[0:00] Our invocation tonight, Vice Chair Cunningham is going to do the pledge.

[0:08] Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day and bless us

[0:12] with the opportunity to serve the citizens of Gordon County.

[0:15] Thank you for the protection you keep around the county, and everything that you do

[0:19] for us. We ask that you lead, guide, and direct us this evening in the decisions

[0:22] that we make, and we be pleased unto you.

[0:25] All these things I ask in your sweet and precious name.

[0:28] Amen.

[0:33] Amen.

[0:33] Let us pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of

[0:36] America, and to the Republic for which it stands,

[0:40] one nation, under God, indivisible, with

[0:44] liberty and justice for all.

[0:51] We will officially call our meeting to order and welcome you.

[0:54] Thank you very much for being here tonight.

[0:56] We do have a fairly short agenda tonight, but we have several reports that we would

[1:00] like to do. The first item of business tonight is to approve

[1:04] the agenda that we went over in the work session.

[1:08] There is one change that I'll mention, and that's under new business, item number

[1:12] three.

[1:13] The actual GL account number has been changed to

[1:17] 431-531120-111.

[1:23] That is one difference from the actual written agenda.

[1:27] So I'll ask for a motion to approve tonight's

[1:31] agenda with that change.

[1:33] So moved.

[1:35] I have a motion. Is there a second?

[1:37] Second.

[1:38] Any discussions?

[1:40] All in favor?

[1:42] And the agenda is

[1:44] approved.

[1:46] We're looking at our minutes, where we'll be adopting minutes from the work

[1:49] session, executive session, and the regular session of July the

[1:53] 21st, 2026.

[1:56] I'll ask for a motion.

[1:57] Motion to approve.

[1:59] I have a motion to approve. Is there a second?

[2:02] Second.

[2:03] Any discussion?

[2:06] All in favor?

[2:08] And the minutes stand approved. Special recognition tonight, we'll be

[2:12] recognizing our August employees' years of service.

[2:15] And I'll ask Commissioner Sutherland if he would read the list, and then

[2:19] Commissioner Abernathy is going to shake the bag and draw the

[2:23] name.

[2:25] Okay. If they're over 10 years,

[2:28] I'll acknowledge that. From 8911, we

[2:32] have Kinsley Outing, 11 years, Destiny

[2:36] Burchett. From the fire department, Brandon Halcomb,

[2:40] 13,

[2:41] Jacob Nicholson, 10, Jimmy Williams, 10,

[2:46] Mason Mattila, Brennon Mullins,

[2:51] Cody Thomas, and Jared Powell.

[2:55] From IT, Tim Cochran with 21.

[2:59] Magistrate Court, Courtney Ford.

[3:03] Recreation department, Roger Pease with 18.

[3:07] Public Works, Scott Hobbs, 27,

[3:10] Steven Silvers with Public Works,

[3:13] Amy Richards with Public Works.

[3:17] The next individuals are our sheriff's department.

[3:20] Angela Wright, 22, Andy Roberts,

[3:24] 35,

[3:26] Robert Garcia, 10,

[3:29] Lane Bennett,

[3:30] Shane Gibson,

[3:32] Philip Papers,

[3:34] and Reece Campbell. The last three are all

[3:39] tax commissioner.

[3:41] Office, Sharon Lieberman with 30, Bonnie Storm

[3:45] and Kristen Kerr.

[3:52] Drumroll.

[4:00] Tim Cochran.

[4:02] All right, Tim Cochran.

[4:02] All right.

[4:03] He doesn't need much.

[4:06] How many years has he been with us?

[4:08] Tim had 21.

[4:09] He's

[4:10] fine with us.

[4:12] Congratulations to Tim Cochran. You said 21 years?

[4:15] Yes, sir.

[4:16] 21 years. That's amazing.

[4:18] Yeah.

[4:19] All right, Mr. Ledbetter, we'll move right on into the administrator's report.

[4:24] Okay. Let me get on the right page.

[4:28] You have your SLOS, LOS and FLOS reports.

[4:31] But the good news is

[4:33] we're up about 4% on our SLOS and LOS

[4:37] collections

[4:38] over last year. And then, because we now have

[4:42] a 12-month time period in our report, we're able to tell that our SLOS

[4:46] collections for 2025/'26

[4:51] were $363,337

[4:54] over the previous time period,

[4:59] which was at $224,800.

[5:03] Excuse me, that was for SLOS, and then FLOS was up

[5:06] $224,808 over the previous

[5:10] fiscal year.

[5:12] On FLOS, we've now received six months of sales tax collected

[5:16] under the FLOS. Our county share of over six

[5:20] months was $4.924 million.

[5:24] Doubling that almost puts us at $10 million,

[5:28] which is on the good side of what we predicted FLOS would bring us.

[5:33] Five months of that will be applied to lower taxes this year,

[5:37] and then next year we'll have a full year's worth of FLOS

[5:41] for about $10 million if the state legislature doesn't

[5:45] do something to us in the 2027 session

[5:50] to mess that up.

[5:53] We got our sales tax ratio from the Georgia Department of

[5:57] Audits.

[5:58] The sales tax ratio is conducted under Georgia law, and

[6:02] it's an annual audit of our tax digest to determine whether

[6:06] county properties are assessed at fair market value

[6:10] A score of 40 indicates properties are accurately valued according

[6:14] to the sample of properties considered in the state audit.

[6:17] Gordon County, congratulations to the tax assessor's office, because they

[6:22] received a score of 38.83, which is in the

[6:26] acceptable range.

[6:29] It means our tax assessor's office has valued the

[6:33] property accurately, but according to the state, we should have

[6:37] gone just a little bit higher to be at 40%.

[6:40] The Development Authority met last week.

[6:44] The final tract of land in the King Industrial Park on the LX Drive has

[6:48] been sold. That's a big deal.

[6:51] I think that development park was started back in 2009 or

[6:55] 2010.

[6:58] It was partially purchased, partially donated, I believe, by the

[7:01] King family. I wasn't here then, at the county, but that's what I

[7:05] understand.

[7:07] The Development Authority borrowed the

[7:10] money to buy the land in 2010 for the purchase portion,

[7:14] and Gordon County has paid back the debt with

[7:18] 35 payments totaling

[7:19] $962,257.

[7:24] The Development Authority made the final payoff of

[7:27] $121,925.17.

[7:31] This is the one where we have a contract with the Development Authority, so

[7:35] that now frees up

[7:37] $565,332

[7:41] that under a contract with Development Authority is due to us.

[7:45] I know there's discussions about reinvestment of that or

[7:48] whatever, but that was the triggering event under the contract.

[7:53] I think the purchase of the property,

[7:57] the whole industrial development project, has been really successful

[8:01] because we've gotten the entire LX complex down

[8:05] there. And I didn't look up the exact amount of

[8:09] tax

[8:10] that LX is now paying, but over a

[8:14] period of the 10 years, it would far eclipse

[8:19] the million-dollar figure that

[8:22] the county and Development Authority had in borrowing to go buy the

[8:25] property. Of course, there's other infrastructure that's been put in.

[8:30] The county came out to the good on that.

[8:33] Landfill, we're in the process of the five-year permit

[8:36] review.

[8:38] I get briefed on that tomorrow morning on a Zoom call.

[8:42] We've got the Title V air quality reporting that's going on, and

[8:46] that was a clean report.

[8:50] Went out to Hero Agriculture last week.

[8:52] Mike Reynolds hosted Congressman Clay Fuller out there at the farm to

[8:57] look at the program. And while I was there, not only was

[9:01] I able to

[9:02] reiterate to the congressman

[9:06] that Hero Agriculture saves lives and saves Gordon County

[9:10] the jail and the hospital money, but most importantly,

[9:14] saves veterans' lives, veterans who have traumatic brain

[9:18] injury.

[9:20] And I was also able to mention to the congressman, as we have to

[9:24] others who've passed through lately,

[9:26] our needs for local mental health care and other needs.

[9:31] And then Keith King has an extensive activity report for

[9:35] his

[9:37] activity for the month of July that you can see there.

[9:41] On the last page, it's real interesting.

[9:44] He's got the Northwest Georgia Agricultural and Event Center

[9:47] bookings,

[9:50] and revenue anticipated to be derived from there, and then some

[9:54] reports on our buildings. Anything you want to add?

[9:57] One thing. I would like for Courtney to introduce who he has with him,

[10:01] if we can do that.

[10:01] Oh, yeah. I was going to get to that now.

[10:04] Now?

[10:05] Sure.

[10:06] Well, I'll stand up then.

[10:08] Happy to say that this is Christina Byrd.

[10:10] She is the new deputy director for EMA.

[10:14] She's been here two days, and I already can't say enough about her.

[10:17] We'll be here in September to give our EMA report, and

[10:21] my plan is instead of telling you what we've done at EMA for the last year,

[10:25] is to tell you what we've done for the last month.

[10:27] And I think I have that much confidence.

[10:29] She's already going to have so much stuff on the books.

[10:32] We told her one of her things is going to be community education.

[10:34] We want her out and about, working the robot, doing different things.

[10:39] We've been working, really, for two weeks, but we've only been paying her for two

[10:41] days, because I've been on the phone with her every day, like, "Can you do this?

[10:44] Will you do this? Will you do this?" And she's really started two weeks ago, so

[10:47] we've already got some good hours out of her.

[10:50] And in just two days, we've already got scheduled, we're going to start doing a

[10:54] community CPR class quarterly. So the first one will be September

[10:57] 24th at the county administration building.

[11:00] She'll be doing employees from 9:00 to 12:00, and then just open to

[11:04] the community from 1:00 to 4:00. And the only charge will be $7.50, which is

[11:08] for the card that we can't get away from.

[11:10] And then we're going to continue that quarterly.

[11:12] We've already got her

[11:14] hooked up with some school contacts so she can get into schools.

[11:17] Already got her scheduled to go with Ron and Greg for Fire Prevention

[11:21] Month in October, so she'll be in all the elementary schools

[11:25] then. So we're really going to put a push on that community education and get it

[11:29] going.

[11:32] I don't want to say anything wrong, but bachelor's degree, I think?

[11:35] More educated than me. Bachelor's degree in emergency management.

[11:38] She is a true emergency manager. She has that bachelor's degree.

[11:41] She already has her certified emergency manager, which is a three-year process.

[11:45] So that's going to save us money on things.

[11:47] And we've already established my goal for her is the same as

[11:51] her goal for her, and it's for her to be your next emergency management director.

[11:55] She's a little shorter in the tooth than I am.

[11:57] So she's still got about 23, 24 years to hit that

[12:01] magic number 60 for public safety retirement here in Gordon County.

[12:04] And

[12:05] I hope you will support us, and I'm going to support her to keep her here,

[12:10] because I think she is definitely the future of emergency management here in Gordon

[12:14] County. Anything you want to say?

[12:15] Thank you. I just want to thank y'all for the opportunity.

[12:17] I'm excited to serve the citizens of Gordon County.

[12:20] Work with a fantastic director and see what we can get done.

[12:25] Christina, it is great to have you on board, and we really appreciate

[12:29] you choosing to make your home here in Gordon County and working with

[12:33] us.

[12:35] Thank you. Courtney and Christina are going to

[12:38] possibly go to Carter's Lake tomorrow to participate.

[12:41] Oh.

[12:41] It's a go. There's a missing canoeist over there, and we

[12:45] have some specialized underwater search equipment.

[12:49] And so, we're going to have one of our boats go over with a

[12:53] driver, and then Courtney, crew will

[12:57] operate the underwater

[13:00] equipment. Sonar, whatever it is that-

[13:03] Yeah, underwater camera, yes

[13:05] ... is designed to look for bodies.

[13:08] So say a prayer. He's been missing for about a week now.

[13:11] We need to get him back to his family.

[13:13] So,

[13:14] thank you.

[13:14] Thank you all for everything.

[13:16] Thank y'all.

[13:18] Thank you for the opportunity.

[13:21] That's all.

[13:21] That's it? All right. Commissioner's reports, we'll begin with Vice Chair

[13:25] Cunningham.

[13:26] Yes, sir. July 23rd and 24th,

[13:31] we participated in some ACCG trainings

[13:35] at Callaway. Good classes.

[13:38] A lot of information taken in two days.

[13:40] It was real worth the trip.

[13:44] As always, I was working lunch with Jim and

[13:48] talking with citizens.

[13:50] Thank you very much. Commissioner Stewart.

[13:54] Not too much to report. Had a meeting with Keith and Jim to go

[13:57] over a few items and keeping our ordinance

[14:02] officers busy. That's about all I have.

[14:05] Thank you very much. On the 23rd, we were able to have one of our first paid

[14:09] events down at the

[14:11] Ag and Event Center. The Georgia Regional Council, the

[14:15] Northwest Georgia Regional Trauma Advisory Committee,

[14:20] and

[14:21] we had folks from about 16 northwest Georgia counties

[14:25] there who all got to see the place. Our friends over in Floyd County were

[14:29] there, and they had a chance to look at it and became a little bit jealous.

[14:33] So, we're excited that they were able to be there as well.

[14:36] And that was a good event and had a lot of attendance there.

[14:41] On the 24th, Jim and Keith and I met.

[14:43] I can't remember if there's anybody else meeting with us or not on that day, but we

[14:47] had a very positive meeting talking about county operations and

[14:51] business. And then today, we had an agricultural

[14:55] stakeholders meeting down at the Ag and Event Center that

[14:59] Keith led, and we had great attendance there for that meeting.

[15:02] That's all I have. Commissioner Abernathy.

[15:04] I've got nothing to report. All is well.

[15:07] Thank you. Commissioner Sutherland.

[15:09] Yes, I had to return a few phone calls, took a few.

[15:15] Several emails with a lady on a situation, and I think she's got that taken care

[15:19] of.

[15:22] Had a couple of training classes of art of

[15:25] negotiating and navigating changes,

[15:29] to work on my specialty tracks.

[15:32] And

[15:34] met also today at the Event Center that

[15:37] Keith hosted with the stakeholders on that, with our

[15:41] local 4H leaders, FFA teachers, and some

[15:45] county ag leaders with us.

[15:48] Thank you for doing that, Keith.

[15:51] And we had a good meeting, and

[15:54] we got some things ironed out

[15:57] really well. So, good job on that today.

[16:00] Thank you, commissioners.

[16:02] We'll move on to under new business.

[16:04] We have six items tonight under new business.

[16:06] Number one is consideration of request from the sheriff's office to approve the

[16:10] purchase of five 2027 Ford Explorers from

[16:14] Prado Ford for a total amount of

[16:16] $236,640. This is

[16:20] a 2024 SPLOST purchase and will be budgeted using GL

[16:23] account

[16:24] 329-542200-420.

[16:30] I believe from the report that they were the low bidders. Is that correct?

[16:34] That's correct. The sheriff's department

[16:37] pretty much handled all of that, and then we funded the purchase with the

[16:41] SPLOST proceeds allocated for that purpose.

[16:44] Thank you very much. I'll ask for a motion.

[16:48] Motion to approve.

[16:50] We do have a motion to approve. Is there a second?

[16:54] Second.

[16:55] A motion and two seconds.

[16:57] Well, let's take a vote.

[16:59] Any discussion?

[17:01] All in favor?

[17:04] And motion carries. Item number two is consideration of request from

[17:07] Emergency Management to approve to negotiate the debris

[17:11] removal contract with Debris Tech and CRS for debris

[17:15] monitoring services. And this item comes at no cost to Gordon

[17:19] County unless services are rendered.

[17:22] Is there a motion?

[17:25] Motion to approve.

[17:28] A motion to approve. Is there a second?

[17:30] Second.

[17:31] Any additional discussion on this?

[17:34] Hope we never need them.

[17:35] Absolutely.

[17:36] Amen.

[17:37] All in favor?

[17:39] And it is approved. Item number three is consideration of request

[17:44] from Public Works to approve task order number six with

[17:48] EXP US Services Incorporated for engineering services

[17:52] regarding the Deuce Pond Road and Lovers Lane intersection in the

[17:56] amount of $213,340, and this will be

[18:00] budgeted using GL account

[18:02] 431-531120-111.

[18:08] Is there a motion?

[18:11] Motion to approve.

[18:13] We do have a motion to approve. Is there a second?

[18:17] Second.

[18:18] Have a motion and a second. Any discussion?

[18:21] Like Jim had stated about the-

[18:25] large price on this, but I think it's an important

[18:28] project because it's got to work in tandem with the

[18:32] other intersection. If those two don't work in tandem well,

[18:35] then there's a lot of people that need the relief in that

[18:39] area around the Papa John. You can ask anybody that's got boots on the ground.

[18:42] In school.

[18:43] School, and it's a problem, so it needs to be

[18:47] fixed correctly.

[18:48] It's a difficult project. That's a tight intersection, and there's major

[18:52] utilities running through there that will have to be designed around or

[18:56] moved or whatever.

[18:57] Yeah.

[18:59] Just want to add that.

[19:00] Thank you, Chair. Any additional comments?

[19:04] All in favor?

[19:08] All right, and that motion carries.

[19:11] Item number four is consideration of request from Public Works to approve

[19:15] task order number seven with EXP US Services Inc,

[19:19] for the professional engineering services for guardrail improvements on Miller

[19:23] Ferry Road at Oothcaloga Creek in the amount of

[19:26] $12,000. This will be budgeted using GL account

[19:30] 431-521230.

[19:34] Is there a motion?

[19:37] Motion to approve.

[19:39] Have a motion to approve. Is there a second?

[19:42] Second.

[19:43] A motion and a second. Any discussion?

[19:47] Hearing none, all in favor?

[19:50] And motion carries. Item number five is consider resolution

[19:54] consenting to the de-annexation of certain real property from the

[19:58] city of Calhoun, Georgia.

[20:02] Is there a motion?

[20:04] Motion to approve.

[20:06] Have a motion to approve. Is there a second?

[20:08] Second.

[20:08] Any

[20:10] additional questions, comments?

[20:13] Need the attorney to reread the

[20:16] resolution? Are we all good?

[20:20] All right. All in favor?

[20:23] And motion carries.

[20:25] Item number six, consideration of request from County Clerk's office to

[20:29] approve change of responsible party for consumption off premises

[20:33] beer and wine license to Yvette Lee Laney from

[20:37] Mapco Express, LLC, doing business as Mapco

[20:41] 3608, located at 973

[20:45] Rome Road. All fees and requirements have been met by the

[20:48] applicant.

[20:50] Is there a motion?

[20:53] Motion to approve.

[20:55] I have a motion to approve. Is there a second?

[20:57] Second.

[20:58] Any additional discussion?

[21:00] No.

[21:02] All in favor?

[21:05] And motion carries.

[21:08] Is there a motion to adjourn?

[21:09] So moved.

[21:11] Have a motion to adjourn. Is there a second?

[21:13] Second.

[21:14] All in favor?

[21:16] And motion carries. Thank y'all very much for being with us tonight.

August 4, 2026 Gordon County Board of Commissioners Meeting

Agenda

Transcript