City depositing $3.5 million check today, but don't get excited just yet

At last night’s council meeting, during Administration Reports, Mayor Williams announced the city had just received a $3,566,000 check that will be deposited today in the reserve for contingency fund. Why that fund? The mayor said it needs to sit there until he can find out if the funds can be used at the city’s discretion or not.

According to Mayor Williams, this all came about because of something called an urban development action grant that was issued in 1988 for the former Ackmore Properties at Madison and Edwards Road and was then altered in 1993 to Jeffrey R. Anderson Real Estate. Apparently, the first Rookwood project qualified for this government grant. Mayor Williams stated that the developer has made payments at intervals over the years but decided recently to exercise the option to pay it off. Since this particular grant program no longer exists, city officials aren’t sure what, if any, restrictions there are on how the city can use the $3.5 million.

Mayor Williams apologized for not being able to discuss the check until last night, but he said as soon as he knows more, he will share the information and seek ideas from council on how to proceed. No one on council had any questions for the mayor.

9/29/06 Update: Let's not uncross our fingers yet, but according to today's Enquirer article, maybe we can get just a wee bit excited now:

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060929/NEWS01/609290413/1056/NEWS01