Iowa County gets $2 million for road project

MARENGO — Iowa County had to wait two years for it, but $2 million dollars in federal funds for a road improvement project has finally been approved.

Iowa County first applied for Community Project Funding in 2024, but the appropriation was not approved by the Senate in 2025. This year the funding bill passed both Houses of Congress and was signed by the president.

Iowa County will use the money to pave W21 (V Avenue) two miles from the Iowa County-Washington County border to north of county road F67 (320th Street), according Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks who secured the Community Project Funding money for Iowa County.

“Iowa County has wanted to do this for years and didn’t have the money,” Iowa County Engineer Nick Amelon said in March of 2024 when he first applied for the funds.

Miller-Meeks received more than 60 of applications for the federal funds in 2023, said Amelon at the time. Iowa County needed to stand out to be one of 15 or so chosen for funding, he said.

The trick is to pick the right project and the right amount of money to convince the Miller-Meeks’ team to choose Iowa County. Amelon guessed that projects that receive the awards won’t cost more than $4-6 million.

The funding requires a match from the county of about 20%, said Amelon, and the project must be shovel ready because the money has to be spent in a certain amount of time.

“We need something that we can do quick,” said Amelon in 2024. He suggested paving W21, also known as V Avenue.

The county has heard complaints about the road for several years. In August of 2023, the Board of Supervisors received a petition from residents on V Avenue asking that the county pave the road.

The entire stretch is 5 ½ miles and would cost $8 million to pave, said Amelon in 2024.

“I don’t know if they would fund the whole 5 ½ miles,” Amelon said, and the county’s match for that project would be about $2 million.

Paving the south three miles would cost only $3 million, according to Amelon. Iowa County might have a shot at getting $2 million for that project.

The county would have to come up with a half million dollar match out of the farm-to-market account. “We can meet that,” said Amelon.

Several months later, Amelon received word from Miller-Meeks that Iowa County had been approved for the funding, but in March of 2025 he learned that the Senate didn’t approve funding for the program and Iowa County would not receive the money.

This year, the Community Project Funding was approved, and $19 million will come to Iowa’s 1st Congressional District in southeast Iowa through Miller-Meeks.

Amelon said during the Feb. 6 meeting of the board of supervisors that Miller-Meeks received more than 100 applications for funding. “She said this was one of her two favorite projects that she signed off on.”

Amelon had asked for a few letters of support and a few signatures on a petition for the project in 2024. “Word got around,” he said, and in a couple of days the county had about 200 signatures supporting the project.

“And she knew all that. … She knows the road. She remembers all these things,“ Amelon said of Miller-Meeks.

“It is nice, it’s very nice when you have somebody that represents you in D.C. they actually do know the territory and know the community,” said Amelon. “I’m very impressed.”

Community Project Funding grants are selected through a congressionally directed application process by Congress to provide investment in a wide variety of projects such as housing, homelessness prevention, workforce training, public facilities, parks, resilience planning and other critical infrastructure and services, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development which administers the program.

Projects selected for Community Project Funding are identified by congressional members, included in HUD annual appropriation and listed in the Joint Explanatory Statement or Congressional Record that accompanies a specific fiscal year’s appropriations act.

Only entities named in the Joint Explanatory Statement for a specific fiscal year are eligible to receive these grant funds.