Cerro Gordo $730,000 Water Project in the Works

By CHRISTY JANKOWSKI
Staff Writer

As mentioned previously, Cerro Gordo is working with Fehr Graham on another water project. This one was approved by the IEPA with 50 percent loan forgiveness, so in total the village will only be responsible for $365,000.

Tim Overmyer, Engineer with Fehr Graham stated the payment each year should be around $14,000. The loan he stated is somewhere around 1 percent. The only thing left before the construction part of the project is to put the project out for public notice. “Lot of things that are gonna happen that need signatures.”

It was suggested to “motion to authorize the mayor in closed to execute the required documents up to $740,000 of approximately $370,000 with 1 percent according to the due dates described permits which verdicts proceed the signed note of intent.”

Trustee Joe Frydenger asked, “ I don’t know the numbers that well if we are scraping by to do all this or whether we are going to be able to afford this. And another question is what other things in the future that we are also gonna have to take care of?”

To which Trustee Aaron Weldy responded, “we have several…been working on this for a long time,” Village Clerk Tina McCarty added, “we already set ourselves up to pay this by 3% every year.” Meaning the water bill increase of 3%.

Mayor Linda Ash responded, “And it’s true, we are just like any community we are gonna have to tighten our belts a little bit, because COVID has affected a lot of things, along with our tax money coming in.” Adding, “We can’t go willy nilly…we will have to watch what we purchase or do in years to come, but I think water lines and getting water to our people is pretty important.”

The village also purchased a utility trailer at a cost of $2,000.