Albany-Dougherty Planning board meeting canceled for lack of quorum

ALBANY — One of Dougherty County’s largest manufacturers will have to wait an additional two weeks to find out if it can utilize vacant property to help get rid of storm debris on its campus after the Albany-Dougherty Planning Commission failed to have a quorum of its membership show up for its scheduled meeting Thursday.

Planning Commission Chairman William Geer said he was embarrassed by the commission’s failure to act on a rezoning request made by Procter & Gamble because only five of the board’s 10 members showed up for the 2 p.m. meeting.

“When you have one of your largest businesses looking to move forward with something that they need to do, and you sit around and wait and you can’t get a quorum, it’s embarrassing,” Geer said. “These folks want to move on with this, and we have to take action before the matter can go to the city.”

The Albany City Commission would have acted on the Planning Commission’s recommendation at its 8:30 a.m. meeting Tuesday. Now, unless a special meeting is called by the commission, the matter will not be voted on by the City Commission until its April 25 meeting.

P&G had asked that 25 acres of land on Pecan Lane be rezoned from AG (agriculture) to M-1 (restricted industrial) so that the home products maker could collect recovered concrete that was damaged in the Jan. 22 tornado that hit the manufacturer’s campus and grind it down to material that could be spread on a vacant lot.

But only five Planning Commission members — Billy Merritt, Helen Young, Jimmy Hall, Art Brown and Geer — showed up for the meeting. After waiting 30 minutes past the appointed 2 p.m. meeting time, Geer had no choice but to apologize to the representatives who’d shown up to plead their case before the board and reschedule the hearing for Tuesday at 2 p.m.

Commission members Sanford Hillsman, Hampton Smith, Aaron Johnson, Yvonne Jackson and Hosea Miller, who are appointed by the Albany and Dougherty County commissions, were all absent.

“Our bylaws say that a commissioner who misses three consecutive meetings can be removed from the board,” Geer said. “None of our commissioners have missed three weeks in a row. But it’s just disheartening when something like this happens. When we’re appointed to a board like this, we have to care, to take pride in the fact that we’re doing our community’s business.

“Hopefully, we’ll have a quorum show up for the rescheduled meeting next Tuesday.”