JEDD delivers funding

Payments are part of a recent $100,000 allocation

The last in a series of three financial distributions to communities from the Perry Joint Economic Development District has been received.

Payments from the JEDD were completed on Feb. 13 when Wally Siegel, a member of the panel’s Board of Directors, delivered a $20,000 check to Perry Village Hall.

Siegel dropped by during the Village Council meeting and presented the funding to Mayor James Gessic.

Every year, the five-member JEDD panel reviews the district’s finances and evaluates the feasibility of making a financial distribution consisting of a 60 percent share to Perry Township and 20 percent each to North Perry and Perry villages. Those terms were stipulated when the district was established.

Funding for the distribution comes from payroll taxes and net-profit taxes of businesses within the JEDD, board Chairman Robert Dawson explained. On Feb. 5, Dawson delivered a $60,000 check from the JEDD to Perry Township trustees. Dawson also serves as a township trustee there.

When deciding whether to approve a distribution, the JEDD board looks at funding in terms of what could be shared with the three communities and what needs to kept internally to continue operating the district, Township Trustee Rick Amos said.

While the overall amount to be distributed each time varies, this year’s total was $100,000.

Perry Township trustees plan to combine the $60,000 allocation with a $47,000 grant that the township already was awarded by Lake County for road improvements, and use the $107,000 sum to pave Florida Street.

Dawson said township Administrator Karen Sundy discussed the paving project with the Lake County Engineer’s Office.

“They chose to package (the Florida Street project) up with another road or roads that’s bid out (for work) from Madison Township,” he said. “They determined that would have the best positive impact for a bid.”

North Perry Village will put its $20,000 JEDD distribution into the community’s economic development fund, village Mayor Ed Klco said. Village Council President Mike Cutler, who’s also a member of the JEDD board, brought the $20,000 check to council’s Feb. 6 meeting.

Perry Village government leaders, during the Feb. 13 meeting, did not discuss any immediate uses for its $20,000 disbursement.

The Perry JEDD, which was created about 20 years ago, strives to advance, encourage and promote the industrial, economic, commercial and civic development of the Perry area.