West Liberty City Council approved some matching funds grants from the city’s economic development fund at their meeting last Tuesday.
The first grant approved was for $25,000 for the West Liberty Locker and Processing located at 3501 Freedom Street.
WeLead Executive Director Ken Brooks said the meat locker submitted a grant to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and were successful. They doubled the size of their shop, which will allow them to get certified to sell products there and at local businesses.
“Oh, I didn’t realize that,” West Liberty Mayor Ethan Anderson said.
The grant from USDA and funds from the business allowed for work to be done inside, Brooks added.
“We are respectfully requesting the city allocate some dollars to help clean up the outside,” Brooks said.
The money from the economic development matching funds would help meat locker extend the covered porch to the new edition and for new from doors to be installed, he added.
The second approval was for SGA Construction owned by Travis Shield for the new building going up at 1011 North Columbus Street.
“As a reminder, Travis Shield and SGA Construction are putting in a commercial space and two ADA compliant apartments on the ground floor and then three three-bedroom apartments on the second floor,” Brooks told city council.
State financing was awarded to Shield for the project from IEDA (Iowa Economic Development Authority) he added. This was because the city entered into a development agreement and pledged $25,000 to the project. The money is going toward installing drywall inside the different units in the building.
City Manager Lee Geertz told the city council she recommended they approve this request.
"There’s $100,000 set aside I believe for this type of grant for each fiscal year,” Anderson said. “Where does this put the city for our fiscal year?”
“This will be our last application for this fiscal year,” Brooks replied. “And it will be just under $100,000.”
The final request approved was a request for reimbursement for work done to the exterior of the building where West Elle Salon and Boutique located at 105 West Third Street.
“It looks so nice and so classy,” City councilmember Ashley Smith said.
“It does,” Geertz added. “It looks very classy and it by far exceeded my expectations with the work that could be done with that. They did an excellent job.”
The amount approved was for $25,000.
Other items covered by city council included:
• approving the sale of the 2011 Chevy Caprice from the West Liberty Police Department for $4,500;
• approving a resolution to transfer funds for the 2022-23 fiscal year;
• and approved a pay estimate for All American Concrete in the amount of $84,982.63 for the Rainbow Drive/Maxson Street construction project.