WLKM Radio 95.9 FM
Downtown-improvement projects in Constantine and Sturgis got a boost Tuesday, as both received $100,000 from the county’s board of commissioners.
The two municipalities were issued the grants from a special DDA fund the county set up a few years ago to support local economic-development projects. County administrator Pat Yoder said the projects were scrutinized and deemed eligible for the funds.
Constantine Village Manager Mark Honeysett and the village’s DDA director Diana Lammott last week told commissioners during their executive committee meeting that the grant money would allow Constantine to restore several downtown buildings.
The funds will be re-distributed to prospective recipients whose proposed projects qualify for DDA funding, Lammott added.
Meanwhile, Sturgis City Manager Mike Hughes said the $100,000 will supplement a project that includes a walkway behind a row of buildings on the north side of Chicago Street between North Street and North Nottawa Street. The overall project is projected to cost about $600,000, so the county’s grant will cover a considerable portion of the overall cost, Hughes said afterward.
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So just whose buildings are the taxpayers restoring? The village doesn’t own any downtown building, but the so-called incubator which hasn’t been, and hardly ever was, that. A franchise insurance salesman has become ensconced in the bottom and the upstairs apartment was laid waste because the management didn’t know how to be responsible landlords.
Why aren’t all the folks that freaked out about a meaningless and unenforceable gun resolution showing up to complain about private business getting $100,000 of their tax dollars as corporate welfare?