One of the major topics at this week’s Lee County Board of Commissioners meeting was the schematic designs for the new Library. Honestly, they looked EXTREMELY good, and I can’t wait to see this thing built. The price per square foot has even dropped by $4 since initial estimates were made, and is projected to possibly drop another $15! Lower costs are always a good thing!
But when Smithville/Chokee Commissioner Dennis Roland – who has long been known as an opponent of this project, since it is not in his district – was told that the project was still projected to cost $4.8 million, he said that he had long held that his “threshold” had been $4 million, and so he was the lone vote against approving the plans. One has to wonder what his “threshold” would be on the new Smithville fire station that was also approved at this meeting, and if he would have voted in favor of it had that project gone above said arbitrary “threshold”. After all, that project is another $750,000+ in an area that is the LEAST populated in the County!
One really cool thing that happened at the meeting was a presentation from two young girls who gave the Commissioners a $101 check for the Animal Shelter from money they had raised at a lemonade stand. Now imagine what would happen if more private citizens gave what they could for that project – we wouldn’t have to worry about tax dollars paying for it, we could EASILY fund it as a community. But those two little girls showed up the vast majority of Lee County adults.
One of the biggest pieces of news on the night was that the Commissioners formally approved the contract for the Robert B Lee and Lovers Lane projects. County Administrator Alan Ours thanked the Commissioners for going to Atlanta to meet with DOT Commissioner Vance Smith personally even though at least 3 of them work full time, and he specifically thanked State Representative Ed Rynders for his tireless work in making these projects happen.
Another item for consideration at this meeting was the purchasing of chairs for the auditorium in the Tharpe Building. Here, the Commissioners unanimously approved wasting $4,000+ of taxpayer money to add wood veneer finishes to the chairs. This, in one of the most severe budget crunches we’ve faced in quite a while – certainly in my own lifetime.
Also during this meeting, the Commissioners were informed that the State was charging Lee County $20K in additional taxes because our property taxes weren’t high enough to meet the State’s edicts. This is even though the Governor and General Assembly explicitly prohibited the County from re-evaluating property values, which then led to the County being charged the extra taxes. Hopefully Commissioner Williams, the CPA on the Board, can come back here and explain this one to us as well, but what I picked up on here was that apparently, the State mandates that average property tax assessments be at 40%, with a 4% grace level, meaning that the counties don’t get charged extra taxes until the average assessment falls below 36%. Lee County’s was at something like 35.87% – again, at the fault of the Governor and the General Assembly for explicitly prohibiting re-evaluation.
So the State interfered in local decisions, and then got mad at the locals when the State didn’t get as much money as it wanted because it had prohibited the locals from raising it to begin with. Makes a LOT of sense, doesn’t it?
In regards to your comments regarding the additional assessment imposed upon Lee County, your observations are correct. This additional tax penalty “represents the difference between the amount the state’s levy of .25 mill would have produced if our 2009 digest had been at the proper assessment ratio of 40% and the amount the 2009 digest actually produced.” Being on how Lee County’s digest was determined to be at 35.67%, we were assessed an additional tax penalty in the amount of $ 20,820.00.
However, under present law there is nothing that we can do to correct this situation and avoid this penalty for the next 3 years. The State has imposed a moratorium on property reassessments for the next 3 years, so we can not raise our property values to the correct 40% value. This just does not seem fair to me and I do not understand why we are being penalized for something that we can do nothing about.
If you remember, I did ask Mr. Ours about this Tuesday night and his reply was that the ACCG (Association of County Commissioners of Georgia) was lobbying our state legisature to elimate this penalty for future years for counties that got caught in this situation, but under present law my assumptions were correct and we will have to penalty for the next 3 years.
Jeff,
I understand the concern you have for the county building a new Smithville-Chokee Fire-EMS station, especially since it is in the North end of Lee County. Remember,we also pay taxes on this end of the county, which also funds the services on the southern end of the county.
This station has been in either SPLOSH 3 or 4 and was to have been built in 2003 but some people felt that it was more important to have a golf course and country club.
Then it was moved to be built in 2004, but these same people felt it was more important to build a new library in Redbone District and a walking park in Leesburg, you know the one Jeff, nobody uses it.
I would have to agree with Commissioner Roland(not too many times) on the 4.8 million dollar cost of the library. There is only 2 million dollars alloted in the SPLOSH fund, the rest will have to come from the general fund unless they borrow it from another of the fund. How about keeping the cost at 4 million and using the .8 million to upgrade the Fire Department too standard too lower the ISO rating so maybe it would encourage more commercial growth. It will be hard for two firemen to fight a fire in the new library building, that is if the other firemen is not on the ambulance in Albany.
By way the Jeff, keep up the good work on reporting.Sorry you lost your bid.
JTye:
I know people like to say “SPLOSH” around here, much like my younger brother used to say “shrawberries” before he finally learned the correct pronunciation, but it is “SPLOST” – Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax. Just FYI.
On the substance of your post, I really DON’T have a problem with a fire station in Smithville. I simply object to a Commissioner bringing it up at irrelevant times and pitching a fit about more money going to where more people are, as Commissioner Roland has done in almost every meeting I’ve been to thus far.
People not using Leesburg Central Park is due to two factors IMHO: 1) they don’t know it is there and 2) the trails have fallen into such a state of disrepair that you can barely detect them in broad daylight. I’m doing what I can to fix both of those issues – but even then, I believe it is already used by a wider variety of people than would be served with the proposed boat ramp. For the record, I’m with you on Grand Island – I see absolutely no reason for the County to own that facility.
But getting back to my point, how would the people of Smithville/Chokee district feel if Commissioner Muggridge had decided that he would not vote to approve a fire station in Smithville if it cost more than $600K? It would have been just as arbitrary as Roland’s statements, it would have been just as wrong, and the people of Smithville would be just as upset with Muggridge as some in the southern end of the County currently are with Roland.
Sorry for the miss spelling of SPLOST, but sometimes it should be SPLOSH. The thing about the price, is the extra for the fire station does not come from the taxpayers like the extra for the Library will.
If the former commissioners had the priorities in order there would have been enough without the impact money. If Commissioner Muggridge had voted against it, I would not had a problem if previously he had of voted on the $600,000.00 dollar amount but he was not in office. Commission Roland agreed to spend a certain and stuck with his commitment. I do not always agree with Mr. Roland but I will give him credit for standing his ground. Looking at the way most people seem to look at the population, maybe they need to close the Leesburg Fire-EMS station and move all of the personnel to either Century or Palmyra since they have more population.
Jeff, if we got to know each other we will probably agree on more than we will disagree on. I would like to see a little more attention on the North end of the county since they are also tax payers and help fund the county and if your district was not where it is and did not get the services
you would have the same feeling as the Northern part does. I understand more will be spent in the populated areas and it should but that is no reason to ignore another district which has been done for a number of years.
Hope to see you at the Commissioners meeting someday.
JTye,
I’m at every single one of them, typically on the front row beside Carlton Fletcher. If you don’t recognize me, just look for the guy on his BlackBerry virtually the entire meeting – I live tweet them, which also serves as notes for these posts.
I really don’t mind principled objections and wanting to keep costs down. In fact, in this very post I objected to spending $4K to add wood veneer finishes to the chairs in the auditorium. My issue with Commissioner Roland is the arbitrary nature of the number and the fact that he pitches fits about more money not being spent in the northern part of the County where FAR less people are. Leesburg’s daytime population actually swells to nearly 1/3 of the County population during the week days, which certainly justifies some things here. That said, one of the first Lee County issues I personally looked at – after the site location for this Library/Conference Center – was thinking about possible sites for a second Lee County High School. By and large, I kept both of those sites in the southern areas of the County, though I think I did allow that a new HS could go on the current bypass in Leesburg.
Indeed, Roland reminds me very much of Democrats in the General Assembly who to this day keep harping on the War Veterans Domicilliary being closed down to save money in the budget crunch the State faces, even though every single person who was there was relocated either with family or another State agency before the place was shut down. After the first time or two, my attitude is that you’ve made your point and it is time to move on. But DuBose Porter, the House Minority Leader who is running for the Democratic nomination for Governor, was STILL harping on that this week in a campaign email!
But hey, I forgot to mention it this morning, but thanks for the comment about my campaign, and don’t worry – I have absolutely no plans to stop writing. The fact that you’re even reading this site tells me that we’ll probably agree on at least a few key things – such as that open, honest, civil discussion is of paramount importance – and honestly I love talking to people, even when we disagree. I look forward to the discussions!
A big AMEN my friend to your last post.