Dade County Executive Chairman Ted Rumley touts NWGRC's services at the Nov. 1 commission meeting. Need help training for a new job? Call, urges the Boss.
The Dade County Commission's regular November meeting last Thursday was unusually fraught with drama: Please see previous Planet articles about waves made by an outgoing commissioner [click on Mitchell Smith's face at left to go to that article] and by protestors who brought their concerns about a massive logging operation on Lookout Mountain to the meeting.
[Click the logging picture below for that one.]
But the five commissioners also discussed a good deal of regular county business, including the Georgia Department of Transportation's insistence that Dade pony up $100,000 to pay for a right of way it doesn't need, in order to obtain state funding for a bridge replacement that it does.
Dade County Executive Chairman explained that GDOT had demanded the money to buy land adjoining a bridge in Rising Fawn it proposed to replace. "Well, that particular bridge of all of them in the county will not require additional land to be bought," he said. Not only was there plenty of property on both the left and right side, because of the way a previous bridge there had been laid out, but Rising Fawn is Rumley's own stomping grounds and his brother owns the land contiguous to the bridge and would be happy to donate enough of it for a right of way. "It's not something we would need to spend any money on," he said.
Rumley said he'd challenged GDOT about the $100,000 right-of-way deposit and had finally been told it was just the way the rules were written--"It's kind of a match," he said--and that whether or not the state bought any more land, it would not refund any of the county's $100K.
"I doesn't make any kind of sense," said Rumley. "My question is to you, do we want to do that?"
District 3 Commissioner Robert Goff compared GDOT's position to a used-car deal. "That was very shady, if you ask me," he said.
No action was taken on the land issue at the Nov. 1 meeting.
In other business, the commissioners reappointed Donny Williams and Jeff Forester to the Dade Board of Tax Assessors and solicited the public at large for another volunteer to replace Dr. James Cantrell. All citizen boards exact a modicum of time but the tax board demands an immediate weeklong commitment to take required training. Anyone who is interested may call the commission office at (706) 657-4625.
The board already had a volunteer to fill an important vacancy on the county Industrial Development Authority (IDA) board of directors: Peter Cervelli (left), who this summer retired as IDA's executive director, had now been roped back in to serve as a board member to replace
Nathan Wooten. Wooten (below), who is leaving IDA after 12 years, was IDA board chairman.
Whether Cervelli will seek or accept that office is
anybody's guess, but he certainly would seem to have the right qualifications. Even before being hired for the ED job in 2012, Cervelli had done ec.-dev. for the city of Trenton as Better Hometown Manager. "He'd be able to hit the ground running," said District 1 Commissioner Mitchell Smith.
The board approved Cervelli to begin a six-year term as of Jan. 1, 2019. Welcome back, Brains!
As for SPLOST (special purpose local option sales tax) expenditures, the commission approved $10,9327.08 for radios and new hoses for two of the county's volunteer fire departments. It also approved $115,197.54 for new ambulance stretcher/lift equipment that will allow emergency personnel to transport and lift patients with the touch of a button as opposed to stress on their knees and backs.
About 58 percent of people these days are big enough to be considered obese, said Dade Emergency Services Director Alex Case in defense of the expenditure, and one out of every four of the emergency medical technicians whose job it is to transport them will have a back injury at some point. Old-style stretchers can support 750 pounds, with the EMTS doing the sweating. These new ones can hoist 850 with the machine in charge of the work.
The new units will be paid for in five equal payments of $23,039.55.
EMS Director Alex Case asks for SPLOST money for new ambulance equipment.
Additionally, the commission agreed to seek bids for a new roof for the county jail and to designate as surplus and send to auction two aged Crown Victoria police cruisers.
The commission was slated to hear from a representative of Republic Services about changes to Dade's waste disposal agreement with the firm, and to vote on adjusting transfer station charges to accommodate these. But the rep didn't show and the commissioners tabled all action concerning garbage until such time as she did come. Rumley stressed that residents should not assume that they will be charged more to dispose of their household waste simply because the contractor adjusts rates. The Planet will in any case report any rate hikes if and when they are imposed.
Speaking of garbage, District 4 Commission Allan Bradford announced he had finally gotten a grant for a long-awaited Tire Amnesty Day for the transfer station and would schedule it for the first week of December. Bradford does not yet know whether the great day will be Saturday, Dec. 1, or Saturday, Dec. 8, but promised to announce it as soon as he was sure.
A Tire Amnesty Day is a grant-subsidized occasion when residents may dispose of their trash tires at the transfer station free of charge. Bradford said he could use volunteers to help out with the effort.
District 2's Scottie Pittman used his monthly address to the public to praise the new LED lights at the county athletic fields, which he called "magnificent," and to thank the county for fixing County Road 6 in his district. "SPLOST has done a lot of Dade County," he said.
And District 3's Robert Goff was pleased to announce SPLOST is pouring in pretty well these days after years of sluggish collections. October collections were $213,531, better than any month for seven years, he said. He called the increased SPLOST of recent months a blessing and said during the lean years: "We had to let a lot of things ride."
County Boss Rumley reminded all of a Clean Water grant that will subsidize repair or replacement of septic tanks for Dade residents whose leaky tanks might imperil Lookout Creek. He also praised the efforts of the Northwest Georgia Regional Commission, which he said would not only help residents retrain for the job market but even help pay for transportation. Interested? "They're not going to come and knock on your door," said Rumley, but you can call NWGRC at (706) 295-6485 or the Boss at (423) 667-8999.
Rumley also announced the Dade County Sheriff's Office annual fundraiser will be at Wes Hixon's Outdoor Adventures in Wildwood at 6 p.m. on Jan. 19, and the 2019 beneficiary will be Maj. Tommy Bradford (left), the local hero who lost a leg in August in the line of duty. Tickets are on sale at the sheriff's office--cal (706) 657-3233.
Dade County Public Library manager Marshana Sharp (right) said the library would be accepting cans of food in lieu of library fines this month for its annual food bank drive--$1 per can for up to $10 in fines. Also in November, the Wildwood Lifestyle Center will be giving free plant-based cooking classes at the library from 5-6 p.m. on Wednesdays. Classes are today, Nov. 14, 21 and 28.
Alison Henderson reported for Dade 4-H that kids in the farm program will have a chicken show this month to show off the poultry they got as chicks in the spring.
Donna Street reported for the Dade Historic Preservation Committee that members were still in training to learn how best to attack the problem of restoring the county's historic courthouse and to help Dade residents who own historic houses get grants to improve them. "It's like starting a college degree," she said.
Ms. Street said another of the Historic Society's popular hikes to the county's old coke ovens is planned but not scheduled yet and that another calendar of historic county photographs will soon be out. Calendars cost $10 and may be ordered at the library (706-657-7859) or commission office (706-657-4625).
The Dade County Commission meets at 6 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month in the county Administrative Building.
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