July 16, 2008

The City of Avoca is the recipient of two Iowa West Foundation grants for the 2nd Quarter of 2008.  The first grant received is for $30,000 of funds to match money budgeted by the City for its new housing construction grant program.  The program makes grants to qualified applicants and builders for construction of new housing.  A total of $60,000 is available for disbursement over the next year.  Housing grant funds may be used for mortgage buy-down, construction, or closing costs. The grant program is available to any prospective home builder or developer, although half of the funds are reserved for applicant's whose income is equal to or less than 80% of the applicable median income of Pottawattamie County.  Expanding homeownership is an important goal and the City of Avoca is eager to help all potential applicants.  City staff can help applicants through the application process and also help coordinate other grant programs and funding sources that exist through other entities.  Any potential applicant should contact Clint Fichter, City Manager at 343-2424.  The second grant received is for $125,000 of funds to match money budgeted by the City for downtown preservation and redevelopment grants.  These funds are targeted at downtown building and business owners and more information will be available next week.

Less than a week remains before Harlan is flooded with bicycle riders from across the state.  With a possible 20,000 visitors flocking to Harlan as a part of the RAGBRAI event, Harlan residents are bracing for the inevitable changes in their daily routine. Some changes are easily anticipated but others will probably surprise some, like the potential disruption in cell services as cell towers in the area are flooded with incoming and outgoing calls from a larger number of cell phones.  The Harlan RAGBRAI communications committee has put together a plan to provide extra landline phone lines to RAGBRAI riders to easy the load on cell phone and at least one cell phone company has gone so far as to install a new tower in Harlan.  U.S. Cellular recently completed construction of a cell tower on the west side of Harlan, the site will provide improved coverage in Harlan, along U.S. Highway 59 from Harlan to Avoca and for the RAGBRAI stop in Harlan on July 20. Harlan residents who rely frequently on cell phone usage for communication should plan to have alternate communication tools available on July 20^th and 21^st.