Holidays and Celebrations

November 27, 2017

I hope everyone was able to have a nice thanksgiving celebration with his or her family this past week. Thanksgiving marks the start of our traditional holiday season and the season of giving. While many of us are focused on that perfect gift for someone special, we too often forget to consider the needs of our community and those outside our immediate circle. While donating to a charity, or volunteering are obvious ways to help another very important way to help others this holiday season is often overlooked. This time of year the local blood banks are dangerously low on fresh blood and you could literally save a life by donating a unit of blood over the holiday season. This simple gift could literally be the difference between life and death for someone, so please consider adding this special gift to your holiday tradition.

Fifth Street:
During the last City Council meeting the council asked our engineer to look at the options available for adding a pedestrian path to Fifth Street. Our engineer was going to look at a trail on the south side for safety reasons, look at a trail on the north side for cost considerations and any option where the road surface could be shifted. The initial design phase for any significant project is to look at all options, get a scope of work for each and fully understand the various implications of each proposal. Many of my neighbors have expressed their thoughts on this project and we will defiantly take those concerns into consideration when selecting the most appropriate option based on cost, feasibility and safety. I did want to share with you that while we are looking at all options your input and concerns are also an important consideration when making a final project plans. Once we have more detail from our engineer I will post an update on how the project is proceeding and the option that the council feels is most appropriate.

Grant Money:
The City was notified a few months ago of the preliminary allocation of grant money and loan funding options available for the Mantorville Waste Water Treatment Plant project. After the initial notification we were told that an official letter would be sent to the City to confirm those funds and the exact dollar amount. While I really wanted to share the news as soon as we received the unofficial notice, I thought it was more prudent to wait for the formal letter. Two weeks ago we did receive the official letter that notified the City of a grant for our project in the amount of $1.8M with an additional PFA loan amount of $469K at 1% interest. This is very good news for the citizens of Mantorville. I will post the entire letter to my blog.

Kiwanis Club:
There is a new Kiwanis club forming in Kasson Mantorville.  According to the Kiwanis web site (www.kiwanis.org) the focus of the organization is:
“Kiwanis helps kids around the world. Local clubs look out for our communities and the international organization takes on large-scale challenges, such as fighting disease and poverty. We are generous with our time. We are creative with our ideas. We are passionate about making a difference. And we have fun along the way.”
The club is still accepting applications for the charter members of our communities club. Anyone interested in joining this club and helping the younger generation within our community is encouraged to contact Randy Schmidt at RSchmidt.Kiwanis@GMail.com

Yours in Service,

Chuck Bradford
Mayor, City of Mantorville
MayorBradford.BlogSpot.com