The Frankfort City Council approved a resolution Monday night so that the Utility Service Board can purchase the former Regions Bank satellite office building in the Frankfort Plaza so it can become the new home for the Utility Billing Office in the next couple of months.
“The council feels this is a good move and I support this move,” said Frankfort Mayor Chris McBarnes. “I think it’ll be a better customer service situation with the drive through window.”
On October 15, the USB announced they had purchased the former Regions building for $175,000.
Now the question becomes what happens to the current Utility Billing Office building downtown.
“It’s a beautiful building and it’s got a lot of architectural features that make it magnificent,” said McBarnes. “We want to partner with the Chamber of Commerce, with our Redevelopment Commission and work hard to market that building to hopefully get a great commercial business that will compliment the rest of quality of place initiatives in our historic downtown.”
The council also embarked on a new venture at had four different not-for-profit organizations make presentations to the council about their funding needs for the remainder of this year and 2019. Those four organizations were the Clinton County Boys and Girls Club, Healthy Communities of Clinton County Coalition, JET’s Services and the Paul Phillippe Resource Center.
The city had $25,000 remaining in this new budget item for this year and bumped that to $30,000 for 2019. They elected to spend the remaining funds for this year as they gave $15,000 to the Boys and Girls Club to replace their HVAC system to give better heating and cooling to their building as well as giving $10,000 to Healthy Communities for more grant writing opportunities.
However, those four agencies are already asking more funds than what is available for next year.
“The 2019 process is going to be a little harder because we have considerably more requests than we have available funds,” said Councilman Eric Woods. “We’re all going to come back with recommendations at our next meeting.”
Woods added he is in favor of this new way of dealing with the not-for-profits.
“We are taking control through the council how much money we give the non profits,” he said. “This way we can prioritize this and give appropriately.”
Right now, there is around $48,000 being requested by the four non-profits for next year.
The council also passed an ordinance on second reading authorizing the entering into of a conditional project expenditure agreement of the City of Frankfort for the IU Health Hospital project. This measure faces one more vote at the council’s next meeting, which has been moved to Tuesday, November 13, at 7 p.m. because of the Veterans Day holiday.
The meeting was also the final one for Councilwoman Wanda Mitchell, who is leaving the council after serving five years.
“I work at the county and my job is appointed,” said Mitchell. “There is going to be a new person in my position. An opening came up at the city. I can’t be on the city council and work for the city. So, I had to make a choice and I resigned my city council seat.”
Mitchell said she is thrilled with the way things are going in the community.
“I am so proud of this community,” she said. “I’m so proud of the City Council, County Council and the Commissioners. With the city police station going up, the potential hospital, the potential renovation of our new pool being discussed, Prairie Creek Park, we have so much going on. I couldn’t be more excited to be a part of this.”