Mount Vernon mayor Tom Wieseler and Lisbon city councilman John Bardsley visited the Mount Vernon – Lisbon Chapter of the League of Women Voters on Wednesday, June 26. Wieseler and Bardsley spoke about the two cities’ recent accomplishments, current projects, and future goals.
Recent accomplishments
Recent accomplishments of note for Mount Vernon included changing to a national company for waste management. Wieseler knows there were some growing pains with the change but noted that it was a change they had to make after putting it off for a couple of years.
Mount Vernon has added two public works buildings and are slowly transitioning the public works staff to those buildings. The city also built a new website. It modernized their formerly outdated site.
For both Lisbon and Mount Vernon, they have had a smooth transition in the combining of the police departments. This move allows them to be more efficient in doing the job protecting and enforcing the law.
Lisbon has purchased a new firetruck. The truck will take about 18 more months to be completed and delivered to the town. Bardsley said they ordered it about six months ago, but the company was already starting six months behind schedule. Bardsley noted that it will take a while to come, but they were able to get a much better deal compared to if they were to buy one now.
Current projects
Currently Mount Vernon has a slew of projects they are working to complete. They are working on completing their archives and the transfer of those to an online format. Wieseler said they have many people in the community and people who visit that are interested in learning about the city’s past. Completing these archives will allow for a complete history of the town that is easily accessible.
They are also working on finding solutions to the childcare shortage in Mount Vernon.
“I get comments about how this is not the city’s issue, but I think it needs to be the city’s issue,” Wieseler said, “We’re engaging in it, and we need to address that.”
Wieseler believes the childcare shortage stems from the housing problem in Mount Vernon. He recognizes that there are some gaps in the town’s housing inventory. Specifically, the low amount of entry level housing. Wieseler wants to be able to present affordable housing to citizens so that people who are teachers or city workers can live in the town so they can be a bigger part of the community.
Another big construction project that will be town wide is the installation of radio water meters. This will begin within the next two months and be completed before the end of the calendar year. The water meters will allow homeowners to see if they have a leak. This will help prevent leaks happening without the homeowner’s knowledge and damaging parts of the house or running up their water bill.
Mount Vernon is also in the process of creating a cemetery commission. The commission is responsible for the upkeep of gravesites, as well as being a source for people to go to who are in search of the place where their ancestors are buried.
Lisbon is currently trying to get Business 30 resurfaced. Mount Vernon will try and get the mile that connects Lisbon to the Mount Vernon roundabout completed as a part of the same construction project. There is now a bid on the table that the towns feel is fair, and they hope to get things moving along.
Future aspirations
First Street renovations and parking will be coming in the future. They are actively looking for parking opportunities in the alleys and other spots around uptown. Over the past week, there have been surveyors up and down Highway 1. Wieseler said the DOT plans on resurfacing that road sometime around 2026-27. A potential addition they would want to try and make possible would be to add a trail or sidewalk to make the south side of the town more walkable.
Part of the solution to the housing shortage in Mount Vernon would be adding apartments along the outskirts of the town. These apartments would target specific demographics to fill the holes in the housing inventory previously mentioned.
Wieseler would like to get a food waste system into action to get composting taking off more in the community. He wants to see them team up with restaurants to help limit food waste and dispose of the waste efficiently and ecofriendly.
Through a partnership with Alliant Energy, they would like to create a solar energy farm in the future. Alliant has done one location in southwest Cedar Rapids already. Mount Vernon is on the list of towns Alliant is considering to be the next to get a farm built in Iowa. Wieseler notes that they have space for one in the northwest side of the town, by the railroads. Wieseler believes it would be good for Mount Vernon as they continue to chase their goal of being more sustainable.