Columbus Mayor speaks on possible grant for green energy
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – The city of Columbus will move forward with applying for a green energy grant, in spite of a “no” vote from the city council.
Last night the city’s grant coordinator made a presentation to the council about a $250,000 planning grant opportunity from the green capital municipal investment fund.
The grant would not have required a match from the city.
The council first made a motion to table any action until more information was available.
However, the grant deadline was today, and any delay would have meant missing out.
A substitute motion to apply for the grant failed, and the council did not take up the original motion.
Today, Mayor Keith Gaskin called a special meeting for the council to come back and vote on the motion to table the grant for Gaskin to veto it.
This afternoon, the mayor sent us a copy of an email that stated Council members Beard, Jones, Mickens, and Stewart declined to attend the meeting under any circumstances.
Gaskin says as mayor and CEO of the city, he has instructed the grant writer to move forward with the application.
He says if the city is awarded the grant, the council can then vote on whether or not to accept it, but he doesn’t want to take the chance of missing out completely.
“Grants like this, when you come in, you have to be able to work forward for larger grants if you’re going to try to make a big change in environmental justice in the city. It looks at a variety of things like solar energy, different ways that you can bring cost down for communities. The study could potentially show that we could add solar panels to all the city buildings in our parks and across the city that are buildings that cities own. There’s also potential ways to use fund grant opportunities for low income families to help get solar panels on their roofs, that type of thing,” said Gaskin.
The grant is offered across the nation and they will select two cities to participate as a planning grant.
