City approves $25,000 grant to purchase Verizon building at corner of Water and Walnut

The Pinckneyville City Council unanimously approved a $25,000 grant to Martin Rentals LLC to purchase the building on the southwest corner of Walnut and Water Streets which currently houses Verizon. Mike and Jennifer Martin will purchase the building for $159,000 with a 20 percent down payment then do about $15,000 worth of improvements. They have a two-year commitment from Verizon to continue renting the space. Jennifer Martin will then open a Farmer's Insurance office in the remaining space in the building.

In other business, the council:

• agreed to begin the process of hiring a full-time police officer and a part-time police officer. The full-time officer will replace Gary Remer who died last week. Commissioner Kevin Hicks said the part-time officer is needed because the another full-time officer is on medical leave.

• passed a resolution authorizing the acceptance of bids for park maintenance. Jim Boyd has held the contract for the past several years. Commissioner David Stone said he will not renew his contract when it expires March 31.

• voted to renew the accounting software client care agreement with Zobrio for support services for Blackbaud Fund Ware for a year at a cost of $2,995.

• approved spending $8,390 to remove, service, rebuild and reinstall a high service pump and a low lift pump at the water treatment plant. The high-service pump is one of three that supplies water to the water towers. The low-lift pump is one of three that supply water to storage tanks.

• approved the IDOT Motor Fuel Tax funds audit for the city for 2012.

• granted permission for the Pinckneyyville Optimist Club to collect funds around the four-way stop and the square on Saturday, May 23 from 7 to 11 a.m.

• granted permission for TLC of Southern and Central Illinois to collect funds around the four-way stop and the square on Saturday, May 2.

• heard from Commissioner Sam Fulk that bids on the square lighting project will be opened Feb. 17. He hopes to award the bids in March. The completion date for the project has been moved to July 31.

• heard a presentation from David Searby and Amanda Damptz of SIU Natural Hazards Research and Mitigation Group. Perry County Emergency Management Agency has received a grant to update their 2009 multihazard mitigation program. Searby said that all of the local municipalities have agreed to participate and will be eligible to use the plan created to apply for hazard mitigation grants on their own. The first step was to rank the hazards faced by Perry County. Several different groups worked on the ranking and agreed that tornadoes are the top hazard in Perry County and each of their jurisdictions. Other hazards include hazardous materials spills, strong storms, winter storms, earthquakes, flooding and ground failure.The remaining hazards were ranked differently by different participating agencies. Damptz said the varied rankings are fine. Informational meetings were held in the local municipalities to let the public know about the grant. The next step is to meet and work on mitigation strategies. That meeting will take place in two or three months. The completed plan will be submitted to FEMA in June. Once FEMA has received the plan, the participating municipalities can apply for FEMA grants to work on mitigating hazards as defined by the plan. The municipalities would be responsible for matching funds for those grants. Perry County is responsible for the matching portion of the hazard mitigation plan upgrade grant. Damptz said that the meetings allow Perry County to use 'sweat equity' as their matching portion of the grant.