News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Overton County may have found another option to help purchase new ambulances.
County Executive Ben Danner said he’s applying for a USDA grant loan program.
“If we borrow $300,000, it’ll be a grant for up to $105,000 toward that,” Danner said. “That will help pay for almost one ambulance, so we’re going to try to do that since we didn’t get the CDBG grant.”
Danner said he began searching for new funding options after the state declined the county’s 2019 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) application for purchasing three new ambulances.
“I had a meeting scheduled with the state to go over our (CDBG) scores, and they had to cancel that meeting,” Danner said. “I haven’t had another meeting with them to see why we didn’t score high enough to get that last grant, but I think we’ll go another route on the upcoming CDBG since we didn’t get it this last year.”
The new vehicles would have replaced some high-mileage ambulances and others that have experienced mechanical problems.
“We’ve had some problems with the turbos going down on the Fords,” Danner said. “We have had some other counties help us out when we’ve had trucks go down. We were really hoping we would get those new ones so we wouldn’t have to worry when we have truck go down.”
The county held a public hearing Thursday night to seek input about potential projects for the 2020 CDBG.
