Castle Country Radio was able to sit down with Mayor Lenise Peterman to talk about the happenings taking place in Helper. She came in to discuss the T-Mobile Grant, new lightening on the city’s Main Street and future grants.

“So T-Mobile just kicked off a program called Hometown Grants where they’re looking for rural communities to help them in creating a sustainable community. We were the first wave, they’re actually taking in and awarding every quarter, you know, a certain amount of cities and so we’re the first wave, part of the first wave of 25 recipients and it’s been great,” stated Mayor Peterman. T-Mobile will actually be at the First Friday event on October 1 at 7:30 pm on the Main Street Stage to present the city with the check.

The $50,000.00 T-Mobile grant is going to help with new lighting on the city’s Main Street so that they are in compliance with their Dark Skies program. “So we actually, when we built out Main Street created four new light posts possibilities and we just haven’t had the dollars to do it. So this grant is affording us that opportunity, as well as allowing us to redo six of the existing lights on the south end and bring them all in to compliance and unify the look,” said Mayor Peterman. The city plans to paint those existing lights the same color as the wayfinding signs so that its more pleasing to the eye.

“We’re hoping with the remaining funds to do additional benches, planters and take those great design elements and go up north towards the north end of Main Street because everything has been sort of centered in that heart so we want to go north and south and really tie the city together,” explained Mayor Peterman. The deadline to have this project completed is September of next year but the city is confident it could be done sooner.

The city is looking at another grant to help enhance the way the city manages its utility system. “We’ve submitted a grant to Utah State in hopes of getting matching dollars to upgrade our water meter reading system, The current system we have is going out of support, they’re not supporting the system, they’re not enhancing it. So it’s a real opportunity for Helper City to elevate our game in the utilities,” said Mayor Peterman. If the city is able to get the grant to purchase a new system it will help to better serve the residents of Helper.

To stay informed on the happenings in Helper visit the city’s Facebook page.