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MARTINSBURG — At the Martinsburg City Council Committee as a Whole meeting, members of the council discussed funding through applications received for several organizations in the city as an Economic Recovery Grant.

This was a discussion, and no votes were taken, but rather, a consensus was made to move forward with processing these monies to organizations. According to Shane Farthing, economic/community development director, nothing will be approved until the meeting in December.

Also at the December meeting, there will be draft grant agreement with each entity, laying out expectations, deliverables and accountability procedures for the funds. Lastly, the agreements themselves will need to be approved by the council before actual funds will be awarded.

“Through a lot of conversation and interaction with staff, myself and City Attorney Kin Sayre, the top two tiers were recommended to fund those organizations and what their needs were. Keep in mind this is a one-time funding. There will not be any yearly allocations after this,” Martinsburg Mayor Kevin Knowles said. “There will be standards put in place. Each organization will have a contract or agreement that will be put together.”

There was consensus to move forward with the Martinsburg Initiative request. The amount of its request is $12,000, according to Farthing.

Additionally, there was consensus to move forward with two items for the improvement of the Martinsburg Roundhouse. Both are for improvements to the bridge and machine shop. According to Farthing, they were submitted and considered separately, because one is a partial match to a federal grant. Those were $125,000 and $74,289.

There was also consensus to move forward with $322,357 for the Historic Apollo Theatre for items related to exterior repairs and acquisition of the adjacent rear space, as called for in its historic structure renovation plan.

The council moved forward with a consensus for the Berkeley Arts Council for $30,000. Additionally, it moved forward with a consensus for Martinsburg Little League for a request of $250,000 for field updates.

“(Monies for Martinsburg Little League) would increase the opportunity for more tournaments to be played here locally, not only to increase the tourism but also the business we would see in the downtown area,” Knowles said.

Martinsburg-Berkeley County Parks and Recreation had six items that were moved forward, with a total of $213,503 — a one-time expenditure to help the organization. However, Farthing said that there are another five items that were submitted on time but were mistakenly left off the summary discussion sheet. Those will be discussed at the December meeting.

Sayre explained that these funds are the city’s local funds that were freed up when previously paid COVID expenses were reimbursed by federal ARPA funds.

“We couldn’t fund all of the requests at this point. This was the first round of the applications to be looked at. The ones we chose were based on the vision that the mayor, council and staff have for the vision of the city to build a presence with the arts and to enhance the projects that have been completed for citizens and for those who visit our city,” Knowles said.