NNSL (Feb 04/98) - The pot of money the city has to draw on for the proposed arena facility is fattening.

Under questioning from Mike Byrne, administration revealed it has plans to set aside almost $3 million in block funding, infrastructure grants and reserve transfers over the next two years for the facility.

The city has been saving $500,000 in block funding for the facility for the last seven years.

But with the city facing the prospect of asking the voters for permission to borrow for the arena complex at a time when the economy is slumping, it has assigned more money to the project, reducing the borrowing requirement.

Increasing that amount of block funding to the arena means cutting back the amount that was to be spent on replacing old sewer and water lines by $1.5 million over the next two years.

With the additional dollars, the city estimates it will need to borrow from $2.5 million to $6 million, depending on which site it builds on.