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County is awarded another large grant

Grady County is one of 82 Georgia communities that have been awarded a total of $39.7 million in Community Development Block Grants.
Local officials learned Tuesday that Grady County’s application for a drainage and street improvement project in south Grady County had been approved and $489,167 awarded to the county for the project.
The CDBG program is administered by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs and is financed with federal funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Of the 82 grants awarded this week, 71 were for CDBG projects for a total of $35.8 million. In addition, 11 communities in the state were awarded $3.9 million for Employment Incentive Program funding through the CDBG and 1,172 jobs are projected to be created.
The grant awarded to the Grady County will be used to pave all or parts of Lewis Lane, Yancey Drive, Jamie Road and Walt Drive. Grady County Administrator Carlos Tobar said that approximately 100 residents, all lower income families, will benefit from the infrastructure improvement project.
Bob Roberson & Associates wrote the grant application for the county and Stacy Watkins is the consulting engineer on the project.
“We are excited for the neighbors of that community,” Tobar said.
It is unclear what right-of-way must be acquired in order to invest public funds into the project.
“Obviously there are some questions to be answered about right-of-way and the county attorney hopefully can get everything settled. I certainly don’t want to return the money, because it is unlikely we would ever get another grant if we did,” Tobar said.
County Attorney Kevin S. Cauley repeated what he has said in every other previous discussion of the project, “Before we can improve the property we must own it.”
“This is the first time in my career that I report on being awarded a grant and having mixed feelings about it. Hopefully, Kevin can sort it out,” Tobar said Tuesday night.

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