Big projects completed during 2021 in Mt. Pleasant

Mt. Pleasant saw many changes during the past year. Mt. Pleasant Mayor Steve Brimhall said he was proud of what the city accomplished, beginning with its road projects.

“We had a lot of work done in Mt. Pleasant in 2021,” said Brimhall. “And one of the larger projects that we completed was the reconstruction of West Monroe from South Jackson Street to South White Street. It is one of the larger areas that we worked on this year. We are doing roadwork on three blocks of Madison near the post office next year.”

There was road work completed on Jackson Street from Monroe to Madison, and on East Munroe to Haynes.

“It looks great. I think that it turned out awesome,” said Brimhall.

“We also participated with the Main Street business and owners in a façade beautification,” said Brimhall, “We are in the process of awarding funds to work on the building fronts, for such things as windows and new awnings.”

The parking lot for the police department was also worked on this year.

“It was in terrible shape,” said Brimhall. “Now we have that looking great.”

There was a considerable amount of work done to Saunders Park, the road going to the park was reconstructed along with the parking lot. There was also a bike trail constructed to the park, and the Saunders Park Plaza was designed and constructed.

“We now that the lights working from the hospital all the way to Saunders, and that really looks great there,” said Brimhall. “We think that Saunders, next year, will get a lot of use.”

“One of the things that we have been looking at for a long time was the dog park at East Lake Park,” said Brimhall. “With an individual donation of $19,000, that is now completed. It was something that had been on the back burner for some time, and it has been met with great success from the public that uses it.”

There has been ongoing work on the city sewer system, with bids received and contracts awarded for the northeast lagoon conversion and force main.

“Projects have been slowed down due to COVID-19, and personnel, but we will meet our compliance deadlines for the projects,” Brimhall said. “We are ready to continue work as soon as the weather breaks for spring. As the rules have changed for water quality to the Skunk River, we are prepared to meet those needs. “

“We also put in sewer in to an area on East Monroe where a new 12-townhouse housing area is going in. And we also continue to purchase lots and tear down old structures as we can,” said Brimhall. “We do this as we can, and the school purchases the lot to build homes. In fact, the high school is going to build two houses on one of the lots on Cedar Lane that we purchased and cleared for this purpose.”

“We also finished the airport project,” said Brimhall. The runway was extended in a $4 million project. “We now have an outstanding runway for the next several years to come.”

The population of the city also increased during 2021, it now stands at 9274, the highest count in the history of the city.

“We are one of the few cities in the more rural counties that grew, and we are pretty proud of that,” said Brimhall.

It is important to note that the city was able to lower its tax rate, for a second year in a row, from $11.94 per $1,000 assessed valuation to $11.56.

“That put us as one of the lower tax rates in southeast Iowa,” said Brimhall.

“As a whole, we feel that we accomplished a lot of projects in 2021, and we have even more to do in 2022,” said Brimhall. “We have a lot of projects in the planning stages. We know that things will come up, and we hope to deal with those too.”