Davies and Jackson Give City of Monmouth Latest

The City of Monmouth held a city council meeting on Monday night. Two grant hearings were featured during the meeting. The first was a community block development grant, which would replace a water main that runs along E. 9th Avenue and S. 5th Street. Andy Jackson with the Public Works of Monmouth talked about this proposed grant:

“It will help immediately the folks along that route in the immediate several block vicinity of that project, but it will allow us in the future a place to go hook on and continue replacement because you’ll have a really nice water main flow there,” Jackson said.

The grant would allow for a maximum of $500,000 to be requested out of a total of 14 million dollars that is available statewide for the non-metropolitan construction. The City will be contributing approximately $73,000 from the water and sewer fund to cover the gap the project will require over the 500k limit.

The second grant that the Council went over was the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program Grant. The grant falls under the “streetscaping” category, and has a maximum of 2 million dollars to be requested. Mayor Rod Davies talked about the opportunity:

“This is the opportunity for a 2-million dollar grant. It’s going to take a 20 percent match or about 400,000. Since it’s in the heart of our TIF district, those TIF district funds – this would be a project that it could possibly fund. It’s a competitive grant. We feel like we’ve got a good, strong application,” he said.

The potential improvements would be aimed at enhancing and revitalizing downtown and the four quadrants of the town square.

written by Jackson Kane