Written 1/6/08
It's an Emergency: We Need to Get Out of Town to Talk
In a meeting Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis has tried to keep out of the public eye, the five-member board, the County attorney, five staff members and two County consultants met on December 7 in Madison, Georgia, to discuss a variety of issues, including water and sewage services and the sale of beer, wine and alcohol by the drink in the County.
Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center Executive Director Jim Dove and Executive Assistant Mott Beck also attended the meeting to serve as "facilitators."
The meeting took place at the James Madison Inn & Conference Center in Morgan County. The Inn invoiced Oconee County the day before the meeting $250 for the meeting room, $36 for coffee services, $144 for continental breakfasts, and $180 for lunches. The total bill, including taxes, was $683.20, payable on the day of the meeting.
Chairman Davis used emergency procedures to give minimal public notice of the meeting, which actually was planned at least three weeks in advance. Georgia law stipulates that the meeting had to be open to the public.
The announcement of the agenda for the December 7 meeting did not appear on the County’s web site, though meetings, even unscheduled or "called" meetings, are usually announced on the site. The minutes of the meeting also have not been posted on the site and were not approved by the full Board when it approved the minutes of the meetings of December 4 and 18 at its regular meeting on January 3, 2008.
The existence of the December 7 meeting was revealed in documents the County released to me on January 3, 2008, in response to an open records request I filed with the County on December 28, 2007.
Georgia law requires that meetings of the Board of Commissioners be scheduled and open. If a meeting is "to be held at a time or place other than at the time and place prescribed for regular meetings, the agency shall give due notice thereof. ‘Due notice’ shall be the posting of a written notice for at least 24 hours at the place of regular meetings and giving of written or oral notice at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting to the legal organ" of the County, which is The Oconee Enterprise.
The law further states that "When special circumstances occur and are so declared by an agency, that agency may hold a meeting with less than 24 hours’ notice." In that case, the agency (Board of Commissioners) must give notice "of the meeting and the subjects to be considered at the meeting as is reasonable under the circumstances." This includes informing the newspaper that is the legal organ of the County.
The law also requires the Board to have an agenda of the meeting prior to the meeting itself, a summary of the subjects acted on and a list of those present available within two business days after the meeting, and minutes of the meeting no later than immediately following the next regular meeting of the Board.
In my open records request, I asked to see "A copy of the written notice posted in advance of any meeting or meetings of the Board of Commissioners held after December 4, 2007, and before December 18, 2007, and any evidence available indicating that the notice was posted "at the place of regular meetings" of the Board of Commissioners as required by Georgia Code Section 50-14-1 (d)."
I received two sheets of paper. One was a single paragraph notice of the meeting. Attached to it was a fax cover sheet directed to Vinnie Williams, the publisher and editor of The Oconee Enterprise. A hand written note indicated that the two pages were faxed at noon on December 6, or less than 24 hours before the meeting began.
The Enterprise has not written a story about the meeting.
I also asked for written and e-mail correspondence "between the Chairman of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners and/or his representative(s) and other members of the Board of Commissioners, appointed officials and department heads, employees of the County, and/or consultants to the County regarding a meeting or meetings of the Board of Commissioners held after December 4, 2007, and before December 18, 2007."
I received a memorandum from Gina Lindsey, County clerk, addressed to the Board of Commissioners, Dan Haygood, the County attorney, Alan Theriault, the County’s administrative officer, and Jeff Benko, the County finance director.
It was dated December 4 and indicated that "We have scheduled the BOC Retreat at the James Madision Inn in Madison, GA on Friday, December 7th from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
I also received a copy of an e-mail message from Lindsey to Chairman Davis written on November 16 indicating that "Tricia stopped by the James Madison Inn and Conference Center yesterday. She said it was beautiful...If this is satisfactory with you, we should go ahead and book it now. Please advise."
Davis wrote back three hours later–at 1:49 p.m. on November 16, or three weeks before the meeting–saying: "OK with me."
Commissioner Chuck Horton sent an e-mail to Chairman Davis at 8:16 a.m. on December 5, saying "I see that we have not been provided an agenda for the retreat on Friday. It is now Wed morning and if I am to have any thoughts on any issue it would be nice to at least know what the topics are in advance. I see no need for me to drive to Madison if I don’t know what you want us to hear. To be honest, I don’t want to go to Madison. I don’t know why we couldn’t find something closer. If an agenda is not provided by this afternoon I will not be in attendance."
Chairman Davis wrote back about a half hour later:
"I thought the attached draft agenda was in your packet last night. We will need to add the requested Water Coalition Resolution as well as pending litigation. As you know retreat sessions by Boards have normally been held in out of county locations. Madison is about as close as we can get."
In my open records requests, I also asked for the agenda, a summary of the subjects acted upon and the names of persons present, and the minutes. I received a copy of the agenda and the minutes, which indicated that all five commissioners attended, as did Haygood, Theriault, Benko, Lindsey, Strategic and Long-Range Planning Director Wayne Provost, and Planning Director B.R. White.
In addition, Gary Dodd, former Utility Department director and now a County consultant, and Jimmy Parker, from Precision Planning Inc. and also a County consultant, attended.
Parker and PPI are working with the County on the Rocky Branch sewage plant upgrade, which will result in the discharge of 1 million gallons per day of treated sewage water into Barber Creek. The County has received bids on the project, but it has refused to open the bids for public inspection. (See my posting of 12/28/2007 below.)
I also asked in my open records requests for correspondence with the operator of any possible venue for the meeting, for requests for reimbursement of expenses submitted by the owner of the venue, by County employees, and by County consultants, and for records of actual disbursements.
All I received was the invoice from the conference center.
The County also provided copies of at least some of the documents distributed at the December 7 meeting.
The December 7 meeting covered some topics that were then repeated at the December 18 public meeting. Water and sewage were discussed at both, supplemented by a largely similar PowerPoint presentation by Parker in both cases.
The December 7 meeting included a discussion of a "potential SPLOST referendum" by Theriault. The current SPLOST, or Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, ends in July of 2009, and, according to the minutes of the meeting, "Commissioners do not want lag in collections." Among the "ideas for future projects funded by SPLOST, according to the minutes, were courthouse space, "water, sewer, roads," community center facilities, new fire stations, and library expansion.
"Educate public as soon as feasible as to need for another SPLOST," the minutes say. "Attendees suggested a minimum of six months is needed to prepare for a successful referendum."
According to the minutes, Parker told the BOC that the Calls Creek and Rocky Branch sewage plants both can be upgraded to 2 million gallons per day. He also suggested that the Board should consider an upgrade of the Land Application System, which is now used at Rocky Branch, "as compared to cooperation with neighboring county regarding plan on Middle Oconee River." The minutes contain the following note: "LAS may ‘fill gap,’ (8-10 years) but begin planning toward cooperative effort."
The minutes contain the following report on the discussion of beer, wine and alcohol by the drink:
"SPLOST referendum should not be ‘tainted’ with this issue.
"Letter from Chamber of Commerce requesting a vote on the sale of beer and wine by the glass be placed on BOC agenda was discussed.
"Members offered comment and considerable discussion on this matter.
"Economic issue.
"Chamber might gather enough signatures to request referendum.
"Public needs to be engaged.
"A strong, restrictive ordinance would have to be in place.
"Legal Counsel was asked to continue work on ordinance."
I did not receive a copy of the letter from the Chamber of Commerce.
Chairman Davis has been struggling with the beer and wine issue since the summer, when the Chamber of Commerce began putting pressure on the Board to approve the sale of beer and wine in County restaurants. The Board held two public meetings on the issue, one in May and the other in June.
For the issue to pass, two commissioners would have to support it, allowing Chairman Davis to break the tie. If Chairman Davis does not want to vote, he would need three votes in support of the beer and wine ordinance.
The Athens Banner-Herald contained a story on December 28–after the meeting in Madison--in which Chairman Davis is quoted as saying he has no immediate plans to ask Commissioners to vote on the issue.
The Banner-Herald story reports that Chamber of Commerce President Charles Grimes sent a letter to the Commission in late November asking it to take action and contains a link to that letter. The letter is dated November 19, 2007, and asks Davis to "schedule a vote on the sale of beer and wine by the glass" on the December 4, 2007, meeting of the Board of Commissioners.
The Banner-Herald story contains the following statement, that is not attributed to anyone: "Since those June hearings, though, commissioners haven’t discussed the ordinance." The minutes of the December show otherwise.
The likelihood that a meeting had taken place between the December 4 and 18 regular meetings was suggested in a letter Chairman Davis wrote to me and the three others members of the Board of Directors of Friends of Barber Creek on December 13.
In that letter, Mr. Davis said that the members of the Board of Commissioners "respectively believe it is not in the best interest of Oconee County to consider" a resolution we had asked the Board to adopt.
That resolution, drafted by the Georgia Water Coalition, asks the Georgia General Assembly to fund regional and statewide water planning and monitoring and to prevent the transfer of water from one basin to another.
The Board of Directors of Friends of Barber Creek had presented the draft resolution to the Board of Commissioners on November 27 and again on December 4. No action was taken at either meeting.
At the meeting on December 18, I made the following public statement:
"I am well aware that Georgia law requires only minimal notification by posting of a notice in this courthouse of an emergency meeting. Your letter suggests that such a meeting took place, though there is no record of minutes of that meeting posted on the County web site."
Following my prepared comments, Mr. Davis responded:
"I believe in my letter to you it did appear that we had made a vote. That is incorrect. I had conversation with various members of the commission and that is my perception of how the commission felt at that particular time."
The Georgia Water Coalition resolution was the 9th item on the 10-item agenda for the December 7 meeting. The minutes indicate the issue was discussed.
The Board of Commissioners did consider the Georgia Water Coalition resolution at its January 3 meeting, but it did not vote on it.
Chairman Davis’ tactics made it unlikely that any citizens could attend the December 7 meeting in Madison, and, in fact, the record shows none did.
By law, even an "emergency" retreat leaves behind a record. It is good fortune that Chairman Davis dropped his guard in his letter to the Board of Directors of Friends of Barber Creek.
Without that, the meeting might never have come to light.
Georgia law says that governments must conduct their business in public, since it is the public’s business. This case shows, however, how easy it is to keep the public in the dark if that is what the County leaders want.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Friday, December 28, 2007
Written 12/28/2007
Citizen Involvement Could "Taint" the Bidding Process
Back in early September, when an analysis of the bidding process for the upgrade of the Rocky Branch sewage plant raised a number of questions about procedures, Oconee County officials promised to modify the process and rebid the project.
County officials, who rebid the upgrade work for the sewage plant on November 16, did change the process, though not in the way they indicated they would in September.
The changes are designed to make it impossible for anyone to do the analysis that revealed the questions about procedures that were raised in September.
The County is refusing to open up the bids for public scrutiny and refusing to allow the public to observe or see records of the evaluation of those bids.
County Administrative Officer Alan Theriault has determined that "The mere fact that a member of the general public is in anyway involved may taint and compromise the entire process," according to an e-mail message he sent me on December 21, 2007.
Theriault elaborated in an e-mail message of December 26, 2007, that "The proposals will be available to the public at such time as the final award of the contract is made or the project is terminated or abandoned."
The Board of Commissioners is expected to let a contract for the $8-10 million project in January. The project will result in the upgrade of the sewage plant under a permit granted by the State Environment Protection Devision allowing for the discharge of 1 million gallons per day of treated wastewater into Barber Creek.
Despite what Theriault wrote on December 26, the recommended bid, but not the competing bids or the details of the evaluation, must be presented in an open meeting. The Board of Commissioners can go into executive session and exclude the public for specified reasons, such as to discuss the future acquisition of real estate or to discuss or deliberate upon personnel issues involving a public officer or employee. Discussing bids is not listed as a justification for a closed session.
State law allows the County to close access to the bidding process, but it does not require it to do so. So the decision to close the process this time is a major change in procedures.
"I...hope you understand that we must abide by the non-disclosure requirements of the competitive sealed proposal (RFP) process," Theriault wrote in his e-mail of December 21, 2007.
Neither the first nor the second RFP stated that there were any "non-disclosure requirements." Georgia Code (50-18-72 (a)(6)(B) states: "Public disclosure shall not be required for records that are: Engineers’ cost estimates and pending, rejected, or deferred bids or proposals..."
In response to an open records request I filed on August 16, 2007, the County granted full access to the submitted bids in the first round of competition and to the records of the evaluation.
As I reported in my blog of September 2, 2007, then County Utility Department Director Chris Thomas recommended that the contract go to Jordan Jones & Goulding, with headquarters in Norcross but a branch office on South Milledge avenue in Athens. JJ&G submitted a bid of $680,580.
Keck & Wood Inc. of Duluth had the low bid of $643,000, and Carter & Sloope, located in Butler’s Crossing in Oconee County, bid $690,000.
JJ&G had partnered with Precision Planning Inc. (PPI) of Lawrenceville in preparing the Design Development Report (DDR) the County submitted to the EPD with its application for its Rocky Branch discharge permit.
JJ&G also was in charge of construction of the existing Rocky Branch facility, which sprays treated sewage water onto hayfields on site and does not have a permit to discharge into any stream.
Thomas had asked two people from PPI to evaluate the three bids submitted on July 26 and included their scores for the bids in reaching his decision to recommend JJ&G.
The analysis of the September bids showed that bidders were given a side tip after the initial Request for Proposals was written. The tip, given at the a pre-submittal meeting of interested bidders, indicated that the County was interested in receiving bids that specified alternatives to the membrane filtration system that was specified in the formal bid documents.
JJ&G proposed as alternatives to the membrane filtration system an "oxidation ditch process" and a "fill-and-decant activated sludge system." Neither can treat water to the level possible with the membrane filtration system, according to the proposal.
After the September 4 meeting, the County announced it would start the bid process over. As I explained in my posting of September 10, 2007, Theriault sent me an e-mail message on September 7, saying he plans "to meet with Utility Department personnel in the next several days to discuss particulars of moving forward and develop a rough time-line."
Theriault said he expected the initial step to be a "Request for Qualifications" advertisement "to identify design firms or teams that have specific experience with membrane filtration wastewater systems and that would be interested in this project."
There is no evidence the County ever did that.
Advertisements for the new Request for Proposals appeared in The Oconee Enterprise on November 21 and 29 and again on December 6 and 13. As with the earlier bid, interested parties were required to participate in a pre-submittal conference. That conference was held on December 4, making the last two advertisements in the Enterprise meaningless, at least in terms of soliciting proposals.
Nine firms attended the conference. Deadline for filling a proposal was December 20, and the County listed the names of bidders (minus identifying addresses) that day. The nine listed were: O'Brien & Gere, Wiedeman & Singleton, Inc., Carter & Sloope, Inc., HDR, Inc., HSF Engineering, Inc., Stantec Consulting Services, Inc., Pendergrass & Associates, Inc./Woodard & Curran, Inc., Stevenson & Palmer Engineering, Inc., and Brown & Caldwell.
That is all the County intends for its citizens to know until the Board of Commissioners votes to spend citizen money on the engineering design and support contract in January. The contract will probably be for between $600,000 and $700,000, based on the last bids.
The Request for Proposals issued on November 16 (and made available to me by PPI, which handled the distribution in response to inquiries) is identical to the June 29, 2007, RFP in stipulating that a "Selection Committee appointed by the Oconee County Board of Commissioners" will evaluate the submitted proposals.
The Board did not appoint the Selection Committee in June, and it did not appoint the Selection Committee for the November bidding.
At the December 18 meeting of the BOC, Jimmy Parker of PPI announced that he was putting together a committee consisting of the head of the County Utility Department, the head of the County Public Works Department, Theriault and some number of people from PPI.
"What we generally do is allow everybody to rate those independently so we don’t skew the results," Parker said. "Then we’ll meet to compile and sort of average the results, total those up and get a consensus of the committee on a recommendation back to this Board."
Commissioner Jim Luke asked Parker "to notify us when that meeting will take place in case any of us want to join."
"Yes sir, be glad to," Parker said.
That agreement does not appear in the draft minutes of the meeting posted on the County’s web site on December 27.
I sent an e-mail to Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis, to current Utility Department Interim Director John Hatcher, and to Luke shortly after the BOC meeting asking to be notified of the review committee meeting. I also wrote that evening to Davis and Hatcher asking for access to the bids as soon as they were submitted.
Theriault’s e-mail to me of December 21 was in response to both of those requests.
"I assume that your request concerning the meeting notification involves your desire to attend that meeting," Theriault wrote. "I am afraid that we must respectfully decline."
Nothing I can find in Georgia’s Sunshine Laws allows for denial of notification of a scheduled meeting. Participants in a meeting can vote to go to a closed session, but only after giving notice of the meeting and under limited circumstances.
Thomas, then Utility Department director, handled the evaluation of the three bids submitted back in July. No mention was made of a meeting for that evaluation.
The actual RFP issued in November is much like the RFP issued in June, but the more recent RFP asks bidders to submit a base design and an alternate design. The base design should follow the Design Development Report submitted to the Georgia EPD as part of the application for the permit to discharge treated sewage water into Barber Creek.
The alternate design calls for membrane filtration as a tertiary step, rather than the use of a membrane biological reactor.
The implications of these design options for the quality of water that will be produced by the plant cannot be known without a review of the bids, and that is precisely what the County has said it will not allow.
Another change in the RFP is the specification that the County plans to use Construction Management at Risk to let the actual bid for building of the plant. Such a procedure requires the construction manager to complete the work at a fixed maximum cost.
The November RFP also specifies that construction of the plant should begin in October of 2008 and that the plant should be operational–and begin discharging into Barber Creek–in July of 2009.
Despite the lag in time between the two RFPs and the small number of changes, PPI had to issue two addenda to the RFP, one on December 10 and the other on December 18, or two days before the filing deadline. The addenda deleted items from the original RFP, offered clarifications, and added requirements.
I asked Theriault for updates on the rebidding process in September, October and November. In each case, he informed me he had nothing by way of new information to provide me.
In the end, it seems it took the County three months to make two big changes in the bidding.
The first was to allow an alternative to the membrane filtration technology proposed to the EPD when the County received the permit for the discharge into Barber Creek.
The second was to close citizens out of the review process so they cannot know the implications of that change.
***
Here are the e-mail addresses of the members of the Board of Commissioners:
Melvin Davis, (Chairman), mdavis@oconee.ga.us
Margaret Hale, margarethale@oconee.ga.us and marghale@aol.com
Chuck Horton, chorton@oconee.ga.us
Jim Luke, jluke@oconee.ga.us
Don Norris, dnorris@oconee.ga.us.
The telephone number for all of them is 706 769-5120.
Citizen Involvement Could "Taint" the Bidding Process
Back in early September, when an analysis of the bidding process for the upgrade of the Rocky Branch sewage plant raised a number of questions about procedures, Oconee County officials promised to modify the process and rebid the project.
County officials, who rebid the upgrade work for the sewage plant on November 16, did change the process, though not in the way they indicated they would in September.
The changes are designed to make it impossible for anyone to do the analysis that revealed the questions about procedures that were raised in September.
The County is refusing to open up the bids for public scrutiny and refusing to allow the public to observe or see records of the evaluation of those bids.
County Administrative Officer Alan Theriault has determined that "The mere fact that a member of the general public is in anyway involved may taint and compromise the entire process," according to an e-mail message he sent me on December 21, 2007.
Theriault elaborated in an e-mail message of December 26, 2007, that "The proposals will be available to the public at such time as the final award of the contract is made or the project is terminated or abandoned."
The Board of Commissioners is expected to let a contract for the $8-10 million project in January. The project will result in the upgrade of the sewage plant under a permit granted by the State Environment Protection Devision allowing for the discharge of 1 million gallons per day of treated wastewater into Barber Creek.
Despite what Theriault wrote on December 26, the recommended bid, but not the competing bids or the details of the evaluation, must be presented in an open meeting. The Board of Commissioners can go into executive session and exclude the public for specified reasons, such as to discuss the future acquisition of real estate or to discuss or deliberate upon personnel issues involving a public officer or employee. Discussing bids is not listed as a justification for a closed session.
State law allows the County to close access to the bidding process, but it does not require it to do so. So the decision to close the process this time is a major change in procedures.
"I...hope you understand that we must abide by the non-disclosure requirements of the competitive sealed proposal (RFP) process," Theriault wrote in his e-mail of December 21, 2007.
Neither the first nor the second RFP stated that there were any "non-disclosure requirements." Georgia Code (50-18-72 (a)(6)(B) states: "Public disclosure shall not be required for records that are: Engineers’ cost estimates and pending, rejected, or deferred bids or proposals..."
In response to an open records request I filed on August 16, 2007, the County granted full access to the submitted bids in the first round of competition and to the records of the evaluation.
As I reported in my blog of September 2, 2007, then County Utility Department Director Chris Thomas recommended that the contract go to Jordan Jones & Goulding, with headquarters in Norcross but a branch office on South Milledge avenue in Athens. JJ&G submitted a bid of $680,580.
Keck & Wood Inc. of Duluth had the low bid of $643,000, and Carter & Sloope, located in Butler’s Crossing in Oconee County, bid $690,000.
JJ&G had partnered with Precision Planning Inc. (PPI) of Lawrenceville in preparing the Design Development Report (DDR) the County submitted to the EPD with its application for its Rocky Branch discharge permit.
JJ&G also was in charge of construction of the existing Rocky Branch facility, which sprays treated sewage water onto hayfields on site and does not have a permit to discharge into any stream.
Thomas had asked two people from PPI to evaluate the three bids submitted on July 26 and included their scores for the bids in reaching his decision to recommend JJ&G.
The analysis of the September bids showed that bidders were given a side tip after the initial Request for Proposals was written. The tip, given at the a pre-submittal meeting of interested bidders, indicated that the County was interested in receiving bids that specified alternatives to the membrane filtration system that was specified in the formal bid documents.
JJ&G proposed as alternatives to the membrane filtration system an "oxidation ditch process" and a "fill-and-decant activated sludge system." Neither can treat water to the level possible with the membrane filtration system, according to the proposal.
After the September 4 meeting, the County announced it would start the bid process over. As I explained in my posting of September 10, 2007, Theriault sent me an e-mail message on September 7, saying he plans "to meet with Utility Department personnel in the next several days to discuss particulars of moving forward and develop a rough time-line."
Theriault said he expected the initial step to be a "Request for Qualifications" advertisement "to identify design firms or teams that have specific experience with membrane filtration wastewater systems and that would be interested in this project."
There is no evidence the County ever did that.
Advertisements for the new Request for Proposals appeared in The Oconee Enterprise on November 21 and 29 and again on December 6 and 13. As with the earlier bid, interested parties were required to participate in a pre-submittal conference. That conference was held on December 4, making the last two advertisements in the Enterprise meaningless, at least in terms of soliciting proposals.
Nine firms attended the conference. Deadline for filling a proposal was December 20, and the County listed the names of bidders (minus identifying addresses) that day. The nine listed were: O'Brien & Gere, Wiedeman & Singleton, Inc., Carter & Sloope, Inc., HDR, Inc., HSF Engineering, Inc., Stantec Consulting Services, Inc., Pendergrass & Associates, Inc./Woodard & Curran, Inc., Stevenson & Palmer Engineering, Inc., and Brown & Caldwell.
That is all the County intends for its citizens to know until the Board of Commissioners votes to spend citizen money on the engineering design and support contract in January. The contract will probably be for between $600,000 and $700,000, based on the last bids.
The Request for Proposals issued on November 16 (and made available to me by PPI, which handled the distribution in response to inquiries) is identical to the June 29, 2007, RFP in stipulating that a "Selection Committee appointed by the Oconee County Board of Commissioners" will evaluate the submitted proposals.
The Board did not appoint the Selection Committee in June, and it did not appoint the Selection Committee for the November bidding.
At the December 18 meeting of the BOC, Jimmy Parker of PPI announced that he was putting together a committee consisting of the head of the County Utility Department, the head of the County Public Works Department, Theriault and some number of people from PPI.
"What we generally do is allow everybody to rate those independently so we don’t skew the results," Parker said. "Then we’ll meet to compile and sort of average the results, total those up and get a consensus of the committee on a recommendation back to this Board."
Commissioner Jim Luke asked Parker "to notify us when that meeting will take place in case any of us want to join."
"Yes sir, be glad to," Parker said.
That agreement does not appear in the draft minutes of the meeting posted on the County’s web site on December 27.
I sent an e-mail to Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis, to current Utility Department Interim Director John Hatcher, and to Luke shortly after the BOC meeting asking to be notified of the review committee meeting. I also wrote that evening to Davis and Hatcher asking for access to the bids as soon as they were submitted.
Theriault’s e-mail to me of December 21 was in response to both of those requests.
"I assume that your request concerning the meeting notification involves your desire to attend that meeting," Theriault wrote. "I am afraid that we must respectfully decline."
Nothing I can find in Georgia’s Sunshine Laws allows for denial of notification of a scheduled meeting. Participants in a meeting can vote to go to a closed session, but only after giving notice of the meeting and under limited circumstances.
Thomas, then Utility Department director, handled the evaluation of the three bids submitted back in July. No mention was made of a meeting for that evaluation.
The actual RFP issued in November is much like the RFP issued in June, but the more recent RFP asks bidders to submit a base design and an alternate design. The base design should follow the Design Development Report submitted to the Georgia EPD as part of the application for the permit to discharge treated sewage water into Barber Creek.
The alternate design calls for membrane filtration as a tertiary step, rather than the use of a membrane biological reactor.
The implications of these design options for the quality of water that will be produced by the plant cannot be known without a review of the bids, and that is precisely what the County has said it will not allow.
Another change in the RFP is the specification that the County plans to use Construction Management at Risk to let the actual bid for building of the plant. Such a procedure requires the construction manager to complete the work at a fixed maximum cost.
The November RFP also specifies that construction of the plant should begin in October of 2008 and that the plant should be operational–and begin discharging into Barber Creek–in July of 2009.
Despite the lag in time between the two RFPs and the small number of changes, PPI had to issue two addenda to the RFP, one on December 10 and the other on December 18, or two days before the filing deadline. The addenda deleted items from the original RFP, offered clarifications, and added requirements.
I asked Theriault for updates on the rebidding process in September, October and November. In each case, he informed me he had nothing by way of new information to provide me.
In the end, it seems it took the County three months to make two big changes in the bidding.
The first was to allow an alternative to the membrane filtration technology proposed to the EPD when the County received the permit for the discharge into Barber Creek.
The second was to close citizens out of the review process so they cannot know the implications of that change.
***
Here are the e-mail addresses of the members of the Board of Commissioners:
Melvin Davis, (Chairman), mdavis@oconee.ga.us
Margaret Hale, margarethale@oconee.ga.us and marghale@aol.com
Chuck Horton, chorton@oconee.ga.us
Jim Luke, jluke@oconee.ga.us
Don Norris, dnorris@oconee.ga.us.
The telephone number for all of them is 706 769-5120.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Written 12/16/2007
Rocky Branch on BOC Agenda Again
The upgrade to the Rocky Branch sewage treatment plant, which will result in the discharge of up to 1 million gallons per day of treated wastewater into Barber Creek, is back on the agenda of the Board of Commissioners for its meeting on Tuesday, December 18.
The BOC will be updated by Precision Planning’s Jimmy Parker and Oconee Utility Department Director John Hatcher on "Wastewater Planning and RFP Update."
The deadline for submission of proposals for the upgrade of the Rocky Branch plant is 5 p.m. the day before the BOC meeting.
In addition, the BOC will hear from Parker and Hatcher about "water resources" at the Tuesday meeting.
I’ll also ask for the third time that the Board pass a resolution drafted by the Georgia Water Coalition. The resolution asks the Georgia General Assembly to fund water resource study and monitoring and to oppose interbasin transfers of water. The Board has refused to take any action on the resolution despite two earlier requests by me that it do so.
After promising to follow a different course of action, the County essentially reissued the Request for Proposal it had issued in June for engineering and design work on the Rocky Branch sewage plant. That request had produced three bids, and the Utility Department wanted to give the project to Jordan Jones and Goulding.
JJ&G was not the low bidder and had been involved in initial planning work for the plant. Precision Planning, which had partnered with JJ&G on County projects, also participated in the review that led to selection of the JJ&G bid.
JJ&G, on a tip from the County, proposed that the County abandon its commitment to membrane filtration for the plant and use a more primitive treatment method. That method cannot meet the standards that membrane filtration is capable of meeting.
The BOC refused to go along with the recommendation of the Utility Department after I pointed out the nature of the bidding and review. You can read details of that meeting in my posting of 9/10/2007.
Alan Theriault, administrative officer for the County, sent me an e-mail message on September 7, three days after the Board of Commissioners (BOC) voted to upgrade the Rocky Branch plant, saying he expected the initial step in the rebidding process to be a "Request for Qualifications" advertisement "to identify design firms or teams that have specific experience with membrane filtration wastewater systems and that would be interested in this project."
Although I have asked Theriault twice since that September message to keep me updated on discussions about Rocky Branch, he did not inform me about the new bidding for the plant upgrade.
Advertisements for the project appeared in The Oconee Enterprise on November 21 and 29 and again on December 6 and 13. The advertisements are nearly identical to those used for the earlier bid.
As with the earlier bid, interested parties were required to participate in a pre-submittal conference. That conference, according to the advertisements, was held on December 4, making the last two advertisements in the Enterprise meaningless, at least in terms of soliciting proposals.
My efforts to get the BOC to pass the Georgia Water Coalition resolution have produced nothing. The issue is the interbasin transfer prohibition, Chairman Melvin Davis has confirmed.
The County has a permit for an interbasin transfer for the Hard Labor Creek reservoir project. Water will be pumped out of the Oconee River basin and discharged, at least partially, into the Ocmulgee River basin. In addition, Oconee County sold water to Walton County for many years, and that water came out of the Oconee River basin. Walton County straddles the Oconee and Ocmulgee basins.
If the County would discuss the Water Coalition resolution, its stand on future interbasin transfers might become known. Even if the County does not pass that part of the resolution dealing with interbasin transfers, it could pass the other part, dealing with funding for the study of water issues.
My blog posting of 11/23/2007 explains the resolution.
By the way, if you missed the lead story in today’s Athens Banner-Herald about a broken promise to citizens in Clarke and Olgethorpe Counties about a landfill, you might want to take a look. It tells how important it is for citizens to watch what government officials do, and how hard it is to control those actions.
If you can attend the meeting tomorrow night, please do so. It always helps to have a crowd.
Rocky Branch on BOC Agenda Again
The upgrade to the Rocky Branch sewage treatment plant, which will result in the discharge of up to 1 million gallons per day of treated wastewater into Barber Creek, is back on the agenda of the Board of Commissioners for its meeting on Tuesday, December 18.
The BOC will be updated by Precision Planning’s Jimmy Parker and Oconee Utility Department Director John Hatcher on "Wastewater Planning and RFP Update."
The deadline for submission of proposals for the upgrade of the Rocky Branch plant is 5 p.m. the day before the BOC meeting.
In addition, the BOC will hear from Parker and Hatcher about "water resources" at the Tuesday meeting.
I’ll also ask for the third time that the Board pass a resolution drafted by the Georgia Water Coalition. The resolution asks the Georgia General Assembly to fund water resource study and monitoring and to oppose interbasin transfers of water. The Board has refused to take any action on the resolution despite two earlier requests by me that it do so.
After promising to follow a different course of action, the County essentially reissued the Request for Proposal it had issued in June for engineering and design work on the Rocky Branch sewage plant. That request had produced three bids, and the Utility Department wanted to give the project to Jordan Jones and Goulding.
JJ&G was not the low bidder and had been involved in initial planning work for the plant. Precision Planning, which had partnered with JJ&G on County projects, also participated in the review that led to selection of the JJ&G bid.
JJ&G, on a tip from the County, proposed that the County abandon its commitment to membrane filtration for the plant and use a more primitive treatment method. That method cannot meet the standards that membrane filtration is capable of meeting.
The BOC refused to go along with the recommendation of the Utility Department after I pointed out the nature of the bidding and review. You can read details of that meeting in my posting of 9/10/2007.
Alan Theriault, administrative officer for the County, sent me an e-mail message on September 7, three days after the Board of Commissioners (BOC) voted to upgrade the Rocky Branch plant, saying he expected the initial step in the rebidding process to be a "Request for Qualifications" advertisement "to identify design firms or teams that have specific experience with membrane filtration wastewater systems and that would be interested in this project."
Although I have asked Theriault twice since that September message to keep me updated on discussions about Rocky Branch, he did not inform me about the new bidding for the plant upgrade.
Advertisements for the project appeared in The Oconee Enterprise on November 21 and 29 and again on December 6 and 13. The advertisements are nearly identical to those used for the earlier bid.
As with the earlier bid, interested parties were required to participate in a pre-submittal conference. That conference, according to the advertisements, was held on December 4, making the last two advertisements in the Enterprise meaningless, at least in terms of soliciting proposals.
My efforts to get the BOC to pass the Georgia Water Coalition resolution have produced nothing. The issue is the interbasin transfer prohibition, Chairman Melvin Davis has confirmed.
The County has a permit for an interbasin transfer for the Hard Labor Creek reservoir project. Water will be pumped out of the Oconee River basin and discharged, at least partially, into the Ocmulgee River basin. In addition, Oconee County sold water to Walton County for many years, and that water came out of the Oconee River basin. Walton County straddles the Oconee and Ocmulgee basins.
If the County would discuss the Water Coalition resolution, its stand on future interbasin transfers might become known. Even if the County does not pass that part of the resolution dealing with interbasin transfers, it could pass the other part, dealing with funding for the study of water issues.
My blog posting of 11/23/2007 explains the resolution.
By the way, if you missed the lead story in today’s Athens Banner-Herald about a broken promise to citizens in Clarke and Olgethorpe Counties about a landfill, you might want to take a look. It tells how important it is for citizens to watch what government officials do, and how hard it is to control those actions.
If you can attend the meeting tomorrow night, please do so. It always helps to have a crowd.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Written 11/23/2007
Georgia Water Coalition Petition
The Board of Directors of Friends of Barber Creek has asked the Oconee County Board of Commissioners to support a resolution drafted by the Georgia Water Coalition to respond to the current drought crisis.
Here is the text of a letter I sent to Mr. Melvin Davis, chairman of the Oconee County BOC, asking for BOC support.
November 23, 2007
Mr. Melvin Davis, Chairman
Oconee County Board of Commissioners
Oconee County Courthouse
23 N. Main Street
Watkinsville, GA 30677
Dear Mr. Davis:
The Georgia Water Coalition, a group of individuals and organizations working to ensure that the waters of the state continue to belong to the people of the state, has drafted a resolution regarding water policy in Georgia. Friends of Barber Creek, one of the 149 Georgia Water Coalition partners, is asking the Board of Commissioners of Oconee County to pass this resolution on behalf of the citizens of Oconee County. A copy of the resolution is below.
The purpose of the resolution is to guarantee fair apportionment of Georgia's waters to all portions of the state. This resolution asks the General Assembly to provide full funding for water planning on a regional and state level. It also asks for legislation prohibiting future transfers of water across the 14 river basins in the state.
The ongoing drought has made citizens of Oconee County and of the state aware of the precious nature of our water resources. The response to the drought indicates that the state currently lacks the information it needs to ensure that this resource will be managed sustainably in the future to balance the needs of natural systems, downstream economies, and other uses such as recreation, power generation and industry.
Because much of the population growth to date has occurred in the northern part of the state, where numerous rivers have their headwaters, water historically has been transferred from one river basin to another to meet increasing human demands. These transfers unfairly rob the donor basin of water that should flow downstream to support other economies and uses. More and larger transfers may occur in the future if this pattern is not halted by the legislature.
Through its partners, the Georgia Water Coalition is presenting this resolution to governing authorities across the state. The following entities already have passed the resolution: Putnam County, LaGrange, Liberty County, Chatham County, Rome, Floyd County, City of Tybee, Brantley County, City of Metter, Evans County, Hart County, City of Lavonia, City of Hartwell, Bryan County, Troup County, Ware County and the Satilla Regional Water and Sewer Authority.
The Board of Directors of Friends of Barber Creek urges the Oconee County Board of Commissioners to pass this resolution expeditiously so Oconee County can offer its support for the Georgia Water Coalition’s efforts to ensure that water is managed fairly for all Georgians, with the interest of all citizens, businesses and farms in mind.
I will attend the Board of Commissioners Agenda Meeting on November 27 to ask you either to pass this resolution or schedule it for discussion at your December 4, 2007 meeting.
Sincerely,
Lee B. Becker
President, on behalf of the Board of Directors of Friends of Barber Creek
Lee B. Becker, President (1050 Scott Terrace)
Tim Price, Vice President (1240 Hollow Creek Lane)
Mailing Address for Friends of Barber Creek:
1050 Scott Terrace
Athens, GA 30606 (Oconee County)
Tel. 706 548-1525
RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, there is increased pressure on the surface and ground water resources within the State of Georgia, but a lack of information as to the natural quantities of water in its rivers and aquifers, and
WHEREAS, the Oconee County Board of Commissioners believes that the surface and ground waters of the state should continue to be managed in the public interest and in a sustainable manner to protect natural systems and meet human and economic needs, and
WHEREAS, protection and restoration of water resources requires regional water planning, based on assessments of watersheds, river basins, and aquifers, that is tied to implementation, including a comprehensive management process, and
WHEREAS, protection of river basins must be strengthened to reflect scientific knowledge and respect natural systems, and
WHEREAS, downstream communities in Georgia rely on certain flow levels in river basins for current and future economic development, recreation, and environmental quality, and
WHEREAS, decisions on new water supplies for growing communities should recognize that efficiency and the wise use of current resources are the best course for taxpayers, and
WHEREAS, transferring water from one basin to another can adversely affect downstream communities and unfairly redistribute economic growth,
NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Oconee County Board of Commissioners supports and adopts the principles outlined above and urges the General Assembly of Georgia to fully fund comprehensive regional and statewide water planning and monitoring,
AND, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the Oconee County Board of Commissioners urges the General Assembly of Georgia to pass a statute that prevents the transfer of water from one basin to another to the detriment of current and future downstream economic growth or to the detriment of the natural health of the stream.
Duly adopted the _____day of __________, 2007.
Georgia Water Coalition Petition
The Board of Directors of Friends of Barber Creek has asked the Oconee County Board of Commissioners to support a resolution drafted by the Georgia Water Coalition to respond to the current drought crisis.
Here is the text of a letter I sent to Mr. Melvin Davis, chairman of the Oconee County BOC, asking for BOC support.
November 23, 2007
Mr. Melvin Davis, Chairman
Oconee County Board of Commissioners
Oconee County Courthouse
23 N. Main Street
Watkinsville, GA 30677
Dear Mr. Davis:
The Georgia Water Coalition, a group of individuals and organizations working to ensure that the waters of the state continue to belong to the people of the state, has drafted a resolution regarding water policy in Georgia. Friends of Barber Creek, one of the 149 Georgia Water Coalition partners, is asking the Board of Commissioners of Oconee County to pass this resolution on behalf of the citizens of Oconee County. A copy of the resolution is below.
The purpose of the resolution is to guarantee fair apportionment of Georgia's waters to all portions of the state. This resolution asks the General Assembly to provide full funding for water planning on a regional and state level. It also asks for legislation prohibiting future transfers of water across the 14 river basins in the state.
The ongoing drought has made citizens of Oconee County and of the state aware of the precious nature of our water resources. The response to the drought indicates that the state currently lacks the information it needs to ensure that this resource will be managed sustainably in the future to balance the needs of natural systems, downstream economies, and other uses such as recreation, power generation and industry.
Because much of the population growth to date has occurred in the northern part of the state, where numerous rivers have their headwaters, water historically has been transferred from one river basin to another to meet increasing human demands. These transfers unfairly rob the donor basin of water that should flow downstream to support other economies and uses. More and larger transfers may occur in the future if this pattern is not halted by the legislature.
Through its partners, the Georgia Water Coalition is presenting this resolution to governing authorities across the state. The following entities already have passed the resolution: Putnam County, LaGrange, Liberty County, Chatham County, Rome, Floyd County, City of Tybee, Brantley County, City of Metter, Evans County, Hart County, City of Lavonia, City of Hartwell, Bryan County, Troup County, Ware County and the Satilla Regional Water and Sewer Authority.
The Board of Directors of Friends of Barber Creek urges the Oconee County Board of Commissioners to pass this resolution expeditiously so Oconee County can offer its support for the Georgia Water Coalition’s efforts to ensure that water is managed fairly for all Georgians, with the interest of all citizens, businesses and farms in mind.
I will attend the Board of Commissioners Agenda Meeting on November 27 to ask you either to pass this resolution or schedule it for discussion at your December 4, 2007 meeting.
Sincerely,
Lee B. Becker
President, on behalf of the Board of Directors of Friends of Barber Creek
Lee B. Becker, President (1050 Scott Terrace)
Tim Price, Vice President (1240 Hollow Creek Lane)
Karen Kimbaris, Secretary-Treasurer (1031 Willow Ridge)
Joe Block, Member (1281 Founders Lake Drive)
Mailing Address for Friends of Barber Creek:
1050 Scott Terrace
Athens, GA 30606 (Oconee County)
Tel. 706 548-1525
RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, there is increased pressure on the surface and ground water resources within the State of Georgia, but a lack of information as to the natural quantities of water in its rivers and aquifers, and
WHEREAS, the Oconee County Board of Commissioners believes that the surface and ground waters of the state should continue to be managed in the public interest and in a sustainable manner to protect natural systems and meet human and economic needs, and
WHEREAS, protection and restoration of water resources requires regional water planning, based on assessments of watersheds, river basins, and aquifers, that is tied to implementation, including a comprehensive management process, and
WHEREAS, protection of river basins must be strengthened to reflect scientific knowledge and respect natural systems, and
WHEREAS, downstream communities in Georgia rely on certain flow levels in river basins for current and future economic development, recreation, and environmental quality, and
WHEREAS, decisions on new water supplies for growing communities should recognize that efficiency and the wise use of current resources are the best course for taxpayers, and
WHEREAS, transferring water from one basin to another can adversely affect downstream communities and unfairly redistribute economic growth,
NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Oconee County Board of Commissioners supports and adopts the principles outlined above and urges the General Assembly of Georgia to fully fund comprehensive regional and statewide water planning and monitoring,
AND, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the Oconee County Board of Commissioners urges the General Assembly of Georgia to pass a statute that prevents the transfer of water from one basin to another to the detriment of current and future downstream economic growth or to the detriment of the natural health of the stream.
Duly adopted the _____day of __________, 2007.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Written 10/17/2007
Rare Chance to See Elder Mill, Other Sites
Oconee County residents will get a rare chance on Saturday to tour a part of southern Oconee County that, to date, has been spared from development and that contains a number of important historical sites.
Unfortunately, the area is threatened, and the Board of Commissioners has yet to take any action to protect it.
The Elder family will be directing people to family sites in the County, such as the Elder Mill Covered Bridge on Rose Creek, Elder Mill, and two family cemeteries. Maps for the sites will be available Saturday at the Elder shop, between the courthouse and the Haygood House on Main Street in Watkinsville.
Watkinsville is the site of the Saturday’s Oconee Fall Festival, and the Elder family will hold a reunion at the Watkinsville shop. The public is invited.
Cokey Elder, a senior member of the family, said the mill, located on Rose Creek near the covered bridge, will be open for viewing as part of the tour.
Only the bridge, which carries limited traffic across Rose Creek on Elder Bridge Road just south of SR15, is owned by the County. The surrounding land and the mill are in private hands.
The BOC discussed creating a park that would include the bridge and at least some surrounding property in a closed-door session on September 4. No details of the discussion or of the proposed park have been released to the public.
After returning to regular session from the closed-door discussions on September 4, the BOC voted to continue to pursue a grant from the Georgia Land Conservation Program to help create the park, but the BOC refused to allocate any funds to support the application.
Following that closed-door session, according to the minutes, "On motion by Commissioner (Chuck) Horton and second by Commissioner (Jim) Luke, the Board voted unanimously to continue with the GLCP grant request for the proposed Elder Mill Park as originally submitted, providing no monetary funding obligation from the County, only in-kind funding."
According to the historical marker at the Elder Bridge, it was built in 1897 and carried the Watkinsville-Athens road across Calls Creek, which flows from Watkinsville to the Middle Oconee River north of Watkinsville.
The 99-foot-long bridge was moved to its present location in 1924. The bridge is made entirely of wood, and its planks are held together with wooden pegs.
The grist mill, just downstream from the bridge, was built about 1900 and stopped operating in 1941, according to the marker at the bridge. It contains many of the original inner workings of the mill.
Rose Creek between the bridge and mill flows over large rocks, creating a shoal, and is surrounded by large hardwoods.
Some of the key tracts of land surrounding the bridge and mill are designated by the County as protected in the proposed new land use map. The County largely ignores its current land use map, and it could ignore the new one should it be adopted.
Any development along Elder Bridge Road or Saxon Road would be a threat to the bridge, as it can handle very limited traffic.
Some of the property is certainly attractive for development. A subdivision already has been laid out on SR 15 between Watkinsville and the site.
According to Georgia open meeting laws, the BOC was allowed to go into a secret session if it was "discussing the future acquisition of real estate."
The BOC is still required to prepare "minutes of such a meeting; provided, however, the disclosure of such portions of the minutes as would identify real estate to be acquired may be delayed until such time as the acquisition of the real estate has been completed, terminated, or abandoned or court proceedings with respect thereto initiated."
According to the law, the minutes of the closed session "shall reflect the names of the members present and the names of those voting for closure, and that part of the minutes shall be made available to the public as any other minutes."
If the closed meeting is devoted only in part to discussion of land acquisition, "any portion of the meeting not subject to any such exception, privilege, or confidentiality shall be open to the public, and the minutes of such portions not subject to any such exception shall be taken, recorded, and open to public inspection."
The law states that "Any person knowingly and willfully conducting or participating in a meeting in violation of this chapter shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $500.00."
So far, the County has not released the minutes of the closed session, nor has it indicated who joined the BOC in the session.
Rare Chance to See Elder Mill, Other Sites
Oconee County residents will get a rare chance on Saturday to tour a part of southern Oconee County that, to date, has been spared from development and that contains a number of important historical sites.
Unfortunately, the area is threatened, and the Board of Commissioners has yet to take any action to protect it.
The Elder family will be directing people to family sites in the County, such as the Elder Mill Covered Bridge on Rose Creek, Elder Mill, and two family cemeteries. Maps for the sites will be available Saturday at the Elder shop, between the courthouse and the Haygood House on Main Street in Watkinsville.
Watkinsville is the site of the Saturday’s Oconee Fall Festival, and the Elder family will hold a reunion at the Watkinsville shop. The public is invited.
Cokey Elder, a senior member of the family, said the mill, located on Rose Creek near the covered bridge, will be open for viewing as part of the tour.
Only the bridge, which carries limited traffic across Rose Creek on Elder Bridge Road just south of SR15, is owned by the County. The surrounding land and the mill are in private hands.
The BOC discussed creating a park that would include the bridge and at least some surrounding property in a closed-door session on September 4. No details of the discussion or of the proposed park have been released to the public.
After returning to regular session from the closed-door discussions on September 4, the BOC voted to continue to pursue a grant from the Georgia Land Conservation Program to help create the park, but the BOC refused to allocate any funds to support the application.
Following that closed-door session, according to the minutes, "On motion by Commissioner (Chuck) Horton and second by Commissioner (Jim) Luke, the Board voted unanimously to continue with the GLCP grant request for the proposed Elder Mill Park as originally submitted, providing no monetary funding obligation from the County, only in-kind funding."
According to the historical marker at the Elder Bridge, it was built in 1897 and carried the Watkinsville-Athens road across Calls Creek, which flows from Watkinsville to the Middle Oconee River north of Watkinsville.
The 99-foot-long bridge was moved to its present location in 1924. The bridge is made entirely of wood, and its planks are held together with wooden pegs.
The grist mill, just downstream from the bridge, was built about 1900 and stopped operating in 1941, according to the marker at the bridge. It contains many of the original inner workings of the mill.
Rose Creek between the bridge and mill flows over large rocks, creating a shoal, and is surrounded by large hardwoods.
Some of the key tracts of land surrounding the bridge and mill are designated by the County as protected in the proposed new land use map. The County largely ignores its current land use map, and it could ignore the new one should it be adopted.
Any development along Elder Bridge Road or Saxon Road would be a threat to the bridge, as it can handle very limited traffic.
Some of the property is certainly attractive for development. A subdivision already has been laid out on SR 15 between Watkinsville and the site.
According to Georgia open meeting laws, the BOC was allowed to go into a secret session if it was "discussing the future acquisition of real estate."
The BOC is still required to prepare "minutes of such a meeting; provided, however, the disclosure of such portions of the minutes as would identify real estate to be acquired may be delayed until such time as the acquisition of the real estate has been completed, terminated, or abandoned or court proceedings with respect thereto initiated."
According to the law, the minutes of the closed session "shall reflect the names of the members present and the names of those voting for closure, and that part of the minutes shall be made available to the public as any other minutes."
If the closed meeting is devoted only in part to discussion of land acquisition, "any portion of the meeting not subject to any such exception, privilege, or confidentiality shall be open to the public, and the minutes of such portions not subject to any such exception shall be taken, recorded, and open to public inspection."
The law states that "Any person knowingly and willfully conducting or participating in a meeting in violation of this chapter shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $500.00."
So far, the County has not released the minutes of the closed session, nor has it indicated who joined the BOC in the session.
Monday, October 08, 2007
Written 10/08/2007
Water on the Mind
The drought seems finally to have focused almost everyone’s attention on water, or the lack of it.
Consider the following:
*The local papers contain stories nearly every day on the possibility that Oconee and its neighboring counties will run out of water before the end of the year and on the actions local officials have taken in the hopes that the water lasts at least that long.
*Local partners of the state-wide Georgia Water Coalition will hold a meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday (October 11) at the Foundry Park Inn Ballroom, 295 E. Dougherty St., in Athens to discuss the state’s first-ever effort to create a water plan for Georgia.
Water on the Mind
The drought seems finally to have focused almost everyone’s attention on water, or the lack of it.
Consider the following:
*The local papers contain stories nearly every day on the possibility that Oconee and its neighboring counties will run out of water before the end of the year and on the actions local officials have taken in the hopes that the water lasts at least that long.
*Local partners of the state-wide Georgia Water Coalition will hold a meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday (October 11) at the Foundry Park Inn Ballroom, 295 E. Dougherty St., in Athens to discuss the state’s first-ever effort to create a water plan for Georgia.
*Oconee County officials are using the drought to justify the County’s decision to join with Walton County to build the $350 million Hard Labor Creek reservoir in Walton County.
The discussion hasn’t focused much attention yet on what local officials could have done to prevent the current crisis or on whether the actions now being taken will prevent such a crisis from occurring again in the future.
An editorial in the October 7 issue of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, however, has started pointing fingers.
The villain is a mismatch between the water resources of the state and the demands being placed on those resources by development, according to the editorial.
"Georgians can no longer pretend that unchecked growth and the profligate water consumption it fosters can continue indefinitely without exacting a heavy toll," according to the editorial.
The current crisis, the editorial argues, is partly the result of the state’s "unwillingness to recognize the impact of our actions on the state’s limited water resources."
The Hard Labor Creek reservoir project is an interesting case to consider. This reservoir is not designed to address current needs, but rather to provide for future development in the County.
Hard Labor Creek was projected to cost Oconee County $45.6 million in January of 2007, $48.2 million on September 4, when the intergovernmental contract was approved by the Oconee County Board of Commissioners, and $49.8 million on October 4 when the BOC voted to approve a bond contract to cover its portion of the costs.
Only Commissioner Chuck Horton voted against the bond motion, which actually authorized up to $66 million in bond sales, in case the current estimate of $49.8 million is too low. That figure includes $2.9 million Oconee County owes Walton County for money already spent.
The County didn’t even know how much it owed Walton County for past spending when the BOC approved the intergovernmental agreement a month earlier. And the figure, the BOC was told on October 4 by County Attorney Dan Haygood, is still not based on audited expenses, so it could go higher.
Charlie Baugh, president of Citizens for Oconee’s Future and a former Internal Revenue Service auditor, estimates that at 4.4% interest, the County would actually pay $119 million over 30 years for the $66 million, should it borrow that amount.
On September 4, Commissioner Margaret Hale joined Horton in opposing the intergovernmental agreement. Board of Commission Chairman Melvin Davis had to break the tie by joining Commissioners Jim Luke and Don Norris in supporting the agreement.
Whether the final cost is $49.8 million, $66 million, or something even higher, it is supposed to be paid for by growth in the demand for water in the county resulting from future development. Specifically, the demand for water must growth at the rate of at least 8% per year to pay for the reservoir. At present, the County’s population is growing at less than 3% per year.
Most of the water the Oconee County Utility Department sells to its current customers comes from another reservoir, on Bear Creek in Jackson County. Despite the lingering drought, officials from the four counties that run the reservoir–Clarke, Barrow, Jackson and Oconee–did not take dramatic steps to save water until September 13.
On that date, the Upper Oconee Basin Water Operations Committee voted to issue a total ban on outdoor watering effective four days later.
The Committee was just a step ahead of the state. Dr. Carol A. Couch, director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, banned outdoor residential water use on September 28 for the four counties and most of the rest of the northern part of the state.
According to former BOC Chairman Wendell Dawson, who says he obtained invoices from the Oconee County Utility Department, Oconee County even sold Walton County 11.3 million gallons of water for a 34-day billing period ending September 27, 2007. According to Dawson, Oconee County sold 87.1 million gallons of water to Walton County in the last six months, when the drought was firmly in place.
So why were Oconee and other officials so slow to take action as the drought progressed?
Selling water is how the counties get the money to build and operate reservoirs and water treatment plants.
For reasons that probably only The Oconee Enterprise editors understand, the paper has given former Oconee County Utility Department head Gary Dodd space for a column in the paper now that he is retired. In addition to using the column to attack critics of the department he headed until this summer, he also is using the column to brag about his accomplishments.
In his October 4, 2007, column, he bragged about the following: "(T)he Utility Department has operated in the black , without a price increase on consumption for the past 8 eights." Not coincidentally, Dodd was Utility Department director during those years.
It is difficult to balance the budget if people stop using water, either because of a ban on watering or because of an imposition of conservation pricing, which pushes down demand by charging a higher rate at higher levels of water consumption. Oconee County does not use conservation pricing.
The impact of the present ban on outdoor watering on water sales and on Oconee County’s ability to pay its expenses through water sales has not been a topic for open discussion just yet. Jackson County, even before the current ban, however, ran into problems making its payments on its indebtedness because of inadequate revenue, according to reporting in the Athens Banner-Herald late this summer.
Counties have few options to make up for lost sales. They can increase water rates, or they can shift the burden onto property owners through higher property taxes.
To pay off current indebtedness and then to finance construction of the Hard Labor Creek reservoir, Oconee County projects it will need for water sales to increase the 8% each year. That includes 2007. Given the current water ban, growth of any sort is unlikely in 2007.
Which helps to explain why the County was so slow in going to the total ban.
Anyone who might have doubted that the decision to move forward with the Hard Labor Creek reservoir was based on a desire to stimulate development only needed to attend the September 4 BOC Meeting.
Amrey Harden, president of Oconee State Bank, Chuck Williams, president of North Georgia Bank, and Charles Grimes, president of the Oconee County Chamber of Commerce, each took their turn to urge the Commissioners to go forward with the project to promote development.
The message likely was directed at Horton and Hale, who still voted against the project. They probably can expect some candidates who got the point to run against them in next Spring’s Republican primary.
The BOC makes lots of routine decision that also have impact on water sales. On August 7 the Board voted (with Horton and Luke in the minority) to approve a rezone request for a development including 196 houses on Old Barnett Shoals road in the far eastern part of the County.
Included was the agreement to extend a water line across the Oconee River to the development. The availability of water will open this area up for additional rezone requests.
The BOC, the current water ban shows, was offering to sell water it doesn’t always have.
The same can be said for efforts of Oconee and Clarke counties to lure a big manufacturer to the Orkin Tract on U.S. 78 and S.R. 316. Included in offers have been the agreement to provide both water and sewage services.
The Georgia legislature mandated the creation of a statewide Water Management Plan back in 2004.
The Georgia Water Coalition, an alliance of over 110 organizations committed to ensuring that water is managed fairly for all Georgians and protected for future generations, has been in existence since 2002.
The Coalition has asked the state to set safe levels of withdrawal from the state’s streams to guarantee their biological, chemical, and physical integrity. The goal is to leave the streams with the water necessary to keep the ecosystems functioning properly. The Coalition wants to require local governments to evaluate and implement conservation measures before increased water withdrawals are allowed.
In sum, the Coalition wants to focus on conservation and maintenance of stream flow, rather than simply allowing the government that gets the water into a reservoir first to have what it wants.
Friends of Barber Creek is part of the Georgia Water Coalition.
The meeting on Thursday, October 11, will give citizens a chance to learn about the state’s Water Management Plan and Coalition efforts to make sure that water conservation, rather than simply water consumption, are taken into consideration.
Governments that promote and finance their development through the sale of water aren’t very likely to make conservation a top priority, as the current response to the drought illustrates.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Written 9/18/2007
The Bonds of Hard Labor Creek
The Athens Banner-Herald reported today that a Newton County man has intervened in Walton Superior Court to block the sale of bonds to finance the proposed Hard Labor Creek Reservoir.
Walton and Oconee counties are partners in the $350 million project, with Oconee expected to pay more than $100 million.
The story doesn’t provide much background on Samuel M. Hay III, who filed the brief objecting to the validation of the bonds, or on the grounds for the request that the Court refuse to validate the bonds.
Hay, who has a Covington postal box, has a web site on which he is described as an independent researcher who has worked with environmental issues for more than 20 years. A story in the Banner-Herald in 2002, when Hay announced he was running for Governor as an independent, described him as a "journalist, newspaper officer and print company account manager."
According to the 2002 Banner-Herald story, Hay is not an attorney, though he has "entered into and argued" legal cases as a private citizen.
The Banner-Herald story today waited until the 10th paragraph of a 14-paragraph long story to explain the basis of Hay’s objection to the Hard Labor Creek Reservoir. The top of the story dealt with Walton County official responses to the legal action.
Some of the arguments Hay makes are ones that were voiced in Oconee County before the Board of Commissioners voted on September 4 to join with Walton County on the reservoir project. Others are new.
In his "Intervenor’s Brief," which Hay sent to me in response to my request, he claims that "Walton County has failed, by all standards of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division and appropriate Federal Law, to explore and prioritize more environmentally sound, less expensive and more productive alternative sources of water for the citizens."
"The debt service on this, the largest public works project ever undertaken in this County, will raise the cost of the project to in excess of $800 MILLION DOLLARS," Hay writes.
"Families farms, homes and a way of life will be needlessly destroyed forever having been inundated by the reservoir," according to the document.
Hay further contends:
"This reservoir will evaporate up to ten million gallons of water per day resulting in a valuable loss of downstream water supply to what may be the most valuable estuary in the entire Atlantic Ocean. This coastal region which reaches from the South Carolina state line to Jacksonville, Florida is being destroyed by the lack of planning and conservation of water resources within this area. Slowing of the flows in the waterways has destroyed valuable spawning grounds for marine life whose hatch are killed upon contact with the ever increasing salt content of the marshes due to reservoirs in this region causing severe chemical changes in the brackish water chemistry."
The filing also questions whether proper legal notice about the bond validation hearing was provided in Oconee County.
Finally, it questions whether permits will be granted for the pumping of water from the Apalachee River to the Hard Labor Creek Reservoir given previously issued licenses.
The Banner-Herald was following a story in The Walton Tribune published a on September 16. The Tribune story didn’t contain much information either.
Hay’s brief is on the web site, Oconee County Observations II.
The Bonds of Hard Labor Creek
The Athens Banner-Herald reported today that a Newton County man has intervened in Walton Superior Court to block the sale of bonds to finance the proposed Hard Labor Creek Reservoir.
Walton and Oconee counties are partners in the $350 million project, with Oconee expected to pay more than $100 million.
The story doesn’t provide much background on Samuel M. Hay III, who filed the brief objecting to the validation of the bonds, or on the grounds for the request that the Court refuse to validate the bonds.
Hay, who has a Covington postal box, has a web site on which he is described as an independent researcher who has worked with environmental issues for more than 20 years. A story in the Banner-Herald in 2002, when Hay announced he was running for Governor as an independent, described him as a "journalist, newspaper officer and print company account manager."
According to the 2002 Banner-Herald story, Hay is not an attorney, though he has "entered into and argued" legal cases as a private citizen.
The Banner-Herald story today waited until the 10th paragraph of a 14-paragraph long story to explain the basis of Hay’s objection to the Hard Labor Creek Reservoir. The top of the story dealt with Walton County official responses to the legal action.
Some of the arguments Hay makes are ones that were voiced in Oconee County before the Board of Commissioners voted on September 4 to join with Walton County on the reservoir project. Others are new.
In his "Intervenor’s Brief," which Hay sent to me in response to my request, he claims that "Walton County has failed, by all standards of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division and appropriate Federal Law, to explore and prioritize more environmentally sound, less expensive and more productive alternative sources of water for the citizens."
"The debt service on this, the largest public works project ever undertaken in this County, will raise the cost of the project to in excess of $800 MILLION DOLLARS," Hay writes.
"Families farms, homes and a way of life will be needlessly destroyed forever having been inundated by the reservoir," according to the document.
Hay further contends:
"This reservoir will evaporate up to ten million gallons of water per day resulting in a valuable loss of downstream water supply to what may be the most valuable estuary in the entire Atlantic Ocean. This coastal region which reaches from the South Carolina state line to Jacksonville, Florida is being destroyed by the lack of planning and conservation of water resources within this area. Slowing of the flows in the waterways has destroyed valuable spawning grounds for marine life whose hatch are killed upon contact with the ever increasing salt content of the marshes due to reservoirs in this region causing severe chemical changes in the brackish water chemistry."
The filing also questions whether proper legal notice about the bond validation hearing was provided in Oconee County.
Finally, it questions whether permits will be granted for the pumping of water from the Apalachee River to the Hard Labor Creek Reservoir given previously issued licenses.
The Banner-Herald was following a story in The Walton Tribune published a on September 16. The Tribune story didn’t contain much information either.
Hay’s brief is on the web site, Oconee County Observations II.
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