Industrial authority issues report to BOC

“Cooper Road-Russell Drive is paved, all of Russell Drive and Cooper Road from Russell Drive to the railroad. We hope the paving of this road will help bring industry to this location.

“The Hwy. 29 water line plans are complete. We will get these to the Georgia Environmental Protection for approval. Our plans are to advertise for bids in August. We need to get started by early September to complete this year. We have several requests for water service along this route. As we get closer to construction, we will try to inform residents along the route about water service becoming available.

“We have a draft copy of the Madison County commercial brochure completed and have emailed it to the economic development committee for their final review.

“The Georgia Chamber of Commerce is continuing to promote the Connect Georgia T-SPLOST vote ‘yes’ with ads on radio and TV as well as phone calls to this region. The Atlanta region is advertising everywhere. This is somewhat confusing to this region’s voters. The message that monies collected in each region will stay in that region. None of Region 5 (which is our region) will go to Atlanta. The other factor is the 25 percent for local projects. Madison County will, if passed in the region, receive approximately $1.5 million per year for the next 10 years. If it fails to pass, this will be lost and a penalty on the current LMIG funds received by Madison County will be a 70/30 match, which means Madison County will have to come up with approximately $200,000 from other taxes to match this funding.”

OTHER BUSINESS

In other business Monday, the board of commissioners learned that the county collected $176,634 in special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST) money, up from $159,388 for July 2011. The board approved an inter-governmental agreement with the city of Comer for building inspection and code enforcement services in the city. The group approved Sonny Austin to the zoning board to replace Wendell Hanley, who has moved out of state. The BOC also heard from Hoke Strickland, who said the county should do something to repair a dangerous dip in the road at Hwy. 98 and Sunset Drive in Danielsville.