Knox Mayor Dennis Estok said city officials are going to wait to come on board with a local Stellar effort until a bit more research has been done.
When the Starke County Economic Development Foundation held an informational session about the Regional Stellar Communities Designation Program in June, Mayor Estok said that Knox would definitely be interested in getting involved.
However, during last Tuesday’s city council meeting, Estok told SCEDF Executive Director Larry Wickert, that he wants the council members to have some time to look over the city’s existing comprehensive plan to prioritize potential projects before they take a vote on the matter.
He added that he wants to do a bit more research before bringing it before the council members for official consideration.
“Basically, I know there are some people that are under the assumption with the Stellar Communities, you’re getting all this free money.” The Mayor went on, “There’s no free money. Its still grants. It is not competitive grants though so if you have a project you’re still going to pay some type of a match but you’ll have a lot more cooperation [from the grant provider].”
Executive Director Wickert mentioned that with the Stellar program, the community’s share of the grant would be far less than it would be with a typical grant.
Wickert explained, “A standard grant might be a forty percent share whereas with the Stellar Designation if you get their approval on a grant, it might be five percent,” He continued, “and they usually approve about five to six projects with that kind of low-cost grant.”
Despite not taking an official vote, council members and the Mayor all seemed to be in favor of eventually joining the local effort.
Mayor Estok noted that the other involved partners still need to get comprehensive plans put together while Knox already has one in place. Since that is a lengthy process and the application won’t need to be turned in until next May, he said he thinks officials have time to get answers for some of the questions that remain.
