Toccoa To Work on Multiple Sidewalks With State Money

Toccoa finalizes a sidewalk project it will do next year using state money.

Monday, Toccoa City Commissioners unanimously approved its LMIG project for next year.

According to Toccoa City Manager Billy Morse, the city is getting about $97,000 from the state through Georgia’s Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant program.

That money requires a local match, leaving a total of about $126,000 in all for LMIG work.

The city commission has decided to use about $40,000 of that money to extend sidewalk along East Tugalo Street from Rosedale to Myrtle Street.

With the remainder of the money, the city wants to repair and replace sidewalks along Currahee and South Broad streets.

All of the work will be done in-house.

Toccoa City Manager Billy Morse said that the city felt like this was the best use of the money in order to get done as much sidewalk work as possible.

“When you get to the church out there, you pick up all those city side streets that connect to Tugalo and if you take the next step, where do you go?” asked Morse. “Do you go all the way to the airport? There would be a lot of sidewalk with not a lot of houses and we felt like, in town, with Currahee and Broad, we have a lot of sidewalk that is aging.”

At first, the city had only planned to extend the sidewalk to Hillendale Street.

Toccoa Mayor Terry Carter said he is pleased that the city is able to take it all the way to Myrtle Street.

“I am glad you are able to take it on down to Myrtle because there are a lot of people walking in that curve and they are in the street,” said Carter.

Toccoa Public Works Director Randy Smith said the work would likely start in the Spring, since the state sends the money out at the start of the calendar year.

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

City officials had previously settled on using the money for sidewalk improvements because they said it appears to be work that the city could afford without using extra money beyond the state LMIG money and local match already set aside.