Church Hill BMA approves $39K Christmas lights bid

The Church Hill Board of Mayor and Alderman voted 6-0 Tuesday in favor of accepting a $39,200 bid for new Christmas lights.

The town went without lights due to a discrepancy with the power boxes on the light poles last December.

In late December, Mayor Dennis Deal said that following meetings with Holston Electric, Church Hill would be able to display lights again in 2024.

To celebrate, Church Hill is purchasing 24 new decorative lights and two new “skylines” to adorn Main Street during the holiday season.

“We’ll be able to get our decorations out again because it’s too dark out downtown to not have them that time of year,” Mayor Deal said.

New lights

The lights are being purchased from St. Nick’s Christmas Lights in California.

The Mayor said that the town was choosing the biggest lights that they could get, adding that they looked better in his opinion.

He also stated that the newer lights would look better than the 40-year-old lights the city already had.

“We’ve got warm and cool white,” the Mayor said. “We just think it would look better than just solid white.”

Mayor Deal noted, “In the past, it’d been inconsistent. You’d go three poles and then miss several poles, then start up again. (Holston) agreed that they would go in and make it consistent through Main Street.”

The lights would go on every other light post, hopefully running the length of downtown.

“We felt like 24 would be enough. That’s certainly a whole lot more than we had this past Christmas.”

However, purchasing more lights to better suit the town’s needs is not off the table either.

Continuing Christmas cheer

In the spring Church Hill hopes to collaborate with Holston Electric in deciding which light poles to use for the displays.

Christmas lights will be displayed downtown beginning in November and will run through the new year.

The new lights will coincide with the second year of Church Hill’s new “Santa Run tradition in which Santa Claus hands candy and gifts to children from firetrucks. Mayor Deal said that the new lights would add to the town’s Christmas cheer this year.