The Monticello City Council approved an increase in city water rates at Thursday evening meeting.

Water rates will increase by 3%, except for the minimum usage bills, which will increase by 50 cents  per month.

U.S. Representative Mike Ross met with representatives of Drew County’s “Twenty for the Future” group in his Washington, D.C., office Wednesday, during their visit to the nation’s capital to meet with federal legislators.

Ross, as well as our other elected Washington delegation members, met with the group to discuss Monticello and Drew County’s economic challenges and needs and how best to facilitate economic growth in the region.

Items on the agenda to be covered included:
University of Arkansas at Monticello, for funding of projects for the Arkansas Forest Resources Center, the School of Nursing, and to replace the university’s current phone system.
Drew Memorial Hospital intended to request funding for an electronic medical records system, a nurse call system, a digital mammogram machine, a 64-slice tomography scanner, and a telemetry system for the E.R.
The City of Monticello planned to point out the  benefits of a potential Monticello community center.
Other topics to be discussed were: I-530, the Southeast Arkansas Regional Library to build a new library the local Intermodal Facility, and nearby Yellow Bend Port.

Meeting were held Wednesday, and the group is returning to Monticello, today.

The Monticello City Council discussed an ordinance at their regular monthly meeting that will require citizens to clean their property and require a certain procedure to be followed. After much debate, the council decided that grass should remain below 12” and that if it exceeds 12”, they could require the owner of the land to clean it up.

City Council is considering exempting undeveloped land from the ordinance, but as it stands right now, all property is included. If the council exempts undeveloped land, landowners must still keep trash off that land. They are trying to clean up the city and keep it looking clean.

The ordinance was approved with only Clifton Bond objecting.  Bond decided to clarify his reason for opposing the ordinance by stating that he is not against cleaning up the city, but he doesn’t “think this is the right way to go about it.”

The council also approved a resolution to authorize the mayor to apply for a grant from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, approved a resolution to accept the contract for the MEDC, approved a resolution to accept the contract for the Chamber of Commerce, and approved a resolution to accept the contract for the Boys & Girls Club.

MEDC president Benji Ryburn announced at the Monticello City Council meeting Thursday night that the Ridgeway Hotel project has been approved by the Arkansas Development Finance Authority to receive $5.4 million in funding.

The city agreed several months ago to provide up to $32,000 in sidewalk and lighting improvements to the area, which will house the Ridgeway’s 32 elderly, low income residential units.

The project is expect to have much better benefits from exchange tax credits, than have been available recently.

Ryburn received an e-mail shortly before the meeting, and expects all of the details to become official in a month, when the actual letter arrives.

The Drew County Housing Authority has agreed to provide gap funding, if needed, up to $500,000.

“The Ridgeway” was added to the National Registry of Historic Places in February. (more…)

MEDC director Truman Hamilton met with the Monticello City Council, Thursday night, for their planned committee meeting to discuss the process of dealing with properties that have been reported to be run down and/or abondoned.

After the meeting, MonticelloLive asked each of the eight council members if they were in favor of proceeding with the process of dealing with potentially “nuisance properties”, as explained by Hamilton.  The only council member who stated that he was opposed to the measures was Judge Clifton Bond.  All others stated that they were in favor of proceeding with the 9 steps, as they were described in the meeting.

Hamilton presented the following list to the group, outlining the order in which events are to take place in the process of dealing with the property owners of those potentially “nuisance properties.” (more…)

The city council met Tuesday night for several special committee meetings. The first meeting was for the Fire Department Committee. The council met to discuss locations for a new fire department. Fire Chief Steven Faulkner presented the committee with maps and drawings of possible locations for the new fire department, and what the mile and a half response time area would be for those locations.

Alderman Tim Chase stated that he believed that if the council was going to build a new fire department, they needed to renovate and maintain the central location, and build a fourth one in another location. Alderman Beverly Hudson stated that while that would be ideal, it would cost more money to do that.

The committee decided to meet again in December to discuss the future location of the fire department.

Beverly Hudson lead a debate last Thursday during the regular city council meeting on condemning buildings for city clean ups. She opened the topic by showing pictures taken by Truman Hamilton depicting the old, abandoned buildings. Hudson wanted the council to enforce the ordinance already in place that states that if the council deems a building to be a nuisance they can condemn it and ask the owner to tear it down and clean it up, or if the owner refuses, the city can take down the building. (more…)

Just before 10 o’clock, Friday night, Jim Metzger, of Washougal, WA, was attempting to land his Flight Commander aircraft at the Monticello Airport, when the plane struck a deer in the run way. (more…)

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