Jackson Could Address Fire Dept. Needs With A Possible CDBG Application

A new fire tanker truck could be the focus for Jackson County’s potential CDBG application.

Mayor Randy Heady said that after the public input meeting on Wednesday, that seemed to be the biggest need. He said that a volunteer fire department in the southwest part of the county doesn’t have one of its own and needs to borrow from other departments.

“And they have to depend on two other departments that do have those to get there,” Heady said. “And you’re talking about in the firetruck, they get paged, they have to get there, you’re talking about 30 to 45 minutes of time to get there. So that’s probably the biggest need that came out of it.”

Heady said that the Jackson County Fire Council has also met and discussed the importance of getting this department the tools they need. Heady said that the Volunteer Fire Departments of Jackson County are key. He said that the better equipped those departments are, the better served the community of Jackson is.

Heady said that after a majority of this year’s CDBG awards were for fire departments in the Upper Cumberland, they feel they have a good chance for this application. He said that also bodes well for the county because there are restrictions when it comes to the grant.

“They have let us know that they’re not going to be awarding any water line extensions or water rehab projects in the coming year,” Heady said. “Next year again. They didn’t this year. They did do some sewer projects but they did not do any water line extensions or rehab. So that limits you. And so it is the community livablilty part of it that we would be going after. We spent about 45 minutes talking about the need in the county, and we always have needs but we got to have justifiable needs. And Volunteer Fire Departments are so important to rural communities.”