Grantsville Town council met on Tuesday, September 5th, 2023, for their regularly scheduled meeting with all council members present: Cheryl Sturm, Linda Staton, Emilee Morgan, William Villers and Kimberly Sweat, as well as Recorder Judy Powell and Mayor Robert Petrovsky,
The vast majority of the night’s meeting was spent in discussion of the recent light-post project which gained momentum on Social Media when Crystal Mersh, President of The 1982 Foundation, mentioned how beautiful the City would look with the Lantern style lights throughout Main Street. Nobody would have guessed how many would have agreed and were willing to pony up the cash! Over $60,000 was pledged to light the town in all the romance of a Hallmark Movie. The issue is, the expense to be incurred is not just the cost of the light posts, a matter of great concern for Mayor Robert Petrovsky.
Mayor Petrovsky explained that he first heard about the project while on vacation, when he was told that Mrs. Mersh had 10 light posts pledged. But suddenly the project got quite large and the expense of installation became a concern; would the lights be electric or solar, would sidewalk bores be necessary, and what about the cost of maintaining the lights.
Mrs. Mersh assured the Mayor that she wasn’t expecting the community response being so vast either, and that she was simply trying to be of service to her community. She’ll be speaking with her contractors on Wednesday for their opinions on the best laid plans for installation. She further stated that it was her hopes that the City and the Community would take this project forward. She further stated, “We have $10-12 Thousand that can be used for installation. First, don’t under or over react, If we can make the project work we will, if not we’ll tell the people we can’t.”
The Mayor and Council brought up a previous project, Streetscapes, which was offering grants for communities to enhance beauty and safety. However the grant needed matching funding to the tune of $78,000, at which time the Mayor declined the additional grant funding due to the city’s inability to come up with the match. When the group visited Calhoun to discuss Streetscape projects, Councilwoman Cheryl Sturms said that the council spent four hours with the group, discussing what they’d like to see accomplished, but their requests were overlooked and Streetscapes instead did a project for the Calhoun Courthouse and handicap access on areas seldom used.
Mayor Petrovsky invited Ed Casto of Alpha and Omega Lighting of Ripley, West Virginia to weigh in on the project. Although short notice prevented him time to give great detail, he did express the concern of electric installation that required deconstruction of sidewalks and boring beneath as well as a risk of unknown lines in the area being hit and causing more issues.
The Mayor noted that the city is still recovering from thousands of dollars that was spent when the gas company hit lines over the summer on a their project in town, and any added expense could be detrimental to the city budget.
Crystal Mersh continued to encourage the town to have “skin in the game,” and said that for now she would put the project on pause, in hopes that the someone on the city’s side would make the project their own. Her hope was that this project would be another added part of the design to make Grantsville a day trip area and increase tourism. The Mayor and Council alike were in a agreement that the citizens in the area were ready to see Grantsville come back to life with the good outpouring they’ve had on projects such as the Grantsville Recreational park.
The initial costs of the Lights would be $600-800 pole and can go as high as $1000, plus installation. To bring Grantsville back to life will take an investment of not only money, but time and commitment by the community.
Councilwomen Linda Staton and Cheryl Sturms were acknowledged for their help in getting contributions for the improvements at the Grantsville Recreational Park totaling $15,492.99 which had been put into a separate account for the Park only. Contributions from both private citizens and businesses had been “phenomenal” in the words of the Mayor. Future noteworthy events at the park will be the farmer’s market booths using it next summer to sell their produce and Minnie Hamilton Health Center seeing about the viability of Health Net using the park for a temporary Helicopter landing site while construction is happening at their facility.
The next fundraiser for Grantsville will be on Saturday as the City hosts a Kayak Poker Run.
Crystal Mersh encouraged the Mayor to join her at the Calhoun Community Center as she welcomes Roger Hanshaw, Gail Manchin and representatives from both U.S. Senators offices to view the progress on The 1982 Foundation’s work.
Jake Frady, of the Mid Ohio Valley Regional Development council informed the Mayor and Council that they are now on the final design of the sewer project, and that the $5 million water project that had been planned was now looking for other funding following the fall through of the Army Corp of Engineer funding. His final request from the council was an extension and draw on the Rainbow Hotel project. The extension to December 31st, 2023 was necessary to complete the paper work required for the Rainbow Hotel project. The amount of $8,937 was requested as a draw on the Rainbow project funding to cover administrative work completed by MOVRC, all of which was voted and approved by the council
After the payment of bills the meeting was adjourned at 7:05 p.m.
