Daniel Prince
Mar 8, 2023
Police department is applying for grants for equipment
At last night’s meeting of the Jonesville Town Council, Angela Kirkpatrick with the Catawba Regional Council of Governments led a public hearing on the annual Community Needs Assessment. Each local government is required to keep and update its list each year in order to be eligible for Community Development Block Grant funding. The list mostly stayed the same from last year, with the top three priorities being the regional sewer project with the City of Union, cleaning the Wellington Mill site, and the Main Street streetscape project. All these projects are ongoing and will include multiple phases. The council decided to move upgrades to the auditorium for public and community activities up from #7 to #4 on the list. Council member Preston Bennett stated he was afraid if it was not a higher priority on the list, work on it may never get done, and they may not have an auditorium to upgrade in the future. One item will be added to the list, as Kirkpatrick said the COG has a brownfield grant that will help pay for phase 1 and phase 2 environmental studies for smaller publicly or privately owned brownfield sites that may be contaminated and need cleanup. The full list as amended will be presented and adopted at a future meeting.
Joann Rice addressed the council, saying a gully behind her house has been used for dumping wood and brush in the past with her permission, but now it is being abused, with people leaving couches, paper, mattresses, clothes, and more. She said she doesn’t want anyone dumping anything there anymore. Mayor Moore stated it is a state road, and he said he will reach out to the DOT and see if a guardrail could be placed there to limit people’s access to be able to back up to the site. They will also place a couple of no dumping signs in the area and possibly increase police presence in that area at night to try and deter people from dumping things there.
According to Lee Chambers with the Jonesville Police Department, the department has applied for a grant for body armor and an automated external defibrillator for the office. He said they are eligible to pursue a grant for body-worn cameras. He said Chief Jennings met with the Municipal Association to go over updated policies, and one change is that they have to keep a brochure in the office lobby that details how to file a complaint against the police department.
In the Public Works Department report, Administrator Michael Tyler said things were going well with water and sewer. He said they found a regular 1500 truck for use with the street department, and they were able to get the top light and a hitch installed. It will get a spray-in bedliner next week, and it will be ready to use. Tyler said there is not much to update on the regional sewer project, but that the town and the city are preparing to apply to a lot of different pots of money in case they don’t get one of the grants they are seeking. He said the city is forming a backup plan on what can be done if they don’t get the funding, so that at least part of the project can get started.
We’ll have more from the meeting in a future newscast.