County cities getting support gr

County, cities getting support grants

Jeremy Nash news-herald.net

Gov. Bill Lee recently announced a plan to give $200 million statewide in support grants for safety and local infrastructure that should soon benefit Loudon County and local cities.

The grants would distributed to every county and city government across the state for one-time expenses in fiscal year 2021.

Funding is based on population from the U.S. Census Bureau. Each county will get at least $500,000, while each city or municipality will get at least $30,000.

Loudon County, Lenoir City and Loudon could receive $911,423, $235,347 and $158,196, respectively. Greenback and Philadelphia would also be able to get $56,394 and $45,669, respectively.

“Capital maintenance, public safety and road projects don’t pause for disasters like the March tornadoes and the COVID-19 pandemic,” Lee said in a release. “This grant fund will ease the burden on local governments as they work to meet infrastructure and safety obligations.”

Funding can be used for IT upgrades, road projects, capital maintenance, public safety projects and utility system upgrades. One-time expenses related to COVID-19 are also eligible for cleaning, supply and equipment purchase, emergency food and shelter programs. Counties impacted by the recent March tornado can also receive relief.

Applications will be available April 30, and funds will be available after July 1.

Loudon County Mayor Rollen “Buddy” Bradshaw plans to soon hold a conference call with department heads and elected officials to see what they could want.

“The state’s really encouraging IT upgrades and I think that’s certainly valuable,” Bradshaw said. “One of the things I’m looking at is maybe some storage units behind the county office building because one thing we don’t have enough as a county is storage space, period. Maybe put some storage space behind it and there’s some law enforcement equipment that is eligible for it as well. I’m going to sit down and get input from everybody and then go to commission with it and going to start filling out the grants.”

Loudon County Road Superintendent Eddie Simpson has also asked for funding for road projects, Bradshaw said.

Lenoir City officials could put money toward public safety and IT support, notably new police cruisers and in-car laptops.

“So we’re looking at a couple different options as far as cost estimates and things of that nature, but right now that’s what we’re leaning toward,” Amber Scott, Lenoir City administrator, said. “The applications will become available on or after April 30 and then we’ll have to pass a resolution and kind of lay out a budget of what we’re going to utilize it for. We’ll be, I would say, sometime in May if the applications become available we can start having our meetings normally again, we’ll discuss how best to use those funds and go from there. We’re really excited to have that opportunity because when it first came out it was half that amount, I think it was $117,000 is what Lenoir City would be eligible for.”

Scott estimated the city could purchase five or six new cruisers.

“We would love to purchase a fire truck, but we would have to put so much more money with it,” Scott said. “Fire truck’s about $500,000 or $600,000, and so I’m actually working on another grant right now through the Knoxville TPO to get a fire truck, which has been delayed for about a year and a half. We are in need of some more vehicles and that would help us. ... Of course, we’ll have to look at the total number because there’s vehicle plus outfitting, striping it, putting the proper coloring on it for our agency and the laptop that would have to go in it. So we’d have to look at what the total number would be for each one and that would tell us how many that we could afford with the grant.”

What Loudon officials hope to use with the money is undecided.

“There’s a whole host of opportunities,” Ty Ross, city manager, said. “One example would be intersection lighting at the Highway 72 and Interstate I-75 exit, traffic light signalization there. I think our contribution in that (Tennessee Department of Transportation) project would be about $150,000 and which matches almost exactly with what our anticipated allocated grant amount would be.”