Glass negatives from Florida have arrived in Mount Vernon, thanks to help from the Willems’ family following their recent vacation.
Sue Astley, Mount Vernon Historic Preservation Commission chair, said the commission will be working at cleaning up some of the negatives and transitioning them into proper archival materials in the near future.
“We don’t want to handle these glass negatives any more than we need to, but some of them are not in good shape,” Astley said.
The photos on those negatives will be printed and digitized by a company in Cedar Rapids in the future as well, with a cost of roughly $1,000.
The commission is also receiving some materials from former Civil War veterans from the Mount Vernon community.
The niece of one of those veterans now resides in Colorado and wants to transfer some scrapbooks, newspaper articles and other material related to these Civil War veterans back to a historic commission.
“These may be materials that should be kept at The History Center in Cedar Rapids or potentially not handled too often, available only on request,” Astley said.
Downspouts
and guttersThe commission approved a certificate of no appropriate effect for a property having gutter and downspout work replaced for a home in the Ash Park District.
Discussion by the commission was if downspouts and gutters were an item that needed a full design review, as they are portions of most houses that can be improved with no effect to a building.
“If there is other work, to items like the soffet or fascia, it makes sense to have an application to see the scope of the work being completed, but if there’s no other work than the gutters, it seems like it shouldn’t be necessary,” Astley said.
Other commission members recommended that it could be simple for one person to review and make sure that the project doesn’t need to come before the commission.
Guidelines for
new construction The commission also continued work on the guidelines for new construction within the historical district. Members are reviewing guidelines pursuant to that and will continue discussions at future meetings. There is not a rush on completing the guidelines at the moment.