City Awarded USDA Loan and Grant for Street Paving

August 18, 2020
By: Dwayne Page

The City of Smithville has been awarded funding through the USDA Community Facilities Services Loan and Grant Program to do street paving.

In a letter to Mayor Josh Miller on August 13, State USDA Director Jim Tracy wrote “We are pleased to inform you that a Community Facilities Services Loan of $85,000 and a Grant of $250,000 has been approved and obligated to fund the 2020 DCI Street Paving Project”.

The city plans to use the funds to pave a portion of Miller Road, Steeplechase Road, North Mountain Street, Woodlawn Street, and Atwell Drive either this fall or next spring after a bid letting.

USDA provides direct loans and/or grants for essential community facilities in rural areas including street improvements.

The 2020-21 city budget includes $150,000 for street paving, part of which can be used to cover the local grant/loan matching and repayment obligations.

August 18, 2020
By: Dwayne Page

A Lebanon man was injured Friday night in a motorcycle crash on Short Mountain Road near D & D Market.

According to Trooper Andrew Collier of the Tennessee Highway Patrol, 48 year old Mark Petty was operating a 2009 Suzuki motorcycle and attempting to leave the parking lot of D & D Market to head east on Highway 146 when the bike fell over onto its left side in the parking lot before entering the road. Petty sustained minor injuries but was unconscious before EMS arrived. He was transported by ambulance to Ascension Saint Thomas DeKalb Hospital.

August 17, 2020
By:

The Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) signup began on May 26, 2020 and was slated to end on August 28, 2020. However, Secretary Sonny Perdue announced on August 11 the deadline has now been extended to September 11, 2020.

Donny Green, County Executive Director for the DeKalb-Cannon County Farm Service Agency, says that the remaining 20% of the payments for approved CFAP applications were processed Monday, August 17 and those funds should arrive by electronic funds transfer (direct deposit) within 3 business days. To ensure availability of funding, producers with approved applications initially received 80% of their payments. The remaining 20% will be issued automatically for producers who have already received their initial payment. Going forward, producers who apply for CFAP will receive 100% of their total payment, not to exeeed the payment limit, when their applications are approved.

Additionally, the following commodity eligibility changes will affect producers in our counties:1) all sheep are now eligible (previously, only sheep less than two years old were eligible) and, 2) nursery crops are now eligible. Green says the specifics of what information is needed to apply for nursery crops, as well as some defintions of eligible nursery crops, will be provided to nursery producers soon. For more information on the details of the recent changes/corrections to the final rule, visit www.farmers.gov/cfap.

If you have commercially-grown crops or livestock and have not signed up, or if you have commodities that were added by this rule change, you should immediately contact the FSA office. The deadline has been extended to September 11, 2020. The application process is very simple and takes less than 10 minutes.

Livestock eligible for CFAP include cattle, sheep, and hogs. Payment will be calculated using the number of livestock sold between January 15 and April 15, 2020, multiplied by the payment rates per head, and the highest number of unsold (on hand) livestock between April 16 and May 14, 2020, multiplied by the payment rate per head. To clarify, both sold and unsold livestock are eligible for payment under this program. There is no minimum number of livestock required to be owned to receive benefits under this program.

Non-specialty crops eligible for CFAP payments include corn and soybeans. Payment will be made based 50% of a producer’s 2019 total production or the 2019 production NOT sold as of January 15, 2020, whichever is smaller, multiplied by 50%, and then multiplied by the commodity’s applicable payment rate. So, if you sold all 2019 crop production, you will not have any eligible production for payment under this program.

USDA Service Centers currently are not permitted to have customers in the building. You can telephone the offie at 615-597-8225, Ext. 2, email the office at donald.green@usda.gov, or apply online at www.farmers.gov/cfap.

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