By Jason Crane
The third remote Montgomery Village Board meeting Monday included doubling the Montgomery Development Fund program cap of $100,000 to $200,000. The program designed to help businesses in Montgomery affected by COVID-19 has a deadline date for applications of May 31.
The Montgomery Development Fund Program – Small Business COVID-19 grants are for businesses in Montgomery under the following conditions: Each business must produce documentation of the payment of payroll, rent or mortgage, utilities, inventory (not including liquor) or other like operational expenses within 90 days of receipt of the grant funds. Without said documentation, grant funds should be returned.
At the Board meeting Monday, the following 23 businesses in Montgomery each was approved for a $5,000 grant:
Clay’s Auto Repair Service, Poor Boys Restaurant & Pub, Dairy Queen, George’s Family Restaurant, The Exhaust Works, Inc, Colonial Remodeling, Barker Enterprises Inc., Stephanie’s Academy of Dance, Brian and Sons, Inc, Planet Fitness, Vesco Reprographic, Grandma’s Table Restaurant, Engineering Answers, Atrevete Confections, Inc, Watson Insurance Agency, Inc, West Suburban Dental Care, Probst Services, Inc, Montgomery Chiropractic Clinic, Artistic Hair Design of Montgomery, Inc, Kur Realty, Inc, Built Rite Construction LLC, JStott, LLC, Irigoyen Corp..
The program has been established in order to assist private for-profit small businesses considered non-essential or essential with working capital funding. Each business making application for this grant must have a physical site in the Village, have at least one full-time employee, but must not exceed 50 employees, and must have been in business for at least one year.
• Unanimously approved was a Public Works Space Needs Analysis from Williams Architects for $24,500, plus specialized assistance of $9,600 from Whitman Requardt Associates (WRA), a nationally-recognized expert in the master planning of Public Works Facilities.
The analysis is projected to take approximately 90 days and will include the following: Overview and project kick-off; staff, vehicle, and equipment projections; space programming and connections; conceptual development; preliminary layout and design; presentation to Village Board.
Should the Board wish to proceed at that time, the following steps would take 24 to 30 months for completion of the new building.
• Unanimously approved was the purchase of a six-inch water pump for Public Works to have on hand for future needs.
The Village of Montgomery Public Works Department is responsible for multiple utilities throughout the Village and unincorporated Boulder Hill. One of those major utilities is storm sewers and monitoring of the Fox River, Waubonsee Creek, and Blackberry Creek.
As part of maintaining and repairing the storm sewer system and handling events when flooding occurs, Public Works is called on to resolve those issues.
In some cases, pumping of water to avoid flooding properties is needed. In the past for these events, Public Works had to rent a large pump and hoses to alleviate flooding by diverting water away from homes and properties.
The Village obtained three prices from vendors for a six-inch pump and is recommending purchasing the pump from Five Star Equipment Rental & Supply for a cost of $29,770. Five Star Equipment Rental & Supply is the lowest quote received. This purchase is budgeted for fiscal year 2021 from the vehicle and equipment reserve fund (221-1540-560-74-01) and will be under the budgeted amount of $30,000.
• Unanimously approved was a resolution authorizing an intergovernmental agreement with the Fox Valley Park District for a bike path near Stuart Sports Complex. The agreement outlines the construction and maintenance responsibilities with regard to the installation of certain portions of the bicycle path.