Grant means new police vehicles for Rocky Top
Rocky Top City Manager Michael Foster, left, and Police Chief Jim Shetterly stand with the three new Dodge Durango police cruisers the city has just purchased with part of a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
City Manager Michael Foster said the grant included enough money to buy the additional police vehicles so each officer would be able to take a car home between work shifts.
The new SUVs will go into service as soon as emergency lights and radios are installed, he said.
The USDA had urged the city to apply for the federal rural community improvement grant to help pay for the vehicles and other equipment for the city’s police, fire and street departments, Foster said.
Rocky Top had to pay $103,000 as a partial match of the federal grant.
The city has six police officers plus the chief, and will now have a total of seven police cars in all.
Also on the list of items the money will pay for are radios for the patrol cars, body cameras for police officers, pagers for firefighters, vehicle-extrication equipment for the Fire Department, a side-by-side off-road vehicle for the Fire Department, and an asphalt recycler and bush hog for the Street Department.