By CAROLINE CARMICHAEL / Staff Writer

The City of Jemison was recently awarded a $350,000 Community Development Block Grant by Gov. Kay Ivey.

The City Council presented a larger-than-life likeness of the check at a meeting on Feb. 5.

Jemison was one of 28 Alabama cities and towns that qualified for the grant and were awarded by Ivey during a ceremony at the state capitol on Feb. 1.

Mayor Eddie Reed said because an entrepreneur will be matching the 20 percent grant on behalf of the city, “we consider it all free money to us.”

“This has never happened before,” Reed said. “There’s no indebtedness that the city’s [fallen] into. This is the best gift that we’ve received.”

Following the grant comments, the Council approved a lease agreement for a 2018 Dodge Ram 1500 truck, as prescribed by a bid list, a purchase of ESO Solutions software and a $6,817 purchase of a Panasonic car charger and laptop computer for the Jemison Fire Department.

Regarding the computer, Fire Chief John Dennis said, “We’re actually going to do all of our patient care reports — do those electronically, digitally — so we can send them to the state and to the hospitals.”

The software will be used to capture the patient care data and then transmit the information to the hospitals.

In other proceedings, the Council:

• Approved a contract between Jemison and Retail Strategies.
• Approved appointments of Herschel Peoples and Michael Keys to the zoning board.
• Entered an executive session to discuss “the consideration the governmental body is willing to offer or accept when considering the purchase, sale, exchange, lease or market value of real property,” according to the meeting’s agenda.
• Following the executive session, approved purchase of real property from Clyde Northcutt.
• Approved a declaration of a small corner of maintenance shop property as surplus.
• Approved a donation to Marion Bank, turning the surplus maintenance property into a trust “in lieu of Marion Bank absorbing the cost of paving Phyllis Street,” according to the agenda.