Charleroi Council debates hiring grant writer

By TAYLOR BROWN
Senior Reporter
tbrown@yourmvi.com
Charleroi council members will decide if they should hire a local resident to help them apply for grant funding, or if the task will be handled by the borough’s new engineer firm – if they can come to an agreement.
Last month, in a nearly split vote, council decided to hire a new engineering firm.
K2 was selected in a 4-3 vote with President Kristin Hopkins-Calcek, Jerry Jericho, Robert Whiten Jr. and Tom Santoro voting to replace RVE engineers.
Councilmen Larry Celaschi, Joe Smith and Paul Pivovarnik voted against the move.
K2 Engineering has offices in Uniontown and Bellaire, Ohio and has only been on the job for a few weeks.
During an agenda meeting Wednesday, council discussed hiring local resident and grant writer Terry Planton to facilitate writing a grant for the Capital Projects Fund Multi-Purpose Community Program. It is funded pursuant to the Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund (Capital Projects Fund) established under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The Facilities Program will offer $45 million in competitive grants to community anchor institutions and units of local government for community projects to construct, acquire, or improve facilities that are, or will be open to the public and will directly enable work, education, and health monitoring at the respective facility.
The borough wants to secure the grant to take care of improvements and reconfiguration of it’s municipal building, and could receive up to $2 million.

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