Sunday, January 18, 2009
County Commissioner's to hold workshop on future course of JDA next Tuesday.
Next Tuesday, at 5:00 PM, in commission chambers in the newly renovated courthouse in Woodbine, County Manager Steve Howard will give a sort of state-of-the county presentation along with a vision / wish list for the county's future course. Then, at 5:30 PM, the commission will hold a workshop on the future of the JDA. Word from an authortative source (NOT a commissioner) is that at least one commissioner will push for a more pro-active JDA bent on attracting more high-paying jobs, rather than more lucrative-to-only-a-few "roof tops." Moreover, there will be discussion of a job description for the as-yet-to-be-hired JDA director; the search process; and exactly who the director will report to. There is at least one commissioner who will assert likely assert that the JDA director should report to the county manager. The regularly scheduled, second county commission meeting of the year will follow at 6:00 PM.
Now that I can't get the re-play on cable (gone to satellite), I'm going to try to be there. I would encourage those who are as exasperated with a do-nothing JDA as I am to attend.
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3 comments:
I had to go dig this up! I knew that I read your thoughts on the JDA before. So I searched Sandys blog for the following quote. The JDA actually requested 175 million, 100 million of that being for water and sewer.
Mr Tact. Writes in reference to water:
Sandy,
Based upon my reading so far, it appears that
matters dealing with current and/or future
water/sewer needs are outside of the scope of
the JDA's mission.
Looks like the county needs a separate "Water
and Sewer Authority" to do what they now have
the JDA doing, vis-a-vis water and sewer.
Answer: We need something, that's for sure.
It is clear to me that something is going on
below the radar screen "and it isn't pretty!"
Jay,
This is why the answer you were given didn't surprise me. They were hoping this matter totally flew off the radar.
Being that you are running for office you may want to refresh your memory on this topic. I also think you will find information/letters the JDA wrote on this to be very informative.
11-11-2005, 8-26-2005, 6-17-2005 and 6-10-2005 from Camden Ga News archives.
Okay, let's try this again. Thanks for the advice, but (even though I was 99% confident in my memory of events) after reading your assertion that the JDA had in fact borrowed $100,000,000 for sewer and water, I e-mailed some one in county govermnemt this morning. As I result of said e-mail, I had a 30 minute phone conversation with said county official. trust me on this - the JDA nor anyone else borrowed, by bond issue, or any other means, $100,000,000, or even $100, for the purpose of buildihng a county owned water and sewer system.
Now. let me gratuitously refresh your memory. What actually happened was that as a favor to their builder buddies, the Terrible Troika, Rainer, Rhodes, and Herrin, instructed the JDA to "negotiate" ( in violation of Georgia law) supposedly voluntary contributions of $7,000 for every lot they got approved to build on.
Some went for it, knowing that, A, it was a good way to stave off much more costly, legal and enforceable "impact fees" if the county ever took Sandy's advice and passed them, and B, they (the builders) knew that once they got their buidling done, they could "discover" what they already knew (that the agreements were exactly what the state ecalls illiegal exactions), feign shock, protest, threaten law suits and get all of their money back - which they all did - with interest!Some developer jumped the gun and asked for his back early, screwing up the plan and, incidentally, validating what Sandy had been trying to tell all of the others all along.
The JDA's intent was to service not a $100 million, but a $110 million water and sewer bond issue. Thankfully, the whole thing was exposed and scrapped before that monumental error was actually consummated. Now, does that refresh YOUR memory?
Thank you, nonethless, for your ingenuous concern for maintaining the viability of my possible future candidacy.
By the way, just so we're all on the same page when a government "floats" a bond, it actually issues it. Ergo, the phrase "floating a bond" should not be confused with "flaoting" as in "floating a trial balloon" - i.e., running the idea of issuing the bond by the voters. Once a governemnt has "floated a bond," it is a done deal. The bonds are issued.
"Leverage is just a recondite way of saying that money is borrowed to
support an undertaking or a transaction. In the sense of borrowing
money against future returns, the purest kind of float is found in
the bond business. In this model, a company sells bonds to investors
with the guarantee that it will buy them back for a fixed price after a
certain period has elapsed. Although bonds can be resold and revalued,
resulting in a bond market that resembles the stock market, bonds are
fundamentally different from stocks in that a bond does not represent a
stake in the issuing company, only a promise that the price of the bond
will be returned with interest in the future. Note that the action of
issuing bonds is called "floating" a bond."
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