Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By ZACHARY MARANO
Ironwood — The Downtown Ironwood Development Authority members discussed and considered their 2022-2023 budget at their regular meeting on Thursday. City Treasurer and Finance Director Paul Linn said the largest revenue source for the DIDA is the millage in downtown Ironwood.
According to Linn’s projections, there will be a slight increase in taxable values of these properties. He said this will mean an increase in revenue from taxes, which, although not a particularly significant amount of money, is good news for the authority.
Linn said the city will provide $9,500 this year and the remaining $5,500 next year for the re-establishment of a tax increment financing district for the downtown. He also said they will continue writing grants for the First Friday events.
Director of Community Development Tom Bergman added that on the budget, under operating supplies, he and Community Development Specialist Tim Erickson budgeted approximately $900 for some upgrades to the art park because they were concerned that the park has not received as much attention in recent years. This would include money for planting some trees to provide shade for park users.
While discussing operating supplies, Bergman mentioned that this budget item includes the costs for putting up Christmas wreaths. Mayor Kim Corcoran suggested they could follow the city of Hurley’s example and purchase artificial wreathes with lights attached to save money on the costs and labor buying new, natural wreathes every year and putting the lights on and off them.
Bergman said that the authority discussed buying artificial wreaths, but they were discouraged by these wreaths’ high cost. However, he said they could consider this again, admitting artificial wreaths would eventually pay for themselves through the costs and labor saved.
The authority took no action on the budget as Chair Amy Nosal said that she wanted to wait until board member Bruce Greenhill had the opportunity to see it, as he was absent from the meeting.
The members agreed to move forward with their historic signage project, to include producing and installing signs at downtown businesses, budgeting $4,000 for the project. Bergman said this will include the cost of posts, because while most signs will be mounted on buildings, this will not be an option at some buildings. It will also include the cost of printing 100,000 brochures providing parking information and additional details about the city’s history.
Nosal also said that she and Erickson have been working on templates for posters promoting First Friday events, in an effort to speed up the production of the posters each month. She said they have received complaints that the posters are not ready to be displayed soon enough, but meanwhile they are waiting to hear what downtown businesses are doing before printing the posters. She said that they will add dates and other details to the templates whenever possible.
