The public speaks

Ellaville Schley consolidation committee hears from public

Robert Griffin

ELLAVILLE — When the Ellaville Schley County consolidation committee held its first public hearing on the issue of consolidation a few months ago, 25 citizens showed up to ask questions of the board and to learn more about what a unified government would mean for them. At Thursday night’s public hearing, a total of six people, excluding some city officials and a representative from the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG) showed up to question the board.

One question that was raised by an older man in the audience late into the hour-long meeting was “My dad always told me that if something works leave it alone. Where is the money going to come from to do this? Why are you trying to change something that’s working?” County Board of Commissioners Chairman Greg Barineau immediatly resonded , “Well the problem is that it really is not working.” Barineau went on to explain that Schley County was, at this point $1.5 million in debt. “What we have now really isn’t working,” Barineau continued, “if it was we wouldn’t be in the debt problems we are. I can honestly tell you that not counting the debt from the water system we have about 1.5 million in debt.”

Barineau went on to explain that what has lead to the debt was that the County was not doing property reevaluations as much as they were supposed to be doing, and then once they did the evaluations the “housing bubble” was at its highest point.

“The bad thing is that once we did the reevaluations the housing bubble was at its highest point, and that is what the tax base is based off of now,” Barineau explained. “You have a choice to do a reevaluation every two years, or to pay a penalty. The penalty was about $2,000, to $3,000 against where you would have to pay $200,000 to perform a reevaluation. The people made the right decision, it’s just that we should have done a reevaluation a few years earlier then when we did it, to get everything back up to par.”

Barineau went on to explain that the problem was that debt was being pushed from one year to the other and that the county found itself in a “judgment day,” when the debt was hanging over their heads. “We went too far going by the skin of our teeth and getting a little bit in debt, and a little bit in debt, and it kept rolling from year to year,” Barineau said. “I can tell you when I took over as chairman we had $500,000 in tax anticipation notes (TAN) that had rolled from year to year to year, and so far this year we have paid $250,000 of that back. The plan was that we were going to pay half of it back this year, and half next year, because we didn’t want to hit everybody with a tax increase in one year, because we knew what the school board was doing. When you find out that something else is mandated by the state for the next year, now you have an increase on top of that $250,000.”

Another issue that has been hanging over the heads of the consolidation committee was the issue with MEAG, and what the city of Ellaville and Schley County could do if the issue poses a roadblock to full consolidation. In a meeting on Feb. 11, Ellaville Mayor David Theiss delivered the news of the potential roadblock saying, “ There are two bond attorneys in New York; one represents the people that would actually buy the bonds, and has said that we need an appellate court decision, or opinion, as to the validity of Ellaville being able to continuing to be able to provide electricity through MEAG. So, that’s what they are asking for. Now I don’t know if you all know how fast an appellate court moves, but if you have ever watched a glacier move, that’s about the speed.”

Theiss went on to say at the meeting that, “They think at this point that if everything goes really good, and moves as fast as possible, that MEAG is looking at 10 to 12 months before it could actually get that opinion, and because it has to go through so many channels, like the Superior Court in Fulton County, and the problem that the guys in New York have is that they know you can cherry pick a judge and get the opinion you want, so then they want it to go to the appellate court after that and rule on the validity.”

Theiss delivered more news about the issues at the meeting saying that the question posed by the lawyers would have to be answered before the committee could move forward in presenting a charter. “That’s going to take some time and a whole lot of money to do,” said Theiss. “I don’t think we have really fully as a committee have absorbed the issues yet. We are at the mercy of the courts right now. The best case scenario, if we committed all the money that we needed to, it would take about a year to get it all through with.”

The City of Ellaville was named on a piece of legislation in the 1970s as an electric retailer, and a member of MEAG. When that happened, the City was named specifically, which is causing trouble with the lawyers. “It has to be answered for the bond lawyers by a district superior court and the Georgia Court of Appeals,” said Theiss. Other than Albany and Dougherty County, Ellaville and Schley County are the only City and County that are looking at consolidation and who are also a part of MEAG.

John Giles, a regional manager of MEAG, whose territory covers both cities and counties said, “Our concerns in Albany and Dougherty County is that last year the city of Albany applied for consolidation with the General Assembly and was denied. This year, they have done the same thing, but have included a charter in the filing. Dougherty County has not agreed with the consolidation, so we still feel like the General Assembly will say no. I will add that we have more concerns with Albany because they have already written a charter. The consolidation committee here was nice enough to pass a resolution to let us work these issues out before you wrote your charter.”

Giles went on to explain that the issues will take time to resolve. “We need time. We have $3.5 billion worth of bonds, and Ellaville is a part of all of that,” said Giles. “Your tax base is pledged for some of that. When the bond lawyers say that they need a decision from an appellate court, we are pretty much tied to that.”

Since MEAG is a non-profit company, the issue then becomes who pays the lawyer fees for the litigation. “We are not for profit, we are just a collection of 49 cities,” said Giles. “You are ones who are out front. You are the first ever City and County that was MEAG specific, so the other 48 cities are looking to you guys to pay the tab. We would tell the same story to Albany if they get approval for their charter.” The news took those gathered aback, and elicited a response of, “If we have to pay the lawyer fees is MEAG going to help us?”

Giles responded, “We are not for profit. We are only there to serve the 49 cities, and it would take a board action from our nine-member board, to say all 49 cities will pay the legal fees to satisfy Ellaville’s issue. I did talk with the mayor to see if he would like to contact the board and see if we can get the ball rolling on that, and charge it to the other members.”

For now, the committee is looking into doing a partial consolidation of services, in lieu of a full unified government. The next meeting of the Ellaville/Schley County Consolidation Committee will be at 7 p.m. March 4 at the Commissioners’ board room on Pecan Drive. This meeting is open to the public.

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