage and utility improvements to help with flooding issues.

The areas of town listed were Block House Creek, Cluck Creek, Deer Run, The Ranchettes, Riviera and Spanish Oak Creek. Sam Roberts, an assistant manager with the city, said the cost for all of the projects is estimated at about $38 million.

Roberts said the consultants could help prioritize the 19 projects and provide technical support for public outreach activities leading up to the possible May election.

“If we do a really robust public engagement, we’re going to need some engineering, because there’s going to be documents and visual aids, and [the consultants] are going to have to help us with the presentation,” he said.

Katherine Caffrey, a Cedar Park assistant city manager, said city staff could hold a series of town hall meetings within neighborhoods and with civic groups from October through December to gather input from residents.

“We would want to actually make sure that every member of the Cedar Park community gets invited to at least one meeting,” she said. “Sometimes we don’t hear from people in certain parts of town, so we want to go to them.”

City staff held the first town hall meeting Oct. 18 at the Cedar Park Recreation Center to seek input from residents on solutions to stormwater drainage and street repairs. Three upcoming meetings will be held Oct. 25 at St. John the Forerunner Church, 800 W. Park Street, Nov. 2 at the Forest Oaks Community Center, 105 N. Lynnwood Trail, and Nov. 6 at Riviera Springs Clubhouse at Rosemary Denny Park, 2500 E. Riviera Drive. All meetings run from 6-8 p.m., according to the city.

Roberts said the city would also allocate funds for grant preparation. The city aims to target the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood-mitigation assistance grants and hazard-mitigation assistance grants. He said the hazard-mitigation grants are only eligible after a presidential disaster declaration, which President Donald Trump approved for the state of Texas in August.

“One thing we’ve learned is that there is grant money out there, but you’ve got to make an investment and do some work to go try to get it,” he said.

Council members also considered another drainage item that would allocate $1.65 million for the engineering, easement acquisition and construction of one of the 19 identified capital projects. The projects range in cost from $1.2 million to $2.4 million, Roberts said. City Council opted to hold off on funding any of the capital projects until the possible sales tax reallocation election in May.