Rev. Dr. Bruce W. Burns Sr., the senior pastor at Southside’s Hopps Memorial CME Church, first noticed about a month ago the effort to move four utility poles across the street to his church’s front yard.
He saw workers digging holes in the ground and reinforcing the holes with sand and rocks. Soon after, four poles with transformers and wiring were mounted in the church’s front yard, running along South State Street.
Burns and the church were blindsided by it all. The pastor and others at the church wondered who decided to place the utility poles in their front yard without communicating with the church, which has been in the neighborhood for more than 60 years…