Elgin delays vote on energy grants

Elgin city leaders want to take a closer look at doling out some $227,600 in federal stimulus money for downtown businesses to make energy efficient improvements.

Councilmen on Wednesday delayed a vote on awarding money in the form of 50-50 matching grants to five businesses after two of them - Jay Fisher at 164 Division St. and Julia McClendon at 220 E. Chicago St. tied under a city evaluation system but only Fisher was to get $68,500 and McClendon's $24,350 request was shot down.

"I'm not advocating for one or the other. I'm looking at fairness here," said Councilman David Kaptain.

Councilman Richard Dunne also questioned why the city staff did not make site visits to businesses as well to ensure their applications were accurate.

The city was awarded $1 million earlier this year in an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant.

Sarosh Saher, senior planner at the city, said the city received 16 applications and evaluated them on several criteria, including whether the applicant explored all other options, the total energy saving expected and potential to be a good case study "so we could continue to promote this again in the future."

Safer said the city "just ran out of funds" for the business portion of the federal grant and that's why only one business got funding even though there was a tie.

He said if other aspects of the grants have leftover money, the staff would recommend the city award it to McClendon.

Mayor Ed Schock suggested using $24,350 from the remainder of the grant, of which a majority is being used to upgrade lighting at the Centre and starting a grant program for homeowners to make improvements as well.

"It accomplishes the objective for which this program was created," Schock said. "This is part of the federal stimulus bill."

But in the end the item was tabled so the city can gather more information.

The council will revisit the grants on Oct. 13.