Several projects in Perry continue to move forward this fall.

City Administrator Butch Niebuhr gave the City Council an update at their meeting Monday.  He says the downtown lighting replacement project continues to make progress, though residents might not see a change right away.

“Now the whole thing is ordering.  Of course with not knowing when we’re going to have the money and all that so we haven’t ordered.  Generally lag time on stuff like that is 30 to 90 days so you’re probably not going to see much action other than lights that may be available.  Some of the lights are what are called shepard hooks are pretty common.  Those would be on the shelf somewhere so we’d probably have those within 30 days” says Niebuhr.

As for how the project is being funded, Niebuhr says they’re checking with the bond attorney to make sure everything is set up as needed.

“Generally, when you go into debt you have to state how you’re going to pay it back.  Right now the Iowa Finance Authority is letting us go with we’re going to pay it back with the savings on electrical costs.  So I don’t know if that’s something that’s in the Iowa Code that you actually see so we’re going to work with the bond attorney to make sure we’re doing everything correctly.”

The downtown lighting project does not include the portion of Willis Avenue where the globe lights line the boulevard due to Council wanting to keep that historic look.