The Marion City Council passed several appropriation ordinances of American Rescue Plan Act funds at the Tuesday, July 2 council meeting, totaling $4,254,000.
The funds covered a wide variety of city needs.
The Marion Public Library received $300,000 for a new roof and other improvements to the library. Multiple people spoke about the importance of the local library during the public hearing for the ordinance.
Marion Animal Care & Control received $204,000 to redo the kennels. The current condition of the kennels leads to an unsafe work environment for employees because dogs frequently escape.
“I think it’s not going to be a Band-Aid,” said shelter manager Brittney Shrout. “It’s going to be a long-term solution. And that’s what it needs.”
The Marion Municipal Airport received $400,000 to install two new fuel tanks. The two new tanks will have a larger capacity for fuel and will be above ground, whereas the old tank was underground.
“The continued growth that we’re seeing in Marion is of the utmost importance,” said Jim McKinney, the president of the Board of Aviation. “We find ourselves in a situation where we’re seeing more and more larger aircraft, jet-type aircraft that need a special fuel upgrade that are finding a limited supply, at times at our airport. This is an opportunity for us that is really a rare opportunity in which we’re able to get 50 percent support of this from the federal government. But we need to ask for the passage of this [ordinance] so that we can do the whole project at one time, general aviation fuel as well as jet fuel.”
The Grant County Economic Growth Council received $400,000 for a revolving loan fund for small businesses. The loans will be for a maximum of $50,000 and must be Marion-based. Marion Mayor Ronald Morrell Jr. said the committee for the fund will specifically be looking at businesses that may have a more difficult time finding funding otherwise.
The Community Foundation of Grant County also received $400,000 to disburse to local non-profits. President and CEO of the Community Foundation Dawn Brown clarified that the money will not actually go to the foundation, the foundation will merely be the entity distributing the funds to local non-profit organizations. Decisions about which organizations should receive funds will be made by a seven-person committee, made up of three people from the foundation and four people from the city.
This appropriation ordinance originally faced questions at the first reading from council members who were unsure about using city funds for non-profit organizations. At the second reading, however, those council members expressed that their concerns had been allayed by Brown.
One of the biggest appropriation ordinances was for $1 million for the Redevelopment Commission to use for the riverfront district in Marion. Morrell showed some renderings of what some structures in the district may look like.
One of the other biggest appropriations was $1 million for blight elimination. The funds will be used for a few different methods of blight elimination, including addressing blighted structures. Additionally, some of the funds will be used to assist elderly or disabled people who are unable to maintain their yards but do not have the resources to pay a lawn service to mow for them.
The Street Department received $200,000 to redo some of the intersections by the courthouse. Originally, the intersections were asphalt, and the state maintained the roads. Years ago, the city decided to install brick in the intersections instead, with the understanding that it would be responsible for maintenance.
The brick deteriorates more quickly than the asphalt and at this point, the original bricks are no longer in production, meaning any repairs have to be done with bricks that don’t match the others, according to City Engineer Mike Graft.
The Street Department plans to use the funds to remove the brick and return the intersections to asphalt so the state will take over the road maintenance again.
Finally, the Parks Department received $150,000 for park maintenance.
“When I start thinking about quality of life and what the city of Marion has to offer, people’s top one or two will always come up in our parks,” Morrell said. “We have 13 parks in our system, and our team does a great job of taking care of that with the resources they’ve been allocated. But as we’ve learned in previous meetings, there hasn’t been many funds allocated towards them to be able to keep up with the good maintenance even and also to improve.”
The funds will be used for a variety of park maintenance projects, ranging from safety concerns to remediating mold to replacing the Splash House’s sand filter.
All of the ARPA appropriation ordinances had the rules suspended and were passed on the second reading.
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