Trenton looks to move utility poles

By Mike Chambers

Correspondent

TRENTON, Ga. — For the second time in as many years, Trenton city leaders are working to get a federal grant that would clear the sight lines around the Dade County Courthouse of utility poles.

A 2008 estimate derived by city officials, Charter Cable, the Trenton Telephone Co. and Chattanooga’s EPB set the cost at $300,000 to remove utility poles along U.S. Highway 11 from the courthouse south to state Highway 136, said Peter Cervelli, manager of the city’s Better Home Town program.

To be considered for a grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission, however, an engineering study is required.

“Right now we don’t have any access to the grant without the engineering estimate,” Mayor Barton Harris told city commissioners last week.

“Hopefully an engineering estimate will bring that cost down to something more manageable.” said Harris.

Commissioners voted unanimously to spend several thousand dollars of remaining SPLOST money to hire Arcadis engineering of Chattanooga to conduct the study.

“The goal is to improve the look of downtown as well as to repair sidewalks that are not ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant,” Cervelli said.

“The goal is not just to make it look pretty, which hopefully it will do, but make it more appealing for people to come downtown, be downtown, shop downtown, play downtown as well as make it more attractive for industries and business to come and invest.”

Harris said several options could be considered, from moving the utility poles behind the buildings or putting the lines underground.

After the study is completed, the grant process would go through state officials to ultimately be considered by the Appalachian Regional Commission in Washington, D.C.

Contact Mike Chambers at chambers@tvn.net.