East Wenatchee Receives $205k in CARES Act Money

The East Wenatchee City Council voted Tuesday night to allow Mayor Jerrilea Crawford to sign a contract with the Department of Commerce for over $205,000 in additional CARES Act funds.

The city previously received about $411,000 in CARES money. About 86% of those funds were given to the Chelan Douglas Regional Port Authority and were distributed to the community.

Crawford said that, this time around, the new CARES funds will be spent by the city. It is likely that up to $50,000 of those funds will be spent on designing a new website for East Wenatchee, which would include updated payment services for those that can't make it to City Hall (which is currently closed).

The Eastmont Parks Department, which has not received any CARES funds, reached out to the city recently for roughly $3,000 of the money. The department is looking to upgrade equipment in the community center to allow for training, certain programs, and video conferencing.

"So we're first looking at what we can do within the city to be more adaptable. Then, if we have some (money) leftover, I think there's certainly more options that we can do. It's just on a tight timeline. That's the challenge."

The council also extended the deadline to use the City's CARES funds to November 30th.

CARES funds can only be spent on items related to COVID, and can't usually be put toward expenses that are normally budgeted.