3/19/2019 BOC Work Session Minutes
GORDON COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
WORK SESSION MINUTES
MARCH 19, 2019
The Gordon County Board of Commissioners held a Work Session Tuesday, March 19, 2019, at 5:30 p.m. in the conference room of the Administration Building.
Members Present
Chad Steward, Vice Chairman
M. L. Bud Owens, Commissioner
Norris Sexton, Commissioner
Kevin Cunningham, Commissioner
Others Present
Jim Ledbetter, County Administrator
Annette Berry, County Clerk
Media
Approximately 20 Guests
Vice Chairman Steward called the meeting to order.
Administrator Ledbetter explained each item on the Agenda for the Regular Meeting. No items were deleted or added to the Agenda as presented.
Ms. Allison Karch came before the Board to speak about the flooding at Plantation Place on Doe Lane. Ms. Karch said she had spoken to the Public Works Department and had been told there was no solution to the accumulation of water flooding Doe Lane and no way to drain it out faster. Ms. Karch further said, “As of today the road is still closed and the water has not gone down at all as there has been no solution or remedy for the ongoing problem. Cars have to park along the roadside and residents have to walk through yards to get to their house, because residents are unable to safely cross the flooded part of the road to get to their homes, no mail can be delivered and emergency personnel could not get through if needed. I pay someone to mow my yard, they can’t get there, I don’t have another option, I don’t own a lawnmower. This is unacceptable for us to live like this. The County needs to find a short-term solution and then find a way to prevent the problem. Children are having to walk around the flooded area to get to their school bus. The county put out a road closed sign, but, how do you close a cul-de-sac with no plan for fixing the problem. The county has not done anything to help get the water off the road, and to solve the future flooding, there is a field that the water could be pumped to”.
County Administrator Ledbetter explained that the County has looked into the problem in the past, this has been an issue on Doe Lane for years. Chris Frix, the developer and others have looked at the problems there. The developer had sold lots to a Bob Shafley who changed the watercourse to lessen the development costs. The homeowners at that time, were encouraged to look to Mr. Shafley for recourse for redirecting the water and causing damage to the property. Unfortunately, Mr. Shafley had fled the Country and returned to his home country. The Board saw the need to make changes in the subdivision development regulations as a result of these problems and elsewhere. It’s not true that the County has done nothing. It is true that the County does not have a feasible solution to flooding on Doe Lane. Engineering was done several years ago, and the recommendation at that time would have required a 1,300 linear foot relief drain line to get the water over to the field that Ms. Karch referred to. The cost of the drain line several years ago was estimated to be about $500,000. We can’t just take water and put it on another person’s property. Just recently while we were looking at this problem, our Public Works Department was forbidden to get on this property. We couldn’t even put a drain pipe across it, without acquiring the right to do so, even if it’s a temporary pipe. These homes and where the road floods is the low point of about 10 acres that’s drained there. According to our engineer, there is about a million gallons of water in there right now, so putting that much water in tanker trucks and moving it out, that’s about 100 tanker trucks, just without another drop going back in, which is unlikely. Doe Lane appears on the County’s paving list for this summer. The next thing we are going to have engineering do, is to calculate for us what kind of an elevation of the road would be necessary. We can’t really get the water out of there, we would have to acquire property rights to cross about nine different private properties, that was not figured into the cost of the linear drain pipe. A developer created this problem years ago. We have had an engineer look at this but we don’t know how to pump this water off.
County Administrator discussed an annexation request to the City of Calhoun for 13.6 acres on Dews Pond Road. It is an island of County in the City. It’s one of those annexations that should take place.
Commissioner Cunningham made a motion to adjourn the Work Session. Commissioner Sexton seconded the motion and all voted aye.
There being no further business, the Work Session adjourned at 5:45 p.m.
