At tonight’s city council meeting, the board will amend the Enterprise Zone ordinance. The Coles County Enterprise Zone includes parts of Mattoon, Charleston and Oakland.

The amendment would change the boundaries of the enterprise zone to allow a meat processing plant to be built north of Mattoon.

“The Enterprise Zone allows for certain economic incentives to take place for a qualifying business, mainly an employer, who locates in that zone,” Inyart said.

The zone does not include retail or fast food industries. It is mainly for manufacturing or processing plants.

Incentives for inclusion into an enterprise zone include tax exemptions that are supposed to help businesses start up. Businesses in the zone do not have to pay sales tax on equipment and/or building materials needed for projects and are exempt from property taxes for the first few years.

“(The meat processing plant) will employ people, bring jobs to the community and they will be processing something, so there is money coming through the community as a result of the business,” Inyart said. “Many communities utilize tools like this to encourage growth and investment.”

Siemens Building Technologies, Inc.

The council will also watch a presentation from Siemens Building Technologies, Inc. and approve a resolution for a contract with the company.

Over the past several months, companies came to Charleston to look review city facilities including city hall, the water plant, the fire station and the sewage treatment plant. Each company then made a proposal to save energy.

After the initial audits, the city was not confident in the possible savings presented but has recently chosen to go with Siemens, for the next stage the city’s plan to be more energy conscious.

For the next audit, Siemens will give a full-scale report to Mayor John Inyart on the city’s properties and what can be done.

This report will list more energy efficient supplies the city can purchase when something needs to be replaced and will look at new systems to make sure they are efficient before replacing them.

“We’re doing this because we want to be more energy conscious,” City Manager Scott Smith said.

It will take six to ten weeks for Siemens to do the audit and a few weeks to review the comprehensive report.

Smith said the city would like to start repairs by the end of September or early October.

Contaminated Soil

The council will pass a resolution of a tiered approach to corrective-action objective agreement with regard to 203 East Lincoln Avenue (Clark Station) by AJ Enterprises.

By way of this agreement, the property owner is agreeing that the soil on the property and on the city right of way is contaminated. The contamination of the right of way is under the road, so it cannot be dug up unless the city needs to do repairs.

“This is an agreement between a property owner who has contaminated soil under their property and a city that owns the right of way adjacent to that property,” Mayor John Inyart said.

The agreement says that the city will never allow ground water from the site to be used as drinking water.

The agreement also states, “If we ever dig up the contaminated soil, it will be treated as and disposed of properly,” Inyart said. “It clarifies that the property owner would deal with additional expenses having to do with the contaminated soil.”

City Appearance

Also on the agenda is the passing of an ordinance modifying the way the Charleston deals with tall grass and weeds.

According to Inyart, the changes would make the process for dealing with unkempt lawns quicker.

Currently, if grass or weeds reach eight inches or higher the council must go to the court house to find out who owns the property and send a certified letter alerting the owner to the violation. If, after seven days from when the owner receives the notice they have not mowed, the yard will be mowed for the owner and a bill sent. If the bill is not paid, a lean will be put on the property.

Under the modified ordinance, the council would wait until the yard is eight inches and then put a sign in the yard stating the owner must mow the grass. If after seven days it is not mowed, the city will mow and then find out who owns the property and send a bill.

“When people find out we are taking this very seriously, with the signs in the yards, I hope that they take the maintenance of their property a little more seriously,” Inyart said.

Ashlei Maltman can be reached at 581-7942 or at anmaltman@eiu.edu.