MOUNT VERNON — Mayor Richard Mavis said the city will be receiving money from the Ohio EPA .
“Yesterday we received a call from the Ohio EPA, Division of finance, telling us we would be awarded $100,000 for our methane boiler at the wastewater treatment plant,” he said. “We generate methane gas at the plant and we’ve had a boiler there [powered by the methane] we used to heat the plant. It wore out and we put in a request to replace the boiler. Apparently, because it was a renewable energy project, this one was picked out [for approval].”
Of all the projects submitted by the city, the boiler project was the only one approved.
Mavis also said the city was investigating whether the methane produced as a by-product of the sewage treatment could be put to uses in addition to running the boiler at the plant.
“Methane has been on our radar for the last few years,” he added.
Mavis said that of the $100 million of stimulus money for public works, $3.677 million would be distributed to the six-county District 17, which includes Knox County.
“The way that would work,” he explained, “is they are going to give us an opportunity to submit proposals for transportation projects. In this case the money is only for transportation projects, not for capital improvement projects. [Friday] our district set the date of June 5 for the opportunity to submit projects for this money.
“The governor has asked that these projects be submitted no later than Aug. 14. So if they are submitted on June 5 they will be reviewed and scored and approved sometime in early August. These will be shovel-ready projects.”
Two Mount Vernon citizens recently filed police brutality charges against four Mount Vernon police officers. Although Mavis did not have specific comments on the cases, he did outline the city’s reaction to these and any other similar cases.
“We’ve had discussions about this,” Mavis said. “Our procedure would be to talk to the chief about this and to have him review the incidents and get back to us with his findings.”
The two cases are against the individual officers and do not involve the city of Mount Vernon nor the Mount Vernon Police department.
In other news:
•Elite Excavation was awarded the contract for the Vernonview/Wooster Road water service project. Elite’s bid was $364,000, considerably under the estimate of $500,000. Elite was one of 13 bidders and is based in Mansfield.
•The city is looking into the possibility of moving the crosswalk across West High Street from Riverside Park to the Corner Shack, formerly Eloise’s Restaurant.
