NORTON, Va. (WCYB) — The City of Norton honors a partnership of 30 years with USDA Rural Development.
Thirty years ago we were able to partner with rural development for the purchase of three new fire apparatus at that time total cost was $750,000 said Shupe.
Jefferey Shupe is the Norton City Manager, he tells News 5’s Yannia Nordelo that now a single engine costs nearly $800,000.
He says without the USADA’s help they wouldn’t have a lot of their public safety equipment.
It has been vital to us without those grant dollars the cost of completing projects would just be too burdensome sometimes for small localities like the City of Norton and Southwest Virginia to be able to undertake, said Shupe.
USDA says one of its goals is to make assistance easily accessible to rural areas.
It’s very very expensive and we work with communities to determine how much loan they’re able to repay and then try to supplement it with some grant funds to make it so it is affordable, said Area Specialist with USDA Rural Development Robert Hilt.
Virginia State Delegate Terry Kilgore also attended the event.
He says that apart from public safety there are other areas he wants to improve in southwest Virginia.
Now folks are really wanting to move and live in rural America but they need to have broadband they really need to have water, sewer, and things of that nature so that they can live here and we want to make that happen, said Kilgore.
Shupe says thanks to the USDA funds they were able to buy the newest addition to their public safety vehicles.
We have a new aerial platform truck at almost 2.2 million dollar ladder truck for our fire department and we hope to take delivery of that truck this time next year, said Shupe.
Kilgore says he’s looking forward to future projects in partnership with USDA.
It’s been 30 years and we’re looking for the next 30 years we’re hoping that there’s a lot of areas that we can partner on, said Kilgore.
A similar celebration also happened in Wise where USDA celebrated their partnerships highlighting water and sanitation projects.
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