Residents call for city, county cooperation on SPLOST

Published 11:00 am Monday, August 14, 2017

TIFTON — Four Tift County residents who spoke at the Aug. 8 workshop meeting of the Tift County Board of Commissioners had two messages for the board.

The first was put SPLOST on the November ballot.

“There’s no question about that,” said Hal Baxley, one of the residents who spoke.

“Let’s get that SPLOST voted in and get that money,” said Hayward Fowler, a Tift County resident who runs The Fun Channel.

They also had another message: Tifton and Tift County have to work together.

“There is no cooperation whatsoever between the city and the county and the county and the city,” said Baxley. 

“That serves no one,” added Baxley. “If I wanted to locate jobs around here, I’d have to have a second thought about that.”

“Ya’ll care a lot about our community,” said Fowler. “The city council cares a lot about our community.”

Fowler told the commissioners why he stopped broadcasting county commission and Tifton City Council meetings on The Fun Channel.

Years ago, when the The Fun Channel started being carried in Valdosta, Fowler talked with Jimmy Rainwater, the mayor of Valdosta at the time, Fowler said.

Rainwater thanked him for broadcasting the Tift County and Tifton meetings.

He told Fowler they recorded whenever council and commission members started fighting and arguing, and would play those recordings for any business prospects who were considering locating in Tift County over Lowndes County, Fowler said.

“I love Tifton,” said Fowler. “And I love Tift County. I came back and told my daughter we would never film another county commission meeting or city meeting because Valdosta uses it against us.”

“We all live here together. We all go to church together. We all eat in restaurants together. You need to kiss and make up. Somebody’s gotta make a peace. And they’re just as responsible as ya’ll are. But ya’ll are all grown people.”

“I don’t like having to come up here and speak to you about this,” said Baxley. “We shouldn’t have to do this. You should be able to be grown enough people to work out whatever differences there are.”

Tift County resident Lyn Burnette asked the commission to find better ways of communication between the county and residents.

Communication problems were also cited by commissioner Melissa Hughes as a reason for problems between the city and county.

“Too often, there’s a lack of communication and a misunderstanding can occur,” said Hughes. “I strongly believe that’s what’s happened with placing SPLOST on the ballot. It saddens me our two governments are not effectively communicating with each other.

“If the two sister governments can sit down at the table and agree on how the funds will be allocated, I will be in full agreement to put SPLOST on the 2017 November ballot. However, as of tonight, neither government has come to the table to discuss how the funds would be allocated. Because the allocating hasn’t occurred, I don’t want to vote on SPLOST on the ballot and later risk facing unspoken challenges.”

Commissioner Donnie Hester called for a meeting between the city and county.

“I agree with you tonight,” said council member Donnie Hester, indicating the Tift County residents who spoke earlier at the meeting. “Both parties need to discuss, even if we need to go behind doors. We need to come together as a whole and work this thing out.”

Several of the Tift County residents who spoke suggested the city and county go behind closed doors to work on SPLOST negotiations.

This would be a violation of Georgia’s Sunshine laws, which include the Open Meetings Law. The Open Meetings Law requires cities and counties to hold public, open-door meetings, even in the case of meetings where an official vote or action is not anticipated.

There are three exceptions where a city or county can choose to move from a public meeting into executive session behind closed doors: to discuss real estate transactions, personnel issues or pending litigation. SPLOST negotiations would not be covered by any of those three exceptions and would have to take place in open, public meetings, something noted by commissioner Robert Setters.

“This is the State of Georgia,” said Setters. “We have a Sunshine Law. That’s not possible.”

“Everything we do has to happen in front of that camera, should he choose to show up,” added Setters, indicating Fowler, who was filming the meeting.

Hester indicated he was in favor of putting SPLOST on the November ballot and suggested that commission members needed to step down if they didn’t put it on the ballot.

“I’m not going to stop the citizens of Tifton or not allow them to vote on something they want to vote on,” said Hester. “If the citizens want SPLOST, they vote for it. If not, they turn it down. We are stewards over whatever goes on in Tift County. If we don’t allow the citizens to respond in the way they’d like to have it, I think we need to step down.”

Council member Buck Rigdon said he was also in favor of putting a SPLOST vote on the November ballot, quoting an April email from county manager Jim Carter that a November vote was the best choice in light of the planned May 2018 vote for T-SPLOST.

Setters, along with council members Stan Stalnaker, Greg Wood and chairman Grady Thompson submitted a letter to the editor to The Tifton Gazette, which ran in the August 6 edition [Editor’s Note: To see the letter, pick up the Aug. 6 edition or find it on our website, www.tiftongazette.com].

The letter, among other things, stated their belief that before a SPLOST referendum was placed on the ballot, Tift County and the City of Tifton should “resolve all issues related to the future delivery of water and sewer service equitably to the residents of Tift County.”

The letter also stated that if SPLOST was approved on a 2018 ballot, there would be no break in SPLOST collections, as the current SPLOST is set to carry through until the end of 2018.

“There are multiple opportunities next year to put SPLOST on the ballot,” said Stalnaker. “I think the responsible thing to do is to go through this in a methodical manner. I don’t see the point in rushing through it.”

Setters agreed, adding that the commission needed to know it was choosing projects that are needed county wide and that the money is being correctly allocated.

Chairman Grady Thompson questioned the cost of holding an election in a year where no commission seats are up for vote.

“It’d cost the county money to put this on,” said Thompson. “That’s what I look at. I like to save money wherever I can.”

County attorney Anthony Rowell noted several additional hurdles to getting SPLOST on the November ballot.

The county would have to give the three cites in the county—Tifton, Ty Ty and Omega—a 10-day notice before holding a meeting to discuss and negotiate SPLOST projects, according to Rowell.

Then after that first meeting the county would have to wait a minimum of 30 days before voting to add it to the ballot, in accordance with the law, Rowell said.

“Your time is very thin,” said Rowell.

While Rowell didn’t have an exact date, he gave mid-September as the deadline for adding a SPLOST vote to the November ballot.

With the combined 40 days of required waiting, that doesn’t leave much time to add it to the ballot, even if the negotiations were quick and amicable.

Rowell told the board he’d get a more exact timeline together for them.

County Manager Jim Carter estimated that the last SPLOST negotiations back in 2010-2011 took around 12 months.

“Somebody’s gotta make that step,” said Hester. “Somebody’s got to make that first step. It might be us who has to make the first step.”

The next meeting of the TCBOC is set for Aug. 14 at 6 p.m. in the Commissioners Meeting Room located in the Charles Kent Administrative Building, 225 N. Tift Avenue.