County to work with others on environmental efforts
The Hall County Board of Commissioners approved a countywide environmental management system at Wednesday morning's work session.
Natural Resources Coordinator Rick Foote presented the commissioners with a plan to tie together Hall County's green efforts with others in order to be more effective.
By working together, the partners would have increased opportunities for grant money and could share ideas to save operating costs through conservation.
"Doing it on a countywide basis is a somewhat novel idea," Foote said. "Bartow County, Ga., is actually the first county in the country to implement one."
Foote emphasized that the program would be voluntary and nonregulatory. The county would not have to dedicate any additional funding to implement the system.
"It's putting everybody on the same team moving forward," Commissioner Ashley Bell said.
The cities of Oakwood and Flowery Branch along with nonprofits and businesses like Elachee Nature Center, ZF Industries and SKF are already on board.
"We can get involved, be proactive, or get left behind in the green movement," Foote said.
Hall County Board of Commissioners Chairman Tom Oliver is proposing at this morning's board work session to establish a $15 million line of credit to purchase a new building for county offices.
Oliver said the money is to be used in the process of closing on the Liberty Mutual property on Browns Bridge Road. He said he expects the county to close on the property in late August.
"We hope to have these different forms of financing available by September," Oliver said. "This is just a temporary bridge."
County Finance Director Michaela Thompson said the credit will be backed by Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax funds.
"This opportunity with Liberty Mutual, they haven't had enough time for SPLOST dollars to accumulate in time to buy that building," Thompson said. "It's just a stop gap until we get permanent financing."
The county is still planning to purchase the building with bonds backed by SPLOST VI.
County bonding attorney Tread Syfan said the validation hearing for the issuance of bonds through the Gainesville Hall County Development Authority was delayed until Oct. 5 following an objection by the city of Clermont.
Clermont is suing Hall County over its decision not to build the North Hall library in Clermont.
"The Clermont folks filed a motion to intervene, objecting to the issuance of the bonds I guess because of the library being one of the projects being financed," Syfan said.
According to state law, residents have the right to object the issuance of the bonds for any reason.
"They are entitled to do that. As part of the process they have intervened and objected to it," Syfan said.
"We're of the position that they can be issued and it's all legal."
Hall County is looking to purchase the building on Browns Bridge Road to house most of its departments under one roof.
The property includes about 123,000 square feet on 38 acres.
Hall County has a few different office locations. The courthouse annex houses administration, finance and human relations, and public works and the tax commissioner's office are in the joint administration building.
In SPLOST VI, which was approved in March 2009, $17 million was planned for courthouse and administration building projects. Along with a rehabilitation of the 1936 courthouse, the official project list calls for the money to be used to convert courthouse annex space into courtroom space and relocate the county's administrative functions to a new site.
Though the county needs to find a new building, Gainesville officials are concerned that the exodus of so many county departments would hurt downtown businesses.
In May, City Manager Kip Padgett was directed by the City Council to write a letter to the commissioners, urging them to remain in the downtown area.