City leaders planning ahead of next week’s meeting

JACKSON, Tenn. — City leaders met to discuss what topics will be covered in the next City Council meeting.

The one topic still on the minds of city leaders was the recent amendment to add more accountability to how funding will be used by the city going forward.

“We operate off of a simple majority. So the motion did pass, but in the time since its passing and today, we had a couple of things that we had to accomplish and one was a budget amendment that reflected what we amended our resolution to be,” said City Councilman Paul Taylor.

City leaders also looked into a grant to have individuals to identify communities in need.

“The Love Your Block grant is a grant that we’ve pursed through the year, and we got funding for. We have two individuals. One is funded through AmeriCorps, and the other is funded through the grant program,” Taylor said.

Taylor says these individuals live among us.

“They’re already in the community. They’re hearing from those communities, and they’re able to really establish, ‘Hey, what are the needs here? What do we need to address?’ And so we’ve allotted a portion of that American Rescue Plan dollars to go towards funding initiatives that they identify within these communities,” Taylor said.

Plus, the Jackson Transit Authority has received two grants to buy five buses, totaling more than $2 million.

The Federal Transit Administration would pay 80% of the total costs. The Tennessee Department of Transportation and the City of Jackson would pay 10% each of matching funds.

However, some of remaining balance would need to come from other sources.

“For the last two years we’ve had discussions with them about instead of using that for operations, when the CARES Act and other COVID money is being able to be used to for that, lets use that for capital to improve the bus system to provide better way finding, to provide the covered stops and additional capital needs, buses,” Taylor said.

The next City Council meeting will be Tuesday at 9 a.m. inside Jackson City Hall.

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