Your Town Tuesday: Richmond Mayor Talks About Revamped Downtown, Police Department [VIDEO]

RICHMOND - This week in our "Your Town Tuesday" series on WJON, we're focusing on the community of Richmond.

Richmond recently spent some money sprucing up their downtown. Mayor Mike Mathiason says the city's share of the road reconstruction project was $1.5 million, with the county paying for the rest. He says they added features like ornamental street lighting, replacing the generic lights on the old utility poles...

Mathiason says they have a thriving downtown, with a lot of multi-generational businesses. He says Richmond residents have pride in their downtown and patronize those stores.  Richmond has offered money to downtown businesses owners to improve their storefront facades, to further improve the look of the downtown.

Mathiason says, despite the turmoil surrounding the Cold Spring-Richmond police chief position earlier this year, the city is happy with the police contract they have with Cold Spring.

Earlier this year, the Cold Spring city council selected an outside candidate to be the next police chief, but then rescinded that offer. Chris Boucher has since been given the job on one-year contract offer.

Mathiason has only been the mayor of Richmond for the past two months, taking over the position after the previous mayor resigned for personal reasons. Mathiason has been on the Richmond city council for nine years.

Coming-up next week in our "Your Town Tuesday" series, we'll be heading to the community of Kimball.