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Transportation group prepares to submit project list
Howard Road extension added to roads plan
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Key dates

The following deadlines must be met before the proposed 1-cent sales tax for transportation shows up on the ballot

March 30: County governments must submit road project wish lists

April 13: The Georgia Mountains Regional Commission must submit the lists to the Georgia Department of Transportation

Early summer: The DOT will ask an executive committee within the Georgia Mountains Regional Commission's Northeast Georgia roundtable to shorten the unconstrained list to match projected revenues from the sales tax.

Aug. 15: The executive committee must have developed a constrained list.

By Oct. 15: The full roundtable will vote on the final list.

Aug. 21, 2012: Voters statewide will vote on whether they want to add the sales tax.

Hall County is poised to submit its wish list of transportation projects as one of the many steps leading to the August 2012 statewide vote on a 1-cent sales tax for roads.

The Gainesville-Hall Metropolitan Planning Organization presented the list to the Hall County Board of Commissioners Monday night and the MPO's Policy Committee Tuesday morning.

Both groups had few comments but nothing negative concerning the list, which contains submissions from the Hall County engineering staff and Hall County Joint Municipal Association.

Officials said Tuesday morning the list doesn't reflect any sort of ranking of projects.

"All the city managers and mayors worked together on the project," said Oakwood City Manager Stan Brown, head of the municipal association's transportation work group. "I think we were all on the same page."

The Georgia Mountains Regional Commission has set a March 30 deadline to accept the unconstrained project lists from governments within its 13-county region.

Srikanth Yamala, MPO transportation planning manager, said Hall officials will expand some on the projects before submitting the list. "We will put all the required data and descriptions to each one of those projects," he said.

The Georgia Mountains Regional Commission has until April 13 to submit the lists to the Georgia Department of Transportation, said Stephanie Harmon, regional planner for the Gainesville-based commission.

The intricate process leading to the referendum was set up last year by the Georgia General Assembly as part of the Transportation Investment Act.

Essentially, the law allows voters in regions throughout the state to decide whether they favor an additional penny tax for transportation and transit improvements.

As part of the law, the Georgia Mountains Regional Commission formed the Northeast Georgia roundtable, a 26-member group made up of mayors and top county government leaders from throughout Northeast Georgia.

The "unconstrained lists" being developed feature projects that must be documented somewhere by governments — such as on comprehensive plans — and contain aspects that have no or partial funding or haven't been targeted for funding.

For example, Hall County has put on its list the widening of U.S. 129 from Gillsville Highway to Jackson County. The state has earmarked money for right-of-way acquisition but not construction.

And the projects must have some kind of regional impact, such as in health care, economic development and tourism, Harmon said.

The DOT is scheduled to provide a draft of the unconstrained list to an executive committee formed by each roundtable by early summer, with the charge to shorten the list to match projected revenues from the sales tax.

The executive committee must develop a constrained list by Aug. 15. The full roundtable will vote on the final list sometime before October 15.

If voters within the district approve the tax on Aug. 21, 2012, the state would begin distributing proceeds in 2013, with 75 percent of the money dedicated to regional projects decided on by the roundtable and 25 percent going to local governments using their discretion on projects.

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