Forsyth County — City and county leaders received extra funding for road projects during a meeting of the county commission Thursday night.
Through the Georgia Department of Transportation’s Local Maintenance and Improvements Grant, or LMIG, program, the county received just over $1.56 million while the city garnered a little more than $51,000.
Rudy Bowen, who represents the 7th Congressional District on the Georgia transportation board, presented the checks, along with state Rep. Mark Hamilton and Sens. Steve Gooch and Jack Murphy.
Emily Dunn, who represents the 9th Congressional District on the transportation board, was unable to attend the meeting, but Bowen recognized her efforts in securing the funding, which will be used to improve 75 roads in the county and two in the city.
“Emily and I are proud to serve Forsyth County with the support of the [local] legislative delegation,” Bowen said.
The city will use the funding to patch and resurface about half a mile of North Corners Parkway from Hwy. 20 to the road’s dead end, and Mountain View Drive from Hwy. 20 to Tribble Gap Road.
The funding comes as a result of a formula that redistributes DOT monies to local governments throughout the state. Funding is allocated each fiscal year and is between 10 and 20 percent of the funding from the state motor fuel taxes collected in the preceding fiscal year.
Through the LMIG program, local governments are allowed to decide the types of projects that are most beneficial to the local jurisdiction.
Additionally, Rep. Hamilton also presented an additional $1 million to help Forsyth County fund the widening of Castleberry Road.
The delegation worked with Gov. Nathan Deal and the DOT to allocate the additional funding, Hamilton said.
“Forsyth County is becoming a more and more important part of the economy of Georgia as the population growth continues to come up here … and businesses continue to move in this direction,” Hamilton said.
“We were able to find some money from the economic development bucket for economic development purposes up here, and we understand there’s a project that you don’t have quite enough money to get kicked off, so we wanted to assist with that,” he said.