The City of Mount Vernon will be publishing a list of accomplishments the city has accomplished over the past six years.
City administrator Chris Nosbisch was creating the report to highlight some of the major accomplishments of the city council since 2016.
Over that span of six years, Mount Vernon has made more than $22.24 million in Capital Expenditures within the city on a vast number of projects. Those include purchases of police vehicles, the Lester Buresh Family Community Wellness Center, phase I of wastewater improvements, a purchase of a new fire engine, the First Street overlay project from Third Avenue to western city limits, road improvements to Fifth Avenue and Third Avenue Northwest and the construction of Hilltop Pocket Park in Mount Vernon.
There are also a number of Capital Improvement Projects slated for the next year or two to be completed, including police station renovations, radio read water meter replacements, Davis Park upgrades, cold storage facilities for public works, sewer repair work, phase II sewer plant repair projects, Fifth Avenue water main replacement and Hwy. 1 and Business 30 roundabouts.
Nosbisch noted that while the city has invested $22.24 million in Capital Improvement in six years, the city doesn’t pull more than $2 million in revenues on an annual basis. Many of the improvements have been made due to grants or donations the city has received.
Another of the accomplishments for the city has been the increase in valuation from $248,160,552 in 2016 to $327,813,943 in fiscal year 2022, a jump of $79,653,391 in new value for the community.
Some of the big accomplishments to the growth of value in the community include the Stonebrook Subdivision, Spring Meadow Heights Subdivision, Hwy. 30 bypass plan, jurisdiction of Business 30, solar conversion projects for Mount Vernon Police Department, Mount Vernon City Hall and Lester Buresh Family Community Wellness Center, the pool feasibility study and the sidewalk inspection and repair program and grants from a number of competitions that have awarded more than $1.2 million.
The city has also made changes to a number of the ordinances over the past six years.
The council recommended some minor changes to the format for Nosbisch to make before making the report final for the city website and available at Maount Vernon City Hall.
“It’s so easy for us as council members to make decisions two times a month and lose sight of the bigger picture of what those decisions have accomplished,” said council member Scott Rose. “Seeing the level of growth and accomplishments for the city in the past six years is huge to see.”
Nosbisch noted the COVID-19 pandemic and derecho were huge transformative events that impacted the city during that six-year timespan as well. The derecho amounted to more than $600,000 damage related expenses to FEMA for the city, and COVID-19 required shuttering of some businesses in Mount Vernon for a month at a time and distribution of more than $100,000 for small business relief programs.