Delana Knight, Director at Northeast Georgia Regional Library System talking with White County Commissioners about the proposed library
(Cleveland)- During Monday’s White County Commission Meeting Chairman Travis Turner announced that the county has been notified by State Senator Steve Gooch’s office that the state legislature approved last Thursday $3-million dollars in funding for the construction of the new Cleveland/White County Public Library as part of the Northeast Georgia Library System.
In addition to giving Senator Gooch credit for great work in obtaining these funds, Turner said, “This was a team approach not only from the board of commissioners, our staff, the library, the friends of the library a lot of folks went to bat, this is a tremendous opportunity to help us in funding this project going forward. ”
Commissioner Terry Goodger has been spearheading efforts by the county to find funding for the library project. Gooder announced last week that they had learned there could be some funding opportunities available through U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff’s office. Goodger with the help of Delana Knight, Director at Northeast Georgia Regional Library System, and county staff has completed the application process requesting funding.
Goodger said the application would not be complete without letters of support from community and business leaders. He told the commissioners that so far they have 31 letters of support with more expected before they submit the application on Wednesday or Thursday of this week. “ The letters of support are really, really, good because we didn’t give a form letter for anyone to fill out we just told them for people to write about what they thought the benefits to the community were,” commented Goodger.
The county is seeking 3 million dollars from the federal government and Commission Chairman Travis Turner assured the public, “We will be reviewing the federal side of the coin to make sure that any caveats do not go against what we feel like in the best interest of our White County community.”
Goodger advised they could hear back on the application in as little as four weeks.
