Gilmer EMS transitioning Medical Directors
News September 11, 2022
GILMER COUNTY, Ga. – Transitioning away from its current Medical Director, Gilmer EMS told the Board of Commissioners that they would be gaining certain capabilities that even Piedmont’s local Emergency Room does not apply.
Fire Chief Daniel Kauffman and EMS Chief Andrew Burnette told the board that the transition to a new medical director would allow for new vision and direction. However, that comes at an increase in costs. An increase of $500 per month according to the board. Chief Kauffman said that he has found some space in his budget to cover the remainder of 2022 and would look to add the increase into future budgets, possibly under contract services.
Post Commissioner Hubert Parker questioned the change, noting that documentation said that the current Medical Director’s affiliations with Piedmont was also a question for the change. Kauffman noted that they will be looking at a new director specially trained in disaster management, pre-hospital care, and ems care. With this transition, he also noted that it will widen the scope of care in our county and benefit us as our medical personnel are usually with patients much longer. While we have the local emergency department, certain emergencies are beyond their scope of treatment, meaning that ems will take patients directly to another location further away.
Broadening the scope of care in transit will not exceed state mandates as Kauffman noted the current direction is more limited than what the state allows.
Chief Burnette stated, “With this being an ER only up here, they don’t have all the cutting edge treatments and stuff that paramedics are allowed to do.”
Some of these situations include heart attack treatment in ambulance, an earlier response than waiting for arrival at a hospital. With state allowances far beyond what is being locally allowed, the new director focused on those issues would change the county’s protocols in ambulance and immediate responses. This could range from practices and procedures to applications of certain drugs. The full changes have not been explored yet.
As the county approved the change, the specific protocol changes will take effect in coming months with a new director once contracted.
County finalizes new contract to be delivered to WastePro
News August 6, 2022
GILMER COUNTY, Ga. – The county has been very happy with the services of WastePro since the transition to them for solid waste haul off. It is one of the reasons the Board of Commissioners has stated that they want to be helpful in recent negotiations as WastePro has returned in the last two months seeking a change to their contract.
With inflation continuing and gas prices higher than normal, the company has sought to change the contract rates. During talks with the county, this has taken the form of a diesel fuel surcharge to be included in the contract. In a Special Called Meeting on August 4, 2022, the Board of Commissioners received calculations from WastePro and looked to establish a base price that the surcharge would use as an anchor point.
They way that County Attorney David Clark explained the surcharge in this meeting, the base rate of $4.29 unit price was established from an average in July. This $4.29 is before added taxes. Originally planning to use a higher price that included taxes, the board decided against it as Georgia’s State Government has a fuel tax suspension that is still in place and the county did not want to have an “artificial increase” when the suspension is lifted.
As such, this base rate will be used in comparison for future months, each month’s cost for fuel as the company hauls off full dumpsters will be calculated as it increases or decreases from this base rate. Then, a surcharge will be added to the county’s monthly fees based on a percentage of that increase or decrease, meaning that increases will charge more, but the county has included decreases in fees in the contract should the average price of diesel fuel for a month go below the $4.29 base rate. The contract still includes charges based on taxes paid, but they will be calculated separately according to Clark.
The contract change discussed in the meeting, they did discuss these changes specifically for the diesel fuel costs, it will not include regular gasoline as is contracted for maintenance vehicles and such that visit sites when needed rather than the continual hauls.
From here, the county will move into regular session next week, giving Clark the time to prepare the contract and write it, then an approval will be needed to allow the chairman to sign the contract. At that point, the BOC will send the contract to WastePro for their signature putting the final approval on the changes to the adjusted contract to be set for three years.
Those meetings will be held on Wednesday, August 10, 2022, at 9:00 a.m. for the Work Session and Thursday August 11, 2022, at 6:00 p.m. for the Regular Meeting.
BOC considers change to Waste Pro contract for fuel charge
News June 23, 2022
ELLIJAY, Ga. – Gilmer is continuing to feel the increases of inflation in many ways. The county itself is also seeing this with increasing prices on bids that were approved before the massive increases. One of these increases comes at what gas stations charge at the pump, which is why Waste Pro says it presented a fuel surcharge addition into the contract for the county.
Originally bid in December 2021, Waste Pro set prices for hauling off dumpsters from convenience centers to begin in January 2022. Today, with continuing rising gas prices, Waste Pro is asking for an additional surcharge based of fuel prices starting from today’s average prices. This means that as gas continues to climb, an additional charge will be put on Gilmer County based on the price increase. That formula, noted in a special called meeting of the Gilmer BOC on June 22, 2022, would be 0.05 percent of every one cent increase in gas prices. It was also noted that this increasing surcharge added on as prices increase would also decrease back to zero as prices return back to the starting point based on today’s average prices.
In negotiations, Chairman Charlie Paris suggested also implementing a decrease on the same charge below the established zero point based on the gas prices. Both parties are still looking into the negotiation and possible inclusion of both concepts of the increasing and decreasing charge that could go below the bid price if gas goes below the average prices. Current understanding is that the surcharge will begin based on today’s average prices, so the county would not be paying the surcharge on how much gas has increased since December’s bid. If the decreasing charge, or discount, is based on December’s or January’s average prices, based on the original contract bid and the start date respectively, then this would establish a wide “zero” level between what average prices were then and what average prices are now where there would be no charge increase or decrease.
Paris did note that he didn’t want a formula based solely on original bid prices as Waste Pro is offering to start the surcharge increases based on today’s prices and he did not want Gilmer County also covering the difference over the last six months.
County Attorney David Clark also weighed in on the topic saying that the county could push to enforce the original bid contract. He noted that the county is being “accommodating” in the understanding of the rising gas prices. He went on to offer his opinion on the item saying, “By building in the fuel surcharge that they are proposing, whatever the base rate is, if it goes up, the county pays. If it goes down from that base rate, by virtue of you all accommodating that, it should be a decrease to the taxpayers. There shouldn’t be a gap between today’s price… and January’s price.”
With no set decision on whether the county would have that wide gap of no increase or decrease or simply base the decrease on today’s prices or earlier prices, and with Waste Pro looking at incorporating some kind of change in their proposal to include a decrease below zero, the item was tabled to be revisited. The Board is expecting to hear another proposal from Waste Pro during it’s July meetings. Post Commissioner Karleen Ferguson did note during the meeting that she has heard good things about Waste Pro’s services. Waste Pro began its service in January after the county began looking for competitive bids after increases with its previous service provider. The county has only had Waste Pro in service beginning this year.
New Superintendent Ridley approved with Work Session Vote
Board of Education, News July 20, 2021
EAST ELLIJAY, Ga. – Gilmer County’s Board of Education made Dr. Ridley official last night with a unanimous vote during their monthly work session for their new superintendent.
Dr. Hal Brian Ridley was named the finalist of the school system’s Superintendent search during a special called meeting on June 26, 2021. According to the Board of Education, “The Board voted unanimously to name Dr. Ridley as the single finalist for the position and announced its intention to name him as Superintendent after the 14-day period of public notice.”
Board Chairman Ronald Watkins, right, signs the Superintendent contract with Dr. Hal Brian Ridley, left.
Nearing the end of July now, the Board is trying to get Dr. Ridley in and ready before the start of the school within the next two weeks. Most teachers are returning and final preparations are coming into play this week in the school system such as teachers rooms being moved into Clear Creek Elementary today.
Normally, most votes don’t happen until the boards Thursday meetings as it is the regular session of the government entity.
During the meeting, the board voted to enter executive session along with Ridley. Returning a few minutes later, the official motion came to approve Dr. Ridley as the new Superintendent along with comments during the meeting about the school system and a special thanks to Kim Cagle, who served as Interim Superintendent over the summer.
Now approved, Ridley is likely to be taking his first meeting this Thursday as his first official meeting as Gilmer’s Superintendent. The board is also holding a reception on Thursday at 5 p.m for Dr. Ridley and to allow the public time to meet and speak with him before their Regular Meeting.
Dr. Ridley and the Board signed the contract after the meeting, right before the board retreated into their usual executive session for personnel.
Dr. Ridley stated, “I would like to thank the Board for this opportunity. And thank you to Kim Cagle, she has been very welcoming as I try to get myself oriented to this new job. I’m looking very forward to working with all of you and we’re going to do some great things in Gilmer County.”
BOC to sell old Planning and Zoning Building
News July 28, 2020
Downsizing its facilities due to moving offices around, the Gilmer County Board of Commissioners is now looking to sell their building on the square that has been used recently as the Planning and Zoning office.
Gilmer’s former Planning and Zoning building is located in the square immediately south of the courthouse.
The property disposal came before the commissioners in a Special Called meeting under an agenda item that encompassed both the “disposal of the property” as well as engaging a real estate agent.
Gilmer Commissioner Chairman Charlie Paris stated that engaging a real estate broker will begin with a bid process to the board to find an agent to use in the process. However, engaging the bid should follow broad language on usage. County Attorney David Clark encouraged this option of specificty to allow the Commissioners options down the road. He stated, “That gives you the option to consider it, but you don’t have to use the agent with the additional piece of property.”
This means that the county could use the agent to sell the Planning and Zoning building, but wouldn’t have to go through the agent for every piece of property that may come up.
Paris also clarified further saying that if they get another piece of property they need to sell, but wish to just auction it off, they could do this. However, if they do wish to go through the real estate agent again, they would not need to complete the bid process again at that time.
Having the bid process set one agent into this position, the county is also looking to only extend the contract by a specific time period. After that time they would need to rebid the services of real estate agent. With that in mind, Clark also suggested the contract would terminate after a year unless the agent was amid a selling process at the time.
The final decision came through two motions, the first came to take bids for a real estate agent to handle disposing of county property while reserving rights to dispose of property in other ways. The second came to dispose of the building previously referred to as the Planning and Zoning building. Both were approved by the two present commissioners, with Post 2 Commissioner Karleen Ferguson absent.
Along with the disposal in this meeting, another issue arose that could become a major issue. While the office of the Board of Commissioners is attempting to satisfy requirements for a DOT audit with regards to Gilmer’s Airport Professional Services Agreement. According to Paris, Georgia’s Department of Transportation is going through an audit process.
As such, Gilmer has used grants they have used at the airport from the FAA. Part of those grants cover engineering requirements. The state’s audit saw a request for the master contract with the engineering firm from Gilmer County. Paris said that the county didn’t have a contract in 2015, but the county specified it was to be done under the contract of 2012. However, in 2012, the engineering firm, Croy Engineering, signed the contract and sent it to the county. The county at the time tabled the item to investigate. However, the county never revisited the contract.
With no contract, Gilmer County could be held responsible for reimbursement of all the engineering costs since 2012. Clark explained that the county has tried other options to resolve the issue, but have been rejected. Now, the county will authorize the chairman to sign the contract with a retroactive effective date to satisfy the needs.
The county has been operating under the contract over the years, but has simply not signed the contract.
Special meeting sees Second Amendment wording revision
News March 6, 2020
ELLIJAY, Ga. – A change in the Second Amendment Sanctuary Resolution and lighting on the tennis courts were only part of a Special Called March meeting that also saw an update to county’s pool design.
A small change in the Second Amendment Sanctuary Resolution in Gilmer County saw a small group of people attend the Special Called Meeting on March 6, 2020.
This addition actually states the commonly used moniker for Second Amendment Sanctuary/Protection County in the resolution now. The change, in fact, was 13 words added to the resolution, “that Gilmer County is hereby declared a Second Amendment Sanctuary/Protection County and” as highlighted in the 20-xxx Second Amendment Resolution v.3.
The county also approved to distribute RFP’s (Request for Proposal) for prices and quotes on adding lighting to the county’s Tennis Courts. Looking into the option for a State Equivalent Bid price and the options for quotes instead of bids. The item didn’t require a bidding process. But, the commissioners still wanted to look for quotes and comparative pricing as they seek to add the lighting. This process will move forward in the coming months as the county looks into quote prices.