News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Van Buren County Commission will consider infrastructure improvements through COVID funding on Tuesday.
Mayor Greg Wilson said storm water and HVAC upgrades have been discussed. Wilson said the county wants to mitigate storm water at the old county landfill. Also looking at drainage at other sites.
“The Fair Association Building, our Agricultural Education Center, it’s a new building and we just want to protect it,” Wilson said. “We don’t have great big issues but we just want to make sure that we have that storm water drained in the proper place.”
Wilson said The Ag Education Center is also considered for HVAC upgrades, along with the Burritt College Building and the county library. Wilson said the county is receiving $570,000 in COVID relief this round, and will receive another $570,000 in the spring.
“We have a lot of activities there, agricultural wise, and of course we have the fair there one week a year,” Wilson said. “So we want to make sure that people that attend there are safe as far as the (air) circulation and that’s one of the things that we can use that for.”
Wilson said the county has to be careful and find things that qualify for COVID spending, while also answering real needs in the county. Wilson said the county will also consider spending this allotment of money on more PPE.
“Face masks, hand sanitizer, hand sanitize stations, outfits we can use with our first responders that back up the EMS,” Wilson said. “Within that mitigation we can also do some education programs. Now, most of those will be on ZOOM and we plan on doing that for anybody that requests more information and we’re going to hopefully offer that out in the coming weeks.”
Approval of spending COVID money on these purchases will be on Tuesday night’s county commission agenda.
