Dougherty County Commission settles 2000 property dispute

ALBANY — The Dougherty County Commission brought an end Wednesday afternoon to a 14-year disagreement over the value of property at 117 Pine Ave., current site of the Flint RiverQuarium’s theater.

With District 2 County Commissioner John Hayes “reluctantly offering a motion” to accept a recommendation by County Attorney Spencer Lee and the five present members of the commission voting to approve, the commission settled the ongoing matter with Neil Thompson for $600,000.

Funding for the settlement came from the reallocation of SPLOST dollars, which was also approved by the board.

County Administrator Richard Crowdis recommended moving $484,073.30 in SPLOST III Tennis Center funding, $100,385.92 in Drainage Improvements funds, and $15,541.78 in Recycling funds for the $600,000 used in the settlement, which had previously been approved by Thompson.

“You will note the remaining funding in SPLOST for those projects: $2.7 million in SPLOST V for the tennis center, $184,355 in SPLOST IV and $2.8 million in SPLOST VI for drainage improvements, and $66,698 in SPLOST III for recycling,” Crowdis said.

Lee explained the circumstances surrounding the settlement after the commission met in an extended executive session.

He told the board:

“In 2000, while downtown development was going on, Dougherty County contracted with the Albany-Dougherty Inner City Authority for redevelopment projects. ADICA acquired the property that was considered integral to development of the RiverQuarium at 117 Pine Ave., where the iMax Theater is located.

In 2006 “… a county-hired appraiser valued the property at $157,000, while an appraiser for (Thompson) valued the property at $638,000.”

In 2008 (Dougherty Superior Court) Judge Willie Lockette asked for an order on the matter, which lay dormant until November of 2014, and he ruled that Thompson should be awarded the $638,000 appraised value. That meant the county owed $479,000 more than the $157,000 it had paid. Thompson’s attorney asked for interest that he claimed had accrued since the time of the judgment, an amount totalling $496,000.

“So now, the county was being asked to pay $974,000 total,” Lee said.

The county and its legal counsel, Tim Davis, sought to appeal the ruling to the State Court of Appeals, but Lee said interest would continue to accrue at the rate of $33,000 a year with no clear picture of when a ruling would be made. Davis worked with Thompson’s attorney to come up with the $600,000 settlement offer, which the commission approved Wednesday.

Lee told the commission before its vote, “Our chances on appeal are not as good as we’d like them to be.”

After the board voted to approve the settlement, Commission Chairman Chris Cohilas noted that the total of the settlement “eliminates almost $400,000 of (county) liability as it currently stands.”

“Any time we’re dealing with the public’s money, we owe it to our citizens to take it very seriously and consider every option,” Cohilas said before adjourning the meeting.