Trenton Police Officer Earns Firearms Distinguished Expert Award

By LYDIA BERGLAR
News Editor

Kicking off the February 12th meeting of the City of Trenton Board of Commissioners, the board reappointed Audray Clark to the Historical Preservation Committee. Mayor Alex Case reported that having served for one term, Clark is eager to continue on the committee.

Mindy Haworth (Dade County Public Library manager) spoke to the commission about the Jenkins Park story walk (which she also presented to the Dade County Board of Commissioners at the February meeting). As with the county, the library is not requesting funding for the project but merely wanting all parties to be on board. The city approved the project, so the library can now officially move forward with it.

The Sentinel will cover the story walk further once the project is closer to completion.

Mike Norris (police commissioner) was not at the meeting, so Steve Beaudoin (police chief) read the police report. In January, the Trenton Police Department answered 243 calls for service, conducted 1,584 business checks, answered 13 burglary/alarm calls, responded to eight domestic disturbance calls, seven trespassing calls, 17 suspicious activity calls, and worked nine traffic crashes. From 82 traffic stops, 52 citations were issued.

Beaudoin also reported that Trenton City Police Officer Thomas Williams graduated from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) and earned the Firearms Distinguished Expert award. To earn the award, Beaudoin explained, “he has to score a 95 or better in pistol, rifle, and shotgun.”

Terry Powell (parks/animal control commissioner) and Case explained that a light pole in Jenkins Park fell (damaging part of the restroom building). Case thanked Southeast Lineman Training Center for helping the city replace the pole. The city is working on replacing all of the old lights before spring sports begin using the park in April.

Lucretia Houts (fire and utility commissioner) reported that the Trenton Fire Department answered 129 calls, 18 of which were fire related and 62 of which were canceled en route.

Regarding work on the city sewer, Case noted that work to replace the remaining original clay pipes continues.

Monda Wooten (street commissioner) reported that the street department put new stop signs up, saying, “Timmy and I rode around the whole city and made a list of signs that we felt needed to be replaced.” The city placed orders for several street signs that need to be replaced.

Wooten said, “If you see a sign–you wouldn’t believe it, you think there’s not that many signs around here, but there’s a lot of signs–so if you see one that’s rusted and knocked down–one down here at Vanguard gets replaced regularly–let us know.”

In her report on the library, Haworth explained several ways that the library continues to be a community resource beyond distributed materials.

She said, “We had another unique use of the meeting room. We had a baby shower thrown in our meeting room…You can use our meeting room for anything, basically, just give us a call and see if it’s free.”

She noted that a food distribution calendar is posted at the library and on the library’s Facebook page. She noted that the library’s new Young Creatives program used the library’s recording room. Jonathan Gann, (media arts teacher at Dade Middle School) led an audio and video creation class in the soundproof recording room.

In her report on the Alliance for Dade, Sandy White (Alliance president/CEO) noted that two local businesses, Lookout Lavender Farm and Dyer Livestock Beef, are quarterfinalists in Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union’s Idea Leap competition. The Northwest Georgia portion of the competition will take place on April 29 in Calhoun, with first place earning $30,000, second place $15,000, and three runners-up winning $10,000 for their business ventures.