LETTS, Iowa — The community of Letts on Monday received what Mayor Jerry Kirk called “a good kick.”

The members of an I-JOBS Board review panel awarded the Louisa County town of 390 people a $400,000 grant for a community center and library that has been in the works for three years. It was one of 58 projects —totaling $118.5 million —approved by the panel, which met in Waterloo.

Kirk, who attended the meeting in Waterloo, said the grant for Letts will pay half of the projected $800,000 price tag for the 7,200-square-foot center.

The community has raised $107,000, and officials should know in the next two to three weeks if they will receive at least two other grants that could add to the total, Kirk said this morning.

“We’ll have to finance some,” he said of the project’s total cost. “Our goal is to not raise taxes.”

And he hopes to break ground on the building in the next three to four months, Kirk said.

Gov. Chet Culver and the Legislature appropriated the I-JOBS funding for local governmental or nonprofit entities on a competitive basis.

Communities, whether their projects were  approved or not, will soon see the benefits of the program that is funding both disaster recovery and other infrastructure needs, I-JOBS Board Chairman Jeff Pomeranz said.

Approved applications came from all four quadrants of the state for a mix of projects, but more than half of the allocated funds were designated primarily for flood recovery efforts in Linn and Johnson counties.

Coralville received the single largest grant — $27 million toward a $36 million project for flood recovery and protection of the city’s 1st Avenue corridor along the Iowa River.

The board also approved two non-competitive grants for fire stations in Palo and Charles City that were damaged by last year’s flood disaster.

The program – part of an overall $830 million I-JOBS bonding package — was allocated $165 million for disaster recovery and prevention and for local infrastructure, with $118.5 million to be distributed on a competitive basis while the remaining $46.5 million was earmarked for specific disaster-related projects by lawmakers.

In Lettts, with a project that was not disaster related, Kirk said the money will help the community replace a dilapidated building that is used by a growing number of people.

“Every time it rains, the roof leaks,” he said of the old building.

A small portion of the new building will be used as the Letts City Hall, he said. He said the Community Center would be used as a disaster shelter when needed.

“This is really a good kick start to get us going,” he said of the grant.

— Reporter James Lynch contributed to this story.