January 25, 2019
By: Dwayne Page
The County Commission Monday night gave formal approval of a resolution to apply for a $315,000 Community Development Block Grant to fund the purchase of a tanker truck for the DeKalb County Volunteer Fire Department.
The CDBG program is administered by the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development and DeKalb County is eligible to apply under the CDBG Community Livability category including the three star bonus. If approved the county would be responsible for payment of a local grant match of 16% of the total project cost plus any additional funding required to complete the project beyond the grant amount.
The Upper Cumberland Development District would prepare all necessary documents for the completion of the grant application at no charge to DeKalb County. Should the grant be approved UCDD shall perform all administrative services for the project.
Part of the application process includes conducting community household surveys with randomly selected addresses in the areas served by the DeKalb County Volunteer Fire Department (all areas of DeKalb County outside the city limits of Smithville and Alexandria).
“The county gets to select a project to apply for through the CDBG program each year and this year we plan to apply for fire equipment and specifically our project is to add another tanker. We only have one tanker in the county. With the barriers and obstacles we have with water supply because we don’t have a lot of hydrants out in the county we really do have a dire need for another way to get water to the fire scenes in the rural parts of the county. Part of the application process is that we have to do these community household surveys. We are doing them by telephone and in person,” said County Fire Chief Donny Green.
The survey process takes less than 3 minutes and all information will be secure and not used for any other purposes.
“We want to make sure our residents understand that these surveys are legitimate and necessary for us to submit this grant application. We would greatly appreciate cooperation from those who are selected for a survey. The surveys will be conducted by telephone or personal visits. All surveys will be completed by DeKalb County Volunteer Fire Department personnel who will be able to provide identification proving they are members of the DeKalb County Volunteer Fire Department. Anyone can also feel free to contact me at 615-464-7176 if they have any questions or concerns,” said Chief Green.
In other business, the commission reappointed County Fire Chief Donny Green and Assistant Chief Anthony Boyd as officers for another year.