Dougherty County officials pursue SPLOST funds for ASU connectivity

ALBANY — Dougherty County commissioners agreed Monday to have County Administrator Richard Crowdis look into SPLOST budgets to determine if funds are available for reallocation to help finance a Flint River Trails project that will connect Albany State University to downtown Albany.

County Attorney Spencer Lee told the board an additional $1 million is needed to complete funding for the project that is a vital component of the countywide Flint Trails Master Plan. The University System of Georgia Board of Regents announced at a news conference Friday that it would allocate $750,000 toward the cost of the trail project.

“I want to make it clear that, although the chairman (Chris Cohilas) signed an agreement with the Regents, Albany State and Flint RiverQuarium officials, that agreement doesn’t say we have to do this or that,” Lee said. “It says that the Regents are willing to obligate $750,000 to a project that could become, to use Commissioner (Gloria) Gaines’s term, a linchpin project for our trail master plan.”

Lee provided copies of a portion of the plan that show “Trail Segment 3A — Albany State Athletic Fields to Downtown” is budgeted to cost $1,770,196.69. Most of that cost, slightly less than $1.5 million, is for construction.

Cohilas assured commissioners that they would be the ones to determine whether the county’s SPLOST funds could be utilized, along with the Regents funding, to cover the cost of the project.

“There’s no obligation (on the county’s part) at this time,” the chairman told commissioners. “I would not sign anything obligating county funds without prior approval of this board.”

Lee said he attended a meeting, along with Cohilas and Albany State President Art Dunning, with Regents officials in Atlanta.

“Dr. Dunning made it clear that he was in favor of this project, and after the presentation, Regent Steve Wrigley said, ‘This looks like a thing we should be doing,’” Lee told the board. “Essentially, what the Regents said was, ‘We’ll be your partner, but you’ll have to come up with a million dollars.’”

In a later discussion about reallocating SPLOST funding to help facilitate the move of the Albany Museum of Art downtown, Gaines expressed concern that reallocating funding for that project might jeopardize funding for the ASU project. Cohilas, saying he “didn’t want to get too deep into the weeds of the matter,” assured Gaines that funding was available to help finance both projects.

County Administrator Richard Crowdis outlined the funding sources for the Art Museum project because it was scheduled for a same-day vote, and Cohilas assured commissioners similar accounting would be available for the ASU project. The board eventually tabled a vote on the museum funding until commissioners had an opportunity to look closer at the funding.

Also at Monday’s meeting, the commission approved the transfer of $4,983,428.75 from the county’s fund balance in its Solid Waste Enterprise Fund into a Special Services District Fund for the purpose of paying Ceres Environmental Services and Tetra Tech Inc. for services related to storm recovery in the county. Ceres is due $4,194,364.25, while Tetra Tech is due a payment of $789,064.50.

The board voted to make those two payments after approving the fund balance transfer.

Prior to official action taken by the board, top employees with Solid Waste, EMS and Public Works departments were recognized. Heavy equipment operator Timothy Parks was named Solid Waste Employee of the Year; paramedics Pete Radano, Adrianne Hampton, Melissa Frazier and EMT Heaven McDonald were named EMS Crew of the Year for saving the life of a 9-year-old child; while Construction Maintenance Manager Charles Bradford was recognized as Supervisor of the Year and Storm Water Technician Jillian Amaya as Employee of the Year by the Public Works Department.

Cohilas also read proclamations designating May 14-20 Emergency Medical Services Week and May 21-27 as National Public Works Week in the county.

Public Works Director Larry Cook announced that Amaya, who left the county’s library system to “follow her passion” with the Public Works department, was also named Public Works Employee of the Year for the state of Georgia. What Cook didn’t announce — a task taken up by Assistant Director Chuckie Mathis — is that Cook was named Georgia Public Works Manager of the Year.