Suzette Astley, president of Mount Vernon Historic Preservation Commission, delivered a list of the accomplishments of the group in the past calendar year. MVHPC is required to give an annual report to the city council each year.
Astley said the group has completed 13 design reviews this year, which is slightly down from the COVID pandemic time frame.
The group has also held a few public education events this year on topics related to historic preservation.
They have also sent materials about owning a home in historic districts to current residents in historic districts, and worked to get that information to people who purchase a home in the historic district.
Astley said they have had fewer items posted online or on the Facebook page because they have been busy on other projects this year.
Three of those larger projects include the work that went into staging and producing the play “Treasure: A History of Mount Vernon,” the improvements to the Visitors Center and work on the demolition ordinance.
The Visitors Center work pertains to utilizing grants to help do some work to the building requested by Main Street Iowa as needed. That work on cleaning the masonry and doing specific tuckpointing to he building will take place this spring.
In the demolition ordinance, it was finishing up the required work for the demolition ordinance established by the city and cleaning up language for the historic preservation commission to be able to utilize that.
“We were able to walk through the application process on that with Jordan Smith’s home in our old historic district that was damaged by fire,” Astley said.
A full report will be available for the council at next month’s meeting, but the recap to council on highlights was needed before the end of the month.