Winchester Council approves lighting for library

By Editor | March 9, 2022 |

By Carmen Ensinger

Winchester City Council almost always begins with a work report from Benton and Associates representative Greg Hillis, who, most recently has been reporting on the progress being made at the Winchester Library.

However, with the cold weather, that progress stalled during the month of February. Therefore, no work meant no pay requests. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have anything to report regarding the library.

“We are still trying to get samples for windows and its been three weeks,” he said. “Once we pick one it will be 20 weeks to get them here because of COVID. They are that far out right now.”

The other news he had was regarding the lighting.

“The lights that were in the existing library – we wanted to match those lights so we didn’t include those in the bidding process,” he said. “The library board was going to take care of that so they ended up getting some close to the original lights.”

As it turns out, the lights chosen are being discontinued and the library is getting them at a decent price.

“But to get the luments and the candle foot power for libraries, you would need to install seven of them,” Hillis said. “They only have three of them available, so we are going to install can lighting to get up to the needed required lighting.”

The cost for the three lights is $1,865.31, which is half-price. The lights will be paid for out of the Library Building Fund.

“Because the building is a historic building, it has to meet certain standards,” Hillis said. “These lights are approved by historic preservation.”

Speaking of lighting, the new lighting at the well and water plant went over what was appropriated at last month’s meeting by $148. The council had approved an expenditure of $1,000, but due to having to put up two lights at the well instead of just one, the cost increased by $148. The council approved the additional expenditure.

Police Chief Caleb Handy announced that Officer Matthew Watson had resigned to take a position with the City of White Hall. The city of White Hall recently lost a police officer who left to take a position with the Greene County Sheriff’s Department leaving an opening in their department.

Also, Officer Chase Burk has been called to duty by the military and will be in Texas from March 3 through April 24.

If being down two officers wasn’t enough, Police Chief Caleb Handy said Officer Bettis was also on vacation. But following a closed session, Mayor Rex McIntire announced that the council had unanimously approved the hiring of Nate White as Winchester’s new Assistant Police Chief.

White was formerly with the Scott County Sheriff’s Department and worked his last shift on March 6. White also formerly worked for the Winchester Police Department before moving to the Scott County Sheriff’s Department.

Mayor McIntire said that he had a visit from two women from the City of Virginia recently.

“These ladies said they are trying to improve their situation there in Virginia and they have seen what we have done here and wanted to know how we had done it,” McIntire said. “I just want to say that I am very proud of what we have done here. We have got a lot of businesses opened up. We have made a lot of physical improvements around the city to our sidewalks, our infrastructure, our pool, moved our city hall, started our Civic Group…I am really proud of our downtown area and how our community has come together and taken an interest and we should feel really good about what we have accomplished here.”
With that said, McIntire also mentioned that two other businesses have expressed interest in opening in Winchester.

“I had two requests in one week to open new businesses here in Winchester,” he said. “Both have requested liquor licenses, which is something I’m going to ask the council to think about and bring back next month when we have a full council (Alderman Lawrence Coultas was absent).”

One business is a golf simulator which wants to go in where the Pitt Stop was and the other one was a gaming parlor which would go in where the chiropractor office was on the Rt. 106.

“I want to have more information about both of these businesses before I bring it to you for a vote which is why I’m not even asking you to consider it tonight,” McIntire said. “I think the golf thing would go over really big in the winter when people can’t get out and golf.”

City Attorney John Paul Coonrod presented the city with an ordinance amending the TIF ordinance to allow for Tax Increment Financing funds to be used for repairs for the interior of the Winchester Depot, which houses the Scott County Historical Society, which is a non-profit organization.

“Last month the council discussed the train depot request for TIF funding and asked me to put together a program for disbursements out of the TIF fund for interior building renovations,” Coonrod said. “Previously, it was limited to façade and roof work. We talked about expanding that. I put together an ordinance that would allow us to grant TIF money to a building located in the city’s TIF district that is almost identical to the façade and roof program.”

The city shall reimburse successful applicants up to 25 percent, but not more than $5,000 of total eligible project costs which include interior reconstruction, rehabilitation and restoration, including, but not limited to improvements to the walls, ceiling, floors, plumbing, wiring and fixtures of an eligible structure.
All projects must comply with the city’s code of ordinances and zoning code and applicants must include more than one cost estimate for each aspect of the proposed project that is to be proposed by a contractor.

The application for the funding must be presented to the city prior to the commencement of the proposed project on an application form. Applications will be reviewed and approved or denied on a case-by-case basis by the council taking into consideration the following factors:

■ Availability and amount of funding in the city’s TIF funding.
■ Whether, and to what degree the proposed project will promote the creation of new businesses or the expansion of existing businesses.
■ Whether the proposed project will promote commerce and redevelopment generally.
■ Whether the applicant is a for-profit business or a not-for-profit business or non-commercial applicant with preference in the award of TIF funding to be given to not-for-profit and non-commercial applicants.

Coonrod also presented an amendment to the city’s utility ordinance regarding repeated delinquent utility customers. This was also talked about at last month’s meeting.

“This ordinance does two things,” Coonrod said. “It increases the penalty for late payment from 10 percent or not less than $10 as a penalty to 25 percent or not less than $30. The other change is that previously the reconnect fee once a utility has been turned off was $50 and not it has been increased to $100.”

While the council passed the ordinance, it will not go into effect until for 90 days because the city announced in the March bill that it would not make the increase until the May billing.