New Mt. Vernon admin. Harrington makes beneficial updates

City of Mt. Vernon looks to receive helpful Hometown Grid Service for municipal power outage alerts to residents
 
The Mt. Vernon Board of Aldermen met for the final time this year on Tuesday, Dec. 9. Pastor of Mt. Vernon Church of the Nazarene Tim Hardyman opened the meeting in prayer.

Hometown Grid Service
During the final Mt. Vernon Board of Aldermen meeting of 2025 on Dec. 9, new City Administrator Robert Harrington presented a request to utilize a system called Hometown Grid Service. Missouri Public Utility Alliance (MPUA) supports the program and many MPUA communities have it. Harrington explains that “it’s a system that would notify our residents if there’s an outage. It sends automated text messages to the individuals and they can actually text back and forth with it.” The AI system receives texts from the citizen and uses the information to inform the city where the issue is. He said, “it will drastically cut down the amount of time employees are on the phone talking to customers and give them more time to repair the actual damage. We can do it for water, sewer, streets, electric, trash.”
The upfront cost is $3,000, plus the monthly expense of $526. Other towns, such as Monett, adds the cost to the citizen’s utility bill each month. There is no contract and the city can cancel the program with 30-day notice. Mayor Jason Haymes said, “It’ll pay for itself in an ice storm, tornado, when you’ve got 50 people calling at once. Their call’s gonna get answered, their answers are gonna be compiled, and the data is pressed forward to our on-call people.” Harrington then said, “it’ll save all our data, so people can take pictures and send them, and it saves it and then it puts it in a report, so if we were to have a tornado, it literally puts it in a report that we can print out and hand it to FEMA, and that’s our report of our damage.”
Alderman David Eden motioned for the program to be purchased, saying, “I think it’s a good deal.” The motion passed in the absence of Aldermen Logan Phillips and Dallas Gramm.
Harrington and the board then discussed the increase on utility bills for the Mt. Vernon utility customers. With roughly 2,900 customers, the increase could be around 20 cents per month. The board decided to table the issue until January, when they could revisit increasing utility bills.
 
Police station renovations update
Harrington also gave an update on the police station renovations. There were bids for both painting and construction, and the board passed the recommended MD Construction for both bids. MD Construction, owned by Matt Dylan and operating out of Carthage, bid a total of $44,790. This will “take off all the paint, fix the doors, construction and everything,” said Harrington. Alderman Corey Estes said, “With MD Construction being the people that designed it, I’ll go ahead and make a motion, you guys can vote no.” The motion passed. Also in consideration for painting and construction were Smothers Signs and Products and All About the House Construction.

Water security grant application
Harrington then presented a request to apply to a water security grant, which would give “$15,000 of reimbursement funds to help implement a long-term reliable system for accurate hydrant inspections.” Harrington said the town has not had any hydrant inspections for a while so “this would help create a program and pay for it.” This motion passed as well.

All-inclusive park
The all-inclusive park, which will be added onto the Spirit of ’76 Park in Mt. Vernon, is set to begin construction on March 30, 2026. Harrington said the park should be finished by the second week of May 2026 and that “this is a great addition to our parks.”

Verizon and more
While this was the end of the city administrator’s list on the agenda, he had a few more updates for the board. First, Harrington suspected the city was paying too much for their Verizon phone plan, so he made some calls and discovered they have been overpaying. He was able to work out a deal to lower the monthly bill and to update all city supervisors’ and on-call employees’ cell phones for free. Next, he said, “Demolition has started at the site of the public works building. Part of the bid was to not fill in the septic tank or cap the wells, so we’re going to look into having our own crews do that.”

MODOT is opening applications for Transformation Alternatives Program (TAP) grants. A new manufacturing business called BobaVida has opened in Mt. Vernon, in the INS building; Harrington went and learned about their processes and if they would need special clearances with the power and sewer systems. Geoff Ford, Parks and Recreation Department, and his crew made updates in the park, adding dog waste cans and lights on the northeast side poles.

Harrington gave an update on the High Street lift station, which needed updated. They chose a quote from JCI, with two pumps at 11 horsepower. They are due to arrive next week. This purchase came in well below budget, at $40,940.

Emergency management director
In a harmless confusion, Harrington was under the impression that Mt. Vernon did not have an Emergency Management Director. He requested the approval to appoint someone to the task and volunteered for the position. Mayor Jason Haymes suggested Chief of Police David Hubert, who said, “I thought I was.” After some laughter, Haymes said, “Congratulations, Dave,” and the matter was settled without a motion needed.

Treasurer report
City Treasurer Shari Weldy presented her report. As the Record’s own Murray Bishoff noted a few weeks ago, sales tax was down, but most towns were down this year. Bills were approved without issue. Regarding investments, Weldy sent out bids for a Certificate of Deposit for the Electric Department for $373,304; she recommended a 12-month agreement with Old Missouri Bank at an interest rate of 3.72 percent. This motion passed. Finally, she discussed the bad debt to be sent to collections. There was a total bad debt towards the city of $24,295.27. After being given 30 days to pay their debt, there was only a total of $3,704.13 paid. Weldy then requested to write off in the internal system $1,110.38, for deceased account ownership. That left a grant total of $20.566.14 of bad debt sent to Online Collections. The motion to approve this bad debt send-off was passed.

Public works
Public Works Director Dustin Davis presented his report, which included the request to purchase utility poles from Arkansas Electric for $29,582. This motion was passed. Next, several people – Wyatt Pope, John Snider, Fontez Key and Jeremy Lehman – were hired or moved to full-time positions in the departments.

Planning and Zoning update
Trent Thompson, Building and Code Enforcement, said, “I’d just like to point out that we’ve had a staggering $28.9 million spent in Mt. Vernon.” He also said that the 10 buildings set to begin construction in January were already begun this month. Regarding the MRC property, nothing of interest has happened, except that Solar Solutions was able to get permission to set dumpsters on the street to close off the road, in hopes that less harm will be done to the building.

Police Report
Chief of Police David Hubert received no questions about the police statistics he sent to the board, and he believed he was done at the podium. Mayor Haymes, however, had a compliment to give to the chief. While working on his truck, Haymes noticed a person struggling with their car. While helping the person, three cop cars showed up to ask if they could help. Haymes gladly accepted the help. He praised the police department for their willingness to assist the citizens of Mt. Vernon.

The MARC divided
One of the last items on the agenda was the passing of Bill No. 2025-23, Ordinance No. 1324, which states that the 822 W. Mt. Vernon Blvd property (commonly known as the MARC) be divided into two separate lots. This bill was passed.

Citizen participation
When the floor was opened for citizen participation, Brittni Bates, director of the Mt. Vernon Area Chamber of Commerce, wanted to “thank the city for their partnership on the Christmas on the Square event with the use of the green space and closing off the roads and the electrical pedestal, putting up the Christmas tree as well.” Bates said, “Rob got to do the official countdown to the lighting of the courthouse. I don’t have exact numbers, but comparative to the last couple years, we had a really, really great turnout. Thank you for y’all’s partnership and helping create a good, successful event that our community can gather together to celebrate the holidays.”

Closed session, finishing touches
The aldermen went into a closed session from 7:50-8:41 p.m. When they came back, the 2026 budget was approved by all. In new business, Alderman Lowell Phillips motioned to cancel the Tuesday, Dec. 23 Board of Alderman meeting. This motion, unsurprisingly, passed. Lastly, alderman David Eden motioned to hire Martin Cavenaugh LLC for a consultation at the cost of $8,000. This motion passed and the meeting was adjourned at 8:46 p.m.