A Seymour business requested a portion of the city’s American Rescue Plan funding, but that was tabled by the Seymour City Council until members could hear from a representative of the company.
During the Sept. 26 meeting at city hall, Councilman Chad Hubbard said he took issue with awarding funds to Southern Indiana Sports Mall Inc. because no one from the business had attended a council meeting.
That night, the council approved the second reading of an ordinance written for 11 agencies with the amount of funding they were requesting, which totaled $802,545. The first reading was at the Sept. 12 meeting.
Angie Villarreal, owner of Southern Indiana Sports Mall Inc., attended the Oct. 10 meeting. She said her business, which operates as Gymnastics Lane, has been open since 2008, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, it shut down, and revenue completely stopped.
She, however, continued to pay her employees and received two Paycheck Protection Program loans — one in June 2020 and the other in March 2021.
“We did get relief from both of those; however, there were other expenses that needed taken care of as far as rent and other things not taken care of,” Villarreal said. “Personally, I covered a lot of it. The gym did receive a continuing line of credit during that time to assist with some of those bills.”
In her application for ARP funds from the city, she requested $25,000 to help pay back some of those continuing lines of credit.
Hubbard asked Villarreal how much the business received in PPP loans, and she said $9,361. He also asked why she continued to pay her employees even though she didn’t have to.
“The gymnastics facility is more of a family,” Villarreal said. “We have a ton of families that come to our gym. Some moms used to work for me. Some moms have helped out. I just really felt like it wasn’t anybody’s fault, and everybody was struggling, so we actually just took a percentage of what everyone usually got paid — none of my staff are full time — and we continued to pay our employees just to help everybody out.”
Councilman Jerry Hackney, a member of the finance committee who introduced the ARP fund ordinances, asked if it would have been hard to replace those staff members if they would have left.
“The coaching staff to pick from here in Jackson County sometimes is few and far between as far as individuals who are knowledgeable in coaching gymnastics,” Villarreal said.
Hackney then made a motion to pass the ordinance on second reading, and that was seconded to allow for a vote to be taken. Hackney, Hubbard, Seth Davidson and council President Dave Earley all voted yay, while Drew Storey, Bret Cunningham and Matt Wheeler voted nay, so that passed 4-3.
As for the 11 other ordinances, eight passed 5-2 with Storey and Cunningham casting dissenting votes on Sept. 26.
Those were Community Diner, $7,500; Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southeast Indiana, $72,204; Anchor House Family Assistance Center and Pantry, $273,994.89; Jackson County Learning Center, $8,160; Seymour Moose Lodge, $42,182.37; Project Lifesaver, $30,000; Trinity United Methodist Church, $51,749.13; and Boys and Girls Club of Seymour, $72,204.
Seymour Main Street was awarded its $50,000 in funding with Cunningham voting no and Storey abstaining because he serves on the organization’s board of directors.
Central Christian Church received its $50,000 in funding with Storey and Cunningham dissenting and Earley abstaining since he attends that church.
Seymour Museum Center was awarded $200,000 with Storey and Cunningham voting no and Hackney abstaining since he is a museum board member.
Hackney said five more applications will be up for first reading at the council’s next meeting, set for 7 p.m. Monday in the council chambers at city hall.
In all, the city received $4.16 million in ARP funding that it has to spend by the end of 2026.