December 2010 Regular Meeting

The Commission started the December meeting with some much deserved award presentations. First, the families of the two servicemen for which County bridges were named this year were recognized. The resolutions naming the bridges and photos of the bridges were presented to members of each family by Mr. Linton Herrin and Mr. Charlie Summerlin, who were instrumental in pushing the naming of these bridges through the process.

Next, Commissioner Summerlin and Herrin were recognized for their years of service. Each was presented a plaque by the Chairman on behalf of the Commission, Constitutional Officers, staff and Citizens of Brantley County.

During public participation, Lydia Johns Burch came forward asking for the County to repair/replace the Bethlehem Church Road Bridge, which was condemned by Georgia DOT several months ago. The Commission has discussed this on a couple of occasions. Where some citizens are inconvenienced because of the bridge being out until GaDOT can make repairs, there are two paved roads that can be traveled to get around the bridge. The County has focused its priorities and limited funds on rebuilding and/or paving roads that will allow people to get to work, school or church and back home again during the wet season. All Commissioners agreed if funding was limitless, they would be willing to make the bridge a priority.

The Commission approved the following items on the consent agenda after removing the approval of a resolution authorizing installment payments on ad valorem taxes:
• Appoint Betty Jo Morgan to Board of Elections
• Re-appoint Sylvia Wingate to Board of Health
• Adopt Outdoor Watering Ordinance Mandated by the State of Georgia
• Approve application for USDA Grant-Purchase of New Ambulance
• Approve Pictometry Renewal Flight of County
• Approve Placing White Ford Bridge Road on the paving priority list

The Board accepted the property from the Board of Education off Waynesville Road and relieved the BOE of their contractual responsibility to rebuild a recreation park that was once where the Waynesville Elementary School is today. The Board accepted a proposal to have the timber cut off the property, consistent with a contract that the vendor has with the BOE, who bid the timber off earlier in the year. The proceeds from the timber sale will be placed in the recreation capital outlay account. This will go toward fence and blocks when the Commission starts on the recreation park in the future. A new culvert was placed on Waynesville Road to access the property for timber removal. The Commission also approved the submission of a DNR grant for a nature trail at the location to help with funds for the park. Commissioners will meet with Jennifer Kline of the DNR to review the submission of the grant ASAP. The Commission also approved the coastal incentive grant award agreement for the Atkinson boat ramp.

The Board also accepted a small parcel at the corner of the Atkinson Upper Elementary School where a new VFD substation is to be built in January. An agreement was also approved by the Commission where the VFD site can share the septic services of the BOE.

The Commission approved the purchase of a used commercial hood for the new recreation concession stand for $3,800. This equipment was quoted in the recent bids for as much as $18,000. The bids for the recreation concession and bathrooms were rejected by vote of the Commission. The engineers and County manager are working on ways to value engineer (find ways to build it cheaper) the project and report back in January.

The Commission appointed Andrew Altman as the new Dog Control Officer. He will work with the County Manager to transition from Mr. Buglino. The Sheriff and County Manager are working on the concrete and fence for a dog pen at the jail so the trustees could assist with any dogs that have to be retained for a period of time

The Commission approved the minimum bid for paving of Boots Harrison Road. The bid by Seaboard Construction for $72,800 was awarded. The bids for Raybon East were tabled until the County road department has that road ready to pave next spring.

The contract for professional services to update the solid waste 5-year short term work program for Brantley County was approved by the Commission.

The Commission discussed the legal fees and engineering fees for the airport and their dealing with the bonding company. Some Commissioners felt that the $42,857, which was mostly legal fees, was excessive and was spent on counsel that the Commission had instructed the Airport Authority (AA) not to hire. The County attorney, Tom Lee, explained to the Commission that while he didn’t know about the total bill for the second attorney the AA hired, he felt the attorney did provide a good service and the project was moving along. He also explained that all legal fees were reimbursable by the bonding company and that Attorney Wright had offered to negotiate that point with the bonding company free of charge. While most of the Commissioners were not pleased with the actions of the AA, the fact was that they had hired an attorney who had provided services and was due payment. One Commissioner expressed deep concerns and asked that the Commission take some action in the future to see that this DOES NOT happen again. Attorney Wright originally charged $300 per hour and later reduced the rate to $175 per hour, which was the amount he and AA Director Mary Gibson had agreed upon. No contract between Mr. Wright and the County or AA was provided for the Commission’s review. The Commission agreed to the AA Director’s request to use $26,332 from the AA budget and $16,525 from the capital outlay budget to put toward these expenses for legal and engineering services. This will leave a deficit of about $9,000 which will be held over and paid out of the AA budget next year. They have 2011 funds budgeted for legal and engineering services.

The Commission had an executive session for personnel, after which they took no action.

Road Project Meeting Update

In Thursday’s Road Meeting, the status of the following Projects was discussed:

Waynesville Road; All pipes are in except the two long ones. Those will go in when the earth work is ready. The ditch work is coming along the majority of the project with the hold up at the Beaver Pond due to OREMC needing to move some utility poles. The engineers will discuss the timing with them today. Littlefield will keep a crew dedicated to this road until completion, which is slated for early April.

Buster Walker Road; Clearing and grading is under way. The bid for road construction, base and paving was approved in a called meeting last week to Ricketson Construction. They have been given a notice of bid award and have 14 days to respond with the appropriate documentation. The goal is to have the paperwork and contracts through legal by the first of the year so that they can move in during February when the clearing and grubbing is complete, unless that is completed ahead of schedule.

Boots Harrison; The County’s road department is almost finished installing the base material and bid packages for paving are going out this week. This is a little over 1 mile of paving.

Satilla Church; The road is completed with a punch list of items having been reviewed with the contractor and completed by the contractor. Final payment paperwork is due in after engineering approval corrections have been made.

Dude Circle; The road is almost complete. The contractor has to finishing grassing and seeding the ditches, installing some rip rap around the ditches where needed and the striping has to be completed. The County will scrape the existing pavement between the rail road and the new pavement so that striping will reach out to the rail road as there are no markings on this older section of road.

Mt. Calvary; The final parcel of right of way is to be acquired this week. The bid packages will go out this week and have a due date in early January.

Courthouse Parking Lot; A review of the proposed plan and drainage survey was completed and there are a couple of concerns that were reviewed and eliminated in the meeting. The bid packages are out and due back in January 6th. This will add about 54 new parking spaces to the South side of the courthouse and improve access to the courthouse all around. This project also fits into new security measures that are underway at the courthouse. There will be plenty of green space and lighting in the parking lot.

Countywide Striping Project; The GaDOT project to stripe Caney Bay, Riverside, Raybon West and Old 259 are under way with the hand painting portions having been started in recent weeks. The project will be put on hold during the holidays and be completed by March of 2011. The County will be working on shaving accumulated dirt off the side in some places along these roads (called clipping) in order to clean off the surface that is to be painted. This also helps reduce hydroplaning.

Recreation Concession and Scoring Building; The final item at Satilla Fields, Brantley County’s new recreation park, was discussed. The Commission reviewed the two bids that were received at the last meeting. While no action could be taken, an action item was placed on the consent agenda to throw out the two bids as they were over $100,000 above the amount of money the County has in Recreation SPLOST to complete the project. The interested have been asked to value engineer the project, breaking the construction into individual components, itemizing and prioritizing the items so that the base building could be built and added on to later.

Surveying and Engineering; Other roads on the priority paving list were discussed as some surveying and engineering will continue on these roads. The County’s crew has been instructed to start work on Raybon East once Boots Harrison is complete.

December Called Commission Meeting

The Commission tackled a handful of issues in a called meeting on December 7, 2010, prior to the regularly scheduled Work Session held monthly at 4pm at the County Commission offices.

Airport Authority Director, Mary Gibson, came before the Commission asking for Task Order 6 to be approved. This task involved acquiring of right of way for the instrument approach for the new airport. Environmental assessments and engineering work must be completed. This ROW is needed for clearing, utility rerouting and other such activities to clear the path for arriving or departing aircraft. The Commission approved the task order.

County Engineer Ray Richard provided the results of the Buster Walker Road construction bid process. Ricketson Construction Company was the low bidder. After a review of references and recent work completed in neighboring counties, GIEC was prepared to recommend Ricketson. The Commission awarded the bid to Ricketson for $1,187,657. The Georgia Department of Transportation (GaDOT) will provide $300,000 toward the project. The remaining $887,657 will come from Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPOLST) dollars for road construction. Richard reported that the clearing and grubbing had begun on Buster Walker Road. This is being completed by another firm who has until Mid February to complete that process.

After a short discussion, the resolution supporting the Development Authority’s work with Foodonics was tabled until next week’s regular meeting. Since the Development Authority had not completed the negotiations yet with the company, complete details were not available. The Board discussed passing a more generally supportive version of the resolution, but decided to wait until next week when hopefully the company and the DA have completed their negotiations and the DA has had time to take action on the matter. Each Commissioner expressed the need and desire to drive industry and to bring jobs to Brantley County. The Chairman went on to explain that while a 10 year tax abatement program would result in about $750,000 in offset taxes and the company paying 100% of the taxes at the end, during that same time frame the 40 new jobs would generate over $3,900,000 in net payroll to the local economy. Once the DA has the final numbers the Board will take the item up again.

The Tax Assessors Office came before the Board announcing that Sean Chapman had been hired to fill the vacant property appraiser position. They asked for some part time help, 3 days per week 8 hours per day for at least the first 3 months of 2011. They also requested 3 new computer systems with a budget of $4,500. With the new mapping software, other software and increased parcel counts, etc., the older computers simply can’t keep up. The Commission voted to allow the County Manager to work with the Chief Appraiser on the computers and tabled the part time help until the January 2011 meeting. The Commission wanted to see how the year wraps up financially before the decision is made on part time help. Since the TA board didn’t plan to bring the part time help on until January, they were fine with this schedule.

Regular December Work Session

The Commission heard a report from the County Attorney, Tom Lee, on the acquisition of property from the Board of Education. The Commission has been negotiating for over 18 months with the Board to acquire some property on Waynesville Road that the school owns which is separate from the school site on adjacent property across Tyson Road. The 15 acres more or less is slated to be donated to the County with the timber on it. The plan is for the County to use the property in the future to build a Waynesville Recreation Facility. This has been a long standing issue that the Commission made a priority once the three new Commissioners came on board. Cutting the timber will provide some funds to get started with. Utilizing County employees, much of the work can be completed to hold down costs. A second piece of property that is slated for approval for transfer from the BOE to the Commission is the less than an acre at the southeast corner of the Atkinson Upper Elementary school. This will be the future site of a Waynesville VFD substation. Since it is less than an acre, the County will have to work out with the BOE to use their water or drain field, as the property isn’t big enough to house both. The County Attorney was asked to work out a memorandum of understanding or an intergovernmental agreement with the BOE attorney to resolve any issues with the County health department. The Chairman and Superintendent had discussed the issue, so the attorneys simply need to formalize this for approval.

The County Attorney also reported that that the work with the cell companies had proven beneficial. Over 600 accounts have been redirected to Brantley County from surrounding counties. Accounts typically carry more than one phone so this will result in tens of thousands of dollars in sales tax and E911 fees being redirected to Brantley County. There were 34 accounts that are still in dispute.

The Commission discussed a resolution allowing for partial billing. Ad valorem Tax legislation that was passed last year made it mandatory for counties to pass this type of resolution if they should ever want to do partial billing in the future. With this approach, the County would send out a partial bill in June and December of each year spreading the tax burden so that it didn’t all hit at Christmas. An analysis of county cash flows showed that implementing partial billing would not negatively the County. This was placed on the consent agenda.

A list of names was discussed to fill the vacant Dog Control Officer. The issue of the County not having a place to properly quarantine dogs that need such action because of their biting a person was also discussed. The County Manager will work with the Sheriff. In the past, a discussion took place between these two about building such a facility at the jail and letting trustees manage any quarantined animals. This will be revisited during the holiday. This was placed on the regular agenda.

Positions on two boards, the Health Department and Board of Elections were also discussed. Sylvia Wingate and Betty Jo Morgan were names respectively submitted for each. These will be verified and placed on the consent agenda.

The County Manager updated the Board on a number of items. An outdoor watering ordinance that has been mandated by the State was placed on the consent agenda. The completion of a USDA grant application for an Ambulance was placed on the consent agenda. The approval of a new flight of “pictometry” to update the 2009 data that is on file today. The flight and purchase won’t actually happen until later in 2011 but has to be scheduled now as part of their overall flight plan. This data can be used by the Tax Assessors office, the E911 dispatchers, fire, rescue and other offices in the County. The cost of the flight is $37,000 and will be paid over a three year period.

The bids for the concession stand, bathroom, and score keeper building at the Satilla Fields Recreation Park were reviewed. Since the low bid was over $100,000 more than the County has remaining in the SPLOST account for recreation, all bids were thrown out. The County Manager will look at ways to “value engineer” the building to drive the cost down and look at ways to use the County's purchasing power, internal or inmate labor, etc., to drive the cost of the building down.

The placement of White Ford Road on the County’s paving priority list was put on the consent agenda.

The resolution supporting the Development Authority’s efforts to bring jobs and industry to Brantley County was placed on the regular agenda.

A closed session for personnel was placed on the regular agenda.

Chairman's Corner

The County continues to focus of cutting costs and driving revenues to, Lord willing, get through this year without borrowing any money from next year to operate. At this point we've had to pull $250,000 off of the line of credit to manage "cash flow" issues over the next 23 days. With some anticipated grant funds, the CSX settlement of previous years Tax Appeals complete and their payment on the way, some unassigned sales tax revenues coming on the 15th and our other regular deposits, the County should be able to pay this back from 2010 tax dollars and make it through 2010 without borrowing money from next year's tax dollars to operate. THIS WOULD BE A HUGE ACCOMPLISHMENT for the entire team if we pull this off and a wonderful blessing from the good Lord.

We have a couple more payrolls and bills in December that have to be paid. But, if the County could start 1-1-2011 with zero debt from 2010 operations, that is a HUGE contrast from the $3.2 million that we had to borrow in January 2009 and weren't sure if that was going to carry the County through the end of the year. A lot of this has come from back taxes, a lot from holding costs in line, from driving revenue by normalizing fees and hosting prisoners for other counties. It has taken every department head, every staff member, every Constitutional Officer and every Commissioner to keep this focus.

The real story is that the team has accomplished all of this while starting over a dozen road construction projects, a new recreation facility, Satilla Fields, and other improvements around the County. Through the use of Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) dollars, all of these improvements are possible with debt being paid back and the Commmission being able to lower the ad valorem tax rate for two straight years. Also, don't forget that 45% of that SPLOST goes to make the payments on the new $8.5 million jail facility. These payments total $162,000 per quarter or $648,000 per year. If it weren't for the SPLOST dollars, those payments would have to come from tax dollars which, based on last year's millage, would be an additional 2.48 mills. So, the SPLOST really helps the County make progress and hold down ad valorem taxes. The one cent goes a long way.

With the Christmas Season upon us, it is easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle. Remember to slow down and spend time with your family and friends. Tell them how special they are and remember that Jesus is the Reason for the Season.

Merry Christmas

Ronald E. Ham
Chairman - Brantley County Commission.