City Commissioners Choose Subcommittee for Building Projects

By LYDIA BERGLAR
News Editor

At the Jan. 9 City of Trenton Commission meeting, Mayor Alex Case addressed the elections building and animal shelter projects which were discussed at the joint city/county meeting on Dec. 28.

Regarding the elections office, he said, “We’re agreeing to the property that’s owned by the city beside the depot to let that ownership move over to the county. [The county has] been doing our elections for a while.”

He explained that as part of the agreement, the city won’t be charged the usual $10,000 per election/run-off by the county to run elections. There will still be a charge from the secretary of state), but Trenton will save a significant amount over time.

The commissioners appointed Terry Powell (parks & animal control commissioner) and Monda Wooten (street commissioner) to the subcommittee which will lead both projects.

Wooten said, “Our county and our city are working together like I’ve never seen before. We disagreed, but we still agreed. I am tickled to death that we’ll be breaking ground on an animal shelter. It’s been 20 years that I’ve been working on this thing. Our county executive and our mayor have really come together on this.”

Case added, “The biggest thing we’ve got to understand is what it’s going to cost the taxpayers from now on to run the animal shelter from day-to-day.” He added that they need to learn more about Georgia animal control laws.

Case said that next month, the legal documents regarding the land for the elections office will be ready to review.

Regarding SPLOT approval, Wooten requested funds to purchase a new door for the city garage. A burglary this summer resulted in broken windows in the door, and the windows led to poor insulation. The new windowless door will help lower heating and cooling costs for the building.

The first quote Wooten received totalled $10,290 from Northgate Doors while the second quote from Cory Castlberry was $7,625. Wooten said, “I have worked with Roger Castleberry (Cory’s dad) before and he’s always substantially cheaper. I love the idea of it being someone locally.”

Powell requested approval of SPLOST funds totaling $4,600 used to replace the HVAC system in the Civic Center. This includes a ten-year warranty on parts, labor, and the compressor.

The commissioners agreed to sell unused equipment via govdeals.com. Wooten explained, “We have a list of things from the street department that we don’t use for whatever reason anymore. Some of it’s in good condition, some of it’s not, so we’d like to put it on GovDeals.”

Case suggested keeping the large chipper for use when large storms come through. He also mentioned that they had scrap steel to haul to a scrap yard in Alabama or Tennessee.

In December, the Trenton Police Department answered 275 calls and completed 2,020 business checks. The calls included:

• 4 animal complaints
• 5 domestic calls
• 5 trespassing calls
• 22 suspicious activity calls
• 19 accidents
• 82 traffic stops which resulted in 50 citations

Case thanked the police for their work throughout the year. Lucretia Houts (fire & utilities commissioner) thanked the sewer and fire departments, saying, “They’ve done a wonderful job this year.” Wooten thanked the street team, saying, “We had some bad weather and I think the guys did a great job keeping our roads salted.”

Case noted that the fire department’s two new paid positions started in January. “The first day was a very crazy day. They had three calls, and the first call was a self-inflicted gunshot wound at Subway. It took both of them and me to grab that gentleman because we had no ambulance in the county. Those two guys were EMTs, and we took that man and had to meet a paramedic truck towards Chattanooga because he was critical at the time.”