Image Credit: HamiltonCountyTN / YouTube
The Tennessee Conservative Staff –
County Mayor Weston Wamp halted his effort to get $3 million in COVID funds previously allotted to the Hamilton County wastewater treatment authority reallocated for other county projects.
The commission did, however, approve one item on the list Wamp had created for the use of the money: $400,000 for lights at the East Hamilton High School baseball and softball fields. Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Justin Robertson has agreed to cover an additional $100,000 – $150,000 for the project.
According to Wamp, some $600,000 remains in the 2018 bond fund after the removal of funds for the ballfield lights. He said the money needs to be spent as it is from five years ago.
Commissioner Warren Mackey requested $267,750 to complete the track and playground at Avondale Recreation Center.
$300,000 was requested by Commissioner Joe Graham to fix the parking lot at the Lookout Valley High gym and the lights and walking track at the John A. Patten Recreation Center.
As reported by The Chattanoogan, Commissioner Graham later withdrew his request, while the request from Mackey was voted down.
Mayor Wamp’s office said in a statement:
“We are grateful to the commission for supporting our resolution to go ahead and fund baseball and softball lights at East Hamilton High School with hopes that a few night games can be played this spring. To avoid further confusion, we have pulled our resolution to reallocate ARP funds and will seek to fund each proposed project separately. Our intent was not to pull funding from WWTA. Rather, we were ensuring all ARP allocated funds would be spent on the required timeline and no taxpayer dollars would be wasted. We will continue to monitor WWTA’s project pipeline and expect them to do everything possible to deploy ARP funds in a timely manner.”
