Clintonville to apply for another grant
By Bert Lehman
Due to the rising cost to raze the Merc building, the city of Clintonville will apply for a WEDC grant.
The city council approved applying for the grant at its April 13 meeting.
In addition, the council authorized City Administrator Sharon Eveland to sign a contract with Ayes for grant application services for the WECD Site Assessment Grant with the cost not to exceed $6,000. The funds will come from capital contingency.
Eveland said the building has deteriorated rapidly since the last time it was evaluated, which was the beginning of the year. In a recent review, it was discovered that there could potentially be some environmental contamination underneath the building.
Eveland said the city would like to apply for a WEDC Site Assessment Grant, which will help cover some of the costs for the demolition. The grant would be for up to $150,000.
“There is a very, very strong potential that between the CDBG grant and the site grant, there would be no cost to the city out-of-pocket,” Eveland said. “With the exception of these funds that are for the grant application, which would not be covered by either grant.”
Eveland added that the city is looking at a higher-than-expected cost to demolish the building because of the exponential deterioration of the building.
“The longer we wait on this, the worse it’s going to get,” she said. “But the costs have gotten a lot higher than we anticipated.”
Eveland said she and Caz Muske, public works director and assistant city administrator, are concerned about the city taking on this grant application internally because of the many other projects that city staff is working on.
“This could be a good thing for the city to make this happen, we have to get the building down one way or another, and it’s going to cost us more than we have in CDBG funds,” Eveland said.
Ald. Ben Huber said it’s not good that the city has to do this, but he doesn’t see any other options.
Council President and acting Mayor Mike Hankins told the council that the Finance Committee reviewed this issue and recommended to proceed with hiring out the grant application process.
“This is not something that we want to do, but this has been hanging and it’s only getting worse, so we feel we really got to do something about it and get moving on it,” Hankins said. “It’s going to get worse if we don’t do something about it soon.”
Merc building purchase
The council also approved a memorandum of understanding with Waupaca County to purchase the parcel where the Merc building is located.
Eveland said that the property, at 19 South Main St.,, has about six years of back taxes owed on it. Waupaca County did receive a judgement in early April to foreclose on the property for back taxes. The county also secured $20,000 from the property owners, leaving a balance of about $35,000.
The city would pay Waupaca County $10,000 for the property, and be responsible for all demolition expenses.
Eveland added that the memorandum was written in a way that if there is sufficient funding from the grant to make the county “whole” on the back taxes, that the city would do so. That said, the city would not be obligated to pay anything above and beyond $10,000 from funds other than grant funds.
The city cannot officially sign the agreement and take ownership of the property until certain CDBG requirements are completed.