Paris, Post Commissioners Not Slowing Down on Getting Things Done

ELLIJAY, GA — The February Gilmer County Board of Commissioners meeting was much like the January meeting in the sense that Chairman Charlie Paris didn’t waste anytime getting work done for the county.One of the first orders of business was spoke to by citizen Ralph Heller. Heller was at the meeting representing the Benton MacKaye Trail Association and was requesting the board to designate the parts of the trail that are on the county road ways to be labeled/designated as part of the National Recreation Trail (NRT) system. Heller also made it clear that by designating the roadways as part of the NRT wouldn’t change any obligations that the county has for the parts of the roads effected.

“All this will do is give the part of the Benton MacKaye Trail that is in Gilmer County more recognition,”

said Heller.

After Heller spoke, the board members commended him on all the work he had put in to getting the trail in Gilmer County to get recognized.

“We appreciate the work you have put into it on behalf of Gilmer County,”

said Post 2 Commissioner Travis Crouch.

Paris switched gears and began talking about the creation of an advisory board for Whitepath Golf Course. All three commissioners admitted that they were all for getting having less boards floating around for various reasons, but they also all agreed that dealing with the golf course was a whole different animal.

“Since none of us on this board [of commissioners] even play golf we see it best to have some people who do to give us advice,”

said Paris.

Paris recommended for the board to be made up five members with the members serving staggered term lengths. The members that Paris recommended to be placed on the board were Jason Smith, Paul Berry, Thurman Shumate, and Ryan Reeves.

Staying on the subject of the golf course, Paris began the conversation of using the 7000 ft of river frontage at the golf course for mitigation banking. The federal government has established mitigation banking so that developers can do what they need to do, but do so by buying shares in mitigation banking that will mitigate what they are doing.

“All we want to do is begin the steps to get a mitigation bank set up to sale the shares and bring money into Gilmer County,”

said Paris.

Paris stated that mitigation banking has the potential to bring upwards of $8,000,000 into the county.

The next item of business to take care of was that of purchasing vehicles that are needed for the county. Nine of the vehicles, one ambulance and six sheriff patrol cars, can be purchased at of the GO bonds that still have $1.8 million left in them since they are public safety vehicles.

The other two sheriff patrol cars will be purchased out of general funds.

Four other vehicles need to be purchased also for the Tax Assessors office to be able to do their job as needed. Since they are not Public Safety vehicles they cannot be purchased at of the GO bonds and will have to come out of general funds. The board is looking at two Jeep Wranglers and one Ford Escape. The last vehicle that needs to be purchased is a new commissioners vehicle which will be a Ford Explorer.

The board stated that they will keep as much purchasing as possible within the county.

Another item of business was to finalize the filling of a few county positions. Last month there were a couple of positions that had interims in them such as public works and the animal shelter. They board also wanted to fill one vacant position, that of the director of the recreation department.

The board voted to make the interims of public works, Jim smith, and the animal shelter, Daniel Luca, to become permanent. They also voted to hire Kevin White to be the director of Parks and Recreation.

The last thing that the board covered on the agenda was a response to House Bill 40 which states that no county, city, or school board may except any federal grant without the act of approval from the Georgia general assembly.

Paris stated that the passing of this bill would be a horrible idea considering it would prolong the county getting the money from grants they had been awarded since the assembly only meets 44 days out of the entire year.

“This is a horrible bill all the way around,”

said Paris.

The board voted write a letter of protest to the state asking them to reconsider approving this bill.

Watch the full meeting video below:

GIlmer BOC 021215 from Fetch on Vimeo.