The representatives and residents of My Mountain were happy to hear the news they received at the Fannin County Water Authority meeting. With the first project beginning soon, the county water authority hired Ed Hawkins to attend to the water system. Hawkins formerly worked for the City of Blue Ridge.

Engineer for the projects stated that the only thing left to do is for Hawkins to apply for a permit to operate a water system. The CBDG project should start by the end of September or beginning of October. The pipe is on the ground at the lumber yard and construction is good to go. After conversations with Tammy Decker, USDA representative assisting the county with their USDA funding application, stated that she didn’t see any problem on the back side that would generate any significant delay. The county plans to advertise for the bids in October and to begin construction on My Mountain in January.

County attorney, Lynn Doss stated that there were eleven easement issues but that there was more than one legal way to handle each of them and that they would, simply, take them one at a time as they presented themselves during construction.

With all of the good news and everything seeming to fall into place, the authority discussed where they would like to expand in the future. Several locations were thrown out to consider but Chairman, Mike Queen said they would discuss it in a work session with maps on hand so they could determine which area would provide the most customers but provide the most benefit.

The board went into an executive session to discuss some issues and came out of the session to make a decision to reject the interim financing proposed by BB&T. After a previous motion to accept the offer of 1.47%, they [BB&T] changed the requirements. Doss spoke on this issue and after speaking with Tammy Decker, the USDA agreed to allow Fannin County to use them as their means of interim financing because the county is in such great financial shape.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I think we just saved the people of the county a lot of money”

Doss said after the motion was moved to accept the USDA’s offer. Doss explained that Decker was surprised because she had never seen this option available to any client she had worked with in the past.

FYN will continue to follow the status of the My Mountain water saga and bring you the latest developments on the actions of the Fannin County Water Authority.