Toccoa Discusses LMIG Money

The city of Toccoa is looking at using some state money to expand a city sidewalk.

On Monday, Toccoa City Commissioners continued discussions about what to do with its state LMIG allocation for next year.

LMIG stands for Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant.

It is money allocated to cities and counties by the state that is used for things like street re-surfacing or other road-related projects.

This year, the city is slated to receive a little over $97,000 and it requires a city match of about $30,000.

Toccoa city officials presented commissioners with a list of potential projects on Monday and one of those was street re-surfacing.

However, Toccoa City Manager Billy Morse said that using that money to re-surface streets would only result in getting about a mile of streets done when the city has about 12 miles of roads in poor condition.

Morse said that he feels a better option would be to save up SPLOST VI money as it comes in and then do a larger re-surfacing project down the road.

“Over the next 12 to 18 months, we will accumulate SPLOST VI funds and have enough money to really have an impact on our poor condition roads,” said Morse.

One of the other projects on the list was adding a sidewalk on Tugalo Street between Rosedale and Hillendale.

City officials said that project appears to be one the city could afford without using extra money beyond the state LMIG money and local match already set aside.

The sidewalk project has an estimated cost of $150,000, but officials say city crews could do the work to save money.

Also, Toccoa Mayor Terry Carter said he feels that project would be one that would be used.

“I go by there twice a day and it’s rare there’s not someone walking on the road,” said Carter.

Other possible projects included saving the money for a larger project down the road, constructing a stacking turn lane on Rose Lane for southbound middle school traffic at an estimated cost of $200,000, replacing a culvert on Fernside Drive near U.S. Highway 123 at an estimated cost of $200,000, and upgrading intersection pavement at Savannah Street and Alexander Street, along with at Skyline Drive and Rothell Road, at an estimated cost of about $90,000.

Toccoa City Commissioners did not take a formal vote on Monday.

The city will have to notify the state by the end of the year in order to get the money next year.

If the city does go ahead with the sidewalk, city officials say work would likely start in the Spring.