Local mayors, residents filmed for documentary

BY JOHN BRICE

FOR THE LAFAYETTE SUN

VALLEY — Mayors Leonard Riley of Valley, Steve Tramell of West Point and Jamie Heard of Lanett joined local residents for the filming for of a documentary at City Hall in Valley on Saturday, Aug. 16. Clean-energy nonprofit Groundswell secured $20 million in funding from the Biden administration to renovate homes in the cities of Valley, Lanett, West Point and LaFayette to make the houses more energy efficient and also to establish community resilience hubs to provide shelter during extreme weather events. Since the new Trump administration has taken office this year, that funding has been cancelled and in response, Groundswell has sought to petition the president to unfreeze the grant money so the renovations can proceed.

Filming of the documentary with residents and the mayors took place at locations in West Point, Valley, LaFayette and Lanett over the course of the day. General Counsel for Groundswell Deitra Crawley addressed the attendees at Valley City Hall while a professional film crew recorded the proceedings.

“I grew up in this town,” Crawley said. “I am currently general counsel for Groundswell. I could not be more blessed than to be standing before the three of you today talking about the projects and the partnership that the city of West Point, the city of Valley and the city of Lanett have together partnered with Groundswell to bring forth community development and community power in this town. We want to just talk to you about some of the projects and vision we have for your respective communities.”

Riley spoke on the topics that Crawley touched on.

“I first was introduced to Groundswell when I went to a meeting over in Auburn,” Riley said. “We went to a presentation and the work you were doing there. I got interested because my seniors don't have any income and they need to do roofs, windows and insulation on their homes. They don't have the money to do that. They make somewhere in the neighborhood of $800 to $1,000 in social security; they have no other income. We feel like our seniors really, really need help.”

Riley went on to paint a detailed picture of the tremendous need for energy efficiency funding in the area.

“We have torn down a lot of houses in the city of Valley in the last 10 years — about 320,” he said. “We don't want to get into the position to where we have to take houses away from seniors because they are dilapidated. People are still living there, we don't want to take them away. We want them to get roofs on their houses, get their utility bills down, insulate their houses and give them more money to spend on their food. They are spending a lot of money on their utilities. Utilities in Chambers County are kind of high.”