City officials meet with Rep. Norm Dicks’ representative.

With Port Orchard anxious to maximize the amount of funding it obtains from the federal government, Mayor Lary Coppola and two members of his senior staff on Wednesday met with a representative of U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Belfair) for advice about how to do so.

“We have some major challenges,” Coppola told Dicks’ District Director Clark Mather. “We have seen what Bremerton has done with federal money and want to tap into that pipeline.”

Planning Director James Weaver and Public Works Director Mark Dorsey also attended the briefing.  

Coppola called Port Orchard “the last undiscovered jewel in Puget Sound,” adding that money was needed in order to polish that jewel.

“Port Orchard has never been proactive in going after federal funds,” Coppola said. “Right now we have a real good team that understands what it needs to do in order to get started. The only thing we need to do is figure out where the money is coming from.”

One specific item is the renovation of Tremont Street with two roundabouts, once projected to cost $7 million and now estimated at $15 million.

Weaver mentioned the need for a downtown parking structure, adding that it could be combined with another building — such as a new library — that was eligible for grant funding.

“We understand that we have a big funding challenge,” Coppola said. “So we are talking to anyone we can who could be a partner.”

Added Weaver, “We’ve seen how Bremerton has acquired funds from numerous streams and we want to do the same thing.”

Mather was not outwardly optimistic, pointing out that, “The situation with regard to earmarks (funding allocations added to bills) is getting a lot tougher,” and that a minority of requests are actually funded.

“We get a lot of requests throughout the district,” he said. “What gets funded is a relatively small percentage.”

Mather said that any money requested from here on in would not reach the city until 2010.

Dorsey said this would correspond to the timing of the Tremont project, which is now underfunded.

Coppola said the meeting with Mather was in development for some time, and was mentioned when the mayor’s term began in January after Dicks himself directly approached the Port Orchard council, during a time when the congressman and the council were both meeting in the same local restaurant.

At that time Coppola sought to postpone the meeting until he had a more thorough view about how the city worked.

The meeting with staff took about 25 minutes, after which Coppola and Mather met privately.

After the meeting Coppola said it had accomplished its purpose.