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Town board lists 2025 priorities and flags ARC grant delay until May
Summary
Board members reviewed a 2024 accomplishments list, prioritized smaller 2025 projects (village hall collaboration, pool work, emergency planning) and reported that an ARC grant award remains administratively delayed; the town was asked not to incur costs until May.
The town board reviewed its accomplishments from 2024 and agreed to focus on smaller, actionable projects in 2025, including continued work on a joint Village Hall effort and phased steps on the community swimming pool.
"Christina said everything's good" during the audit update and presented a list of accomplishments the board could publish. Members emphasized breaking large efforts into smaller tasks so work could proceed incrementally instead of all at once.
A board member reported that the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) grant the town expected appears to be awarded but remains administratively uncertain. The town was asked by the federal grant office not to start the project timeline or incur costs until May, which will push back early work on the grant-funded components. The board understood the delay and discussed how it affects planned community engagement, including focus groups for the comprehensive plan.
Board members also identified several other priorities for 2025: getting municipal codes online to make them searchable and user-friendly, exploring cloud permitting for building and dog-license transactions, improving public communications, and drafting modest emergency-response roles such as warming-center protocols for short outages or extreme cold. Josh said he would pursue code options and the clerk will gather information on permitting software and communications platforms.
The meeting closed the discussion by assigning follow-up tasks and confirming the board had a working foundation of projects for the coming months.
The board did not take final action on the ARC grant (the federal timeline restriction remains); members said they will return with more information after May when the grant recipient status is formally confirmed.
