The Goodman Board of Alderman set a plan into place Tuesday night to bring a disaster relief center to Goodman.
Aldermen voted unanimously on a resolution to allow Mayor Calvin Wilson to sign a grant application for the building.
The council had been hoping to construct a building for a while, but the mayor could not sign a grant application without their approval.
“It’s a community center, but we’ll also use it after emergencies — not so much to protect people during a tornado, but if their homes were destroyed, we would have some place for them to go,” said City Clerk Paula Brodie.
The $130,838 grant would come from the United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development. The building will have a kitchen, storage for Red Cross/Cox, a generator and other survival needs.
“During the last ice storm, we moved about 20 people down to Anderson to the armory, but when the ice is on, it’s hard to move people around,” Brodie said.
Goodman already has a “shell” of a community building on Garner Street, but it was never finished. The council hopes the grant would allow them to do that.
Brodie said the original building was started by the Goodman Community Betterment Club on land donated from the city. However, the club ran out of money and could not finish the project. The club donated the land back to the city.
In other news from the Goodman City Council meeting:
- The council denied Judge Clyde Davidson’s request for three days of pay while he was at a conference
on the grounds that the city already paid for his conference admission, mileage and hotel. Davidson also took vacation days for the conference;
- Police Chief Tom West announced he and his wife Olinda West received a plaque at a Missouri Federation of Police Chiefs conference. He has attended it since 1991;
- There was a discussion of a request from First Community Bank to purchase land between the north line of their parking lot and the railroad tracks. The discussion was tabled;
- The council decided to spend $600 to fix the zipper lawn mower, which is in need of repairs.
“It’s either fix it or scrap it,” said Greg Richmond, northward alderman, who agreed that the mower wouldn’t be worth much if scrapped.
