MOULTRIE – An intergovernmental agreement that addressed the commercial development that the county is helping to fund was one of two such agreements presented to the county commission at its most recent meeting.

While both are between the county and the Moultrie-Colquitt County Development Authority, each serves a different purpose, County Administrator Chas Cannon told the commissioners. “One of them has to do with Project Deuce,” he said, “and the other one has to do with getting an advance on some of the funding we have set aside in the current SPLOST.”

Moultrie-Colquitt County Development Authority attorney Will Horkan made the presentation on the authority’s behalf and answered questions from the commission.

“There will be some funding needs between now and the end of the year, which the development authority will have to step-up and provide. This agreement allows the development authority to commit to that,” Horkan said of the first IGA that he presented.

The second IGA will provide for the creation of a commercial projects construction fund, which will address the current commercial development project (Project Deuce) that the County, along with the City and the Development Authority, agreed to assist with, in partial funding.

This is the commercial development that is slated to be built north of Lowe’s Home Improvement Store and east of Harbor Freight. The Development Authority will put in $2,420,000, the County will put in $1,995,000 and the City will put in $1,185,000.

Horkan said that the IGA included Project Deuce but also left open the possibility of working with other future commercial development projects.

“What it does, effectively, is create within the development authority a specific fund with specific eligibility requirements … for jobs, total investment spend coming from outside of the county or new investment spend within the county,” he said.

Horkan explained that the idea behind the IGA was that when a company like Publix comes in, another company will follow four or five years later. He said he learned this through exploring projects, looking at the current commercial retail project and others and also talking to development professionals in the state, other county development authorities and municipal development authorities.

“The idea is to set-up a fund where, assuming the eligibility requirements are met, the development authority can move with some decent amount of speed to ensure it happens,” he said.

He also said that there were clawback provisions in the IGA that would be written into any developer agreement with any commercial developer that seeks the funds.

He said within the Project Deuce development agreement, there are provisions, if they are unable to do what they say they’re going to, that include liquidated damages and complete clawback provisions.

“But long story short, there are several ways where the development authority will have the opportunity to clawback monies or stop dispersing monies, on a schedule, if the developer isn’t meeting their own timeline and the timeline that’s agreed to in the development agreement,” Horkan said.

He also told the commissioners, as an update, that Project Deuce was still on track and they hoped to break ground in November.

Commission Chairman Denver Braswell wanted to know who checked that the developers were meeting the clawback provisions.

“In this instance, it will be the board, it’ll be me and Amy (Authority President Amy Johnson). Skylar from the developer of Project Deuce, he’ll be down here every two weeks,” Horkan said.

He said that the Development Authority board would have the ability to walk through, on-site, and look at what the progress was and what they were doing.

He also said that there was a provision built-in that the developer had to ask for the money at each turn and the Development Authority board had to approve of it at each turn.

Commissioner Mike Boyd asked if the IGA that they were looking at allowed the County to get in and inspect the project.

Horkan responded that it was not in the IGA in front of the commission but was in the development agreement with the Development Authority.

Boyd wanted to know about the provision for holding back funds and Horkan replied, “The way the development agreement is currently written, if they get more than 90 days behind, you can actually declare them in default. If they get more than 60 days behind, we can withhold the next payment to them and that would depend on their cost schedule.”

“Is this going to be a tri-party agreement or just the county and the EDA?” asked Cannon and Horkan replied that it would just be the County and the EDA agreement and there would be a separate IGA with the City of Moultrie.

Braswell asked if there was a way to ensure that the County was first if the Project Deuce developer defaulted on the development agreement.

“Not based on the way the financing on the piece of property is gonna be set-up,” Horkan said.

He went on to say that if something were to go so wrong where the developer could not complete the project, they would be looking at the financier coming in with a security deed or promissory note that would give them priority over what the EDA’s claims would be.

“This is basically recreating a ’96 or ’98, whatever, agreement we had back in the day,” said Cannon and Horkan agreed that it was very similar.

Cannon asked what the reason was for not making the IGA three parties, county, city and EDA. Horkan said that it was just simpler and cleaner as it was presented but could be done if the parties wanted to do it that way.

Castellow will look over both of the IGA’s ahead of the next county commission meeting.