Port a poster child for coastal grants

Kathy Blumenfeld, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Administration, stood in Port Washington’s Upper Lake Park last week and took in the lakefront before presenting city officials with a $40,000 check to help pay for engineering work on a project to stabilize the bluff.

The money, she said, is a contribution to the “amazing work you’re going to be doing.”

The grant money will pay 40% of the engineering cost for a plan that the city hopes will address bluff erosion that’s affected not just the park but the beach below, Public Works Director Rob Vanden Noven said.

Blumenfeld noted that the Coastal Management Program has invested more than $150,000 for City of Port projects during the last five years, she said.

“We’re going to come back for more this year,” Vanden Noven said — this time for $40,000 to help install surface drainage lines intended to draw water out of the sand seam that runs along much of the bluff and encourages the hillside to fall. “Our identity is really the lakefront.”

The Coastal Management Program has provided funding for a wide range of projects, Vanden Noven said.

“It’s seed money that grows into big things,” he said.

Blumenfeld noted that the grant presented during the Oct. 12 press conference was part of a $1.4 million investment in the Coastal Management Program by Gov. Tony Evers.

The Great Lakes, she said, are “so important to our governor and the whole administration.”

Money spent on projects to improve the Great Lakes not only has an environmental impact, it also boosts tourism and economic development, Blumenfeld said.

“It’s helped us shape the future of our lakefront,” Port City Administrator Tony Brown said. “We’re super grateful to get it.”

Blumenfeld was in the city as part of a series of visits highlighting Coastal Management Program grants and tourism investments.

“I love Port Washington,” Blumenfeld, who grew up in Bayside, said. “On Sundays, my parents would bundle us up in the car ... and we’d often end up in Port Washington.”

She got an up-close look at the city and the impact of the DOA’s grant funds during the visit, making stops not only in Upper Lake Park but also the Light Station, Heart of the Harbor and Rotary Park.

“It’s so nice to see this money come to life,” Blumenfeld said. “It’s one thing to read about a project on a grant application, but it’s another to see it. Your vision here has been tremendous.”

At the Light Station, a Tourism Capital Grant helped the Port Historical Society build a shelter for the SS Milwaukee’s lifeboat, which the society restored.

“It’s such as great addition,” Dawn St. George, the society’s executive director, said. She noted that the Historical Society had planned to build the shelter in 2020, but the pandemic delayed construction and resulted in a doubling of the cost.

The state’s grant, she said, helped fill in the funding gap and made the shelter possible.

At the Heart of the Harbor plaza, Vanden Noven told Blumenfeld “Coastal Management Program funds “put us over the top and enabled Main Street to raise over $200,000 (to create the installation).”

“I want one of these in my backyard,” Blumenfeld said. “I’m so glad I got to see this. It’s lovely.”