Grant #1

I'm gonna trickle out news of 3 grants that Roland has or will receive over the next week. So here is #1. I and City Clerk Jodi Meredith worked on a grant request from Story County with money directed for Economic Development. The money is coming from TIF revenues from the windmills in the eastern part of the county. We put in a request for the expected cost of asbestos abatement in the two properties the city owns on Main Street that will be torn down--namely the old library building, and the one just north of it--218 and 220 N Main to be exact.

Our request was funded at 50%, so we are receiving $6950 towards this project. So that is nice.

In case you've missed it in previous posts, we have been saving our dollars to tear down those buildings and construct a new city hall in that location. How the project ties in to economic development is downtown revitalization. And then the idea of the council is to have a more professional city hall that potential residents can see. Right now it smells bad in there with our co-located power plant, and is harder to find, not being right on Main Street.

The Ames Tribune has an article on our request, and the 5 other communities that received funding. HERE is the link.