Posted: Saturday, August 17, 2013 7:18 pm
While the city and county have made strides toward working
together over the past year and a half, sparks still fly from time to
time, as Friday’s meeting of the Development Authority of Douglas County
proved.
Douglas County Commission Chairman Tom Worthan didn’t mince words when the subject of a biofuels company interested in locating at the landfill and turning trash into fuel came up.
Douglasville Development Services Director Jeff
Noles told the city’s development authority Tuesday morning that landing
the company “would be a big win for the county and give them an
opportunity to make money where they’re not currently making money.”
But the landfill is outside the city limits and is run by the county. Worthan made clear again Friday the county wants no part of the project and that he wasn’t happy about being left out of the talks.
Noles, Chris Pumphrey, executive director of the DADC, and DADC Board Chairman Ron Wilson were all involved in a conference call with the company about three weeks ago, according to Wilson.
“I have pushed for cooperation, communication,” Worthan said. “It’s embarrassing for me that our development authority had been in contact with these people. Evidently the city development authority has.”
Wilson told Worthan the conference call wasn’t positive. The company would make fuels like synthetic diesel from the decomposition of trash. But Wilson said there were concerns about groundwater pollution and air quality if the company moved here.
Additionally, the company was looking at using the Douglas County landfill to handle the trash for all of the west metro Atlanta area, which would mean an increase from 100 garbage trucks a day on rural roads like Cedar Mountain Road and Mann Road to 1,000.
“From a development authority standpoint, we didn’t have any interest at all,” said Wilson.
Worthan wasn’t satisfied.
“Mr. Chairman, even if you didn’t have any interest in it, I should have been told that you were talking about it,” Worthan said.
Wilson said he agreed and apologized to Worthan.
Douglasville Mayor Harvey Persons said he and Worthan made a pact when he took office in 2012 the city and county would work “in the spirit of cooperation.”
“I think it’s incumbent on both of these bodies to make sure the chief elected officials of the city and county are aware of what’s going on as it relates to economic development,” said Persons.
Wilson said he believed the city and county development authorities were doing just that. But Wilson said the development authority hasn’t traditionally gone to the county and city governments with projects “we take no action on.”
Worthan said he found out about the project second-hand from a Douglasville city council member earlier this week, that even the Douglasville-Douglas County Water Sewer Authority knew about the project, but that the county “was left out of the loop completely.”
“As I’ve said all along, I push for cooperation and consolidation and whatever I could,” Worthan said. “But there’s no excuse for what happened. It just happened to happen, and I don’t expect it to again.”
Then Worthan got in the final words of the meeting, making clear one last time where the county stands on the biofuels company locating at the landfill.
“Not interested,” he said.
Also at Friday’s meeting, Atlanta Kitchen Equipment, located on Industrial Access Road in Douglasville, announced plans to add 20,000 square feet of space and an additional 20 employees.
The expansion will cost $2.5 million and the DADC agreed to help the company get tax-exempt bonds.
Also, Pumphrey also said a land owner in the northwestern corridor of the county had approached the DADC about buying 109 acres just north of the railroad tracks, which could be used to spur industrial growth in that area.
Pumphrey said the DADC is looking “to see what options are there.”
Douglas County Commission Chairman Tom Worthan didn’t mince words when the subject of a biofuels company interested in locating at the landfill and turning trash into fuel came up.
But the landfill is outside the city limits and is run by the county. Worthan made clear again Friday the county wants no part of the project and that he wasn’t happy about being left out of the talks.
Noles, Chris Pumphrey, executive director of the DADC, and DADC Board Chairman Ron Wilson were all involved in a conference call with the company about three weeks ago, according to Wilson.
“I have pushed for cooperation, communication,” Worthan said. “It’s embarrassing for me that our development authority had been in contact with these people. Evidently the city development authority has.”
Wilson told Worthan the conference call wasn’t positive. The company would make fuels like synthetic diesel from the decomposition of trash. But Wilson said there were concerns about groundwater pollution and air quality if the company moved here.
Additionally, the company was looking at using the Douglas County landfill to handle the trash for all of the west metro Atlanta area, which would mean an increase from 100 garbage trucks a day on rural roads like Cedar Mountain Road and Mann Road to 1,000.
“From a development authority standpoint, we didn’t have any interest at all,” said Wilson.
Worthan wasn’t satisfied.
“Mr. Chairman, even if you didn’t have any interest in it, I should have been told that you were talking about it,” Worthan said.
Wilson said he agreed and apologized to Worthan.
Douglasville Mayor Harvey Persons said he and Worthan made a pact when he took office in 2012 the city and county would work “in the spirit of cooperation.”
“I think it’s incumbent on both of these bodies to make sure the chief elected officials of the city and county are aware of what’s going on as it relates to economic development,” said Persons.
Wilson said he believed the city and county development authorities were doing just that. But Wilson said the development authority hasn’t traditionally gone to the county and city governments with projects “we take no action on.”
Worthan said he found out about the project second-hand from a Douglasville city council member earlier this week, that even the Douglasville-Douglas County Water Sewer Authority knew about the project, but that the county “was left out of the loop completely.”
“As I’ve said all along, I push for cooperation and consolidation and whatever I could,” Worthan said. “But there’s no excuse for what happened. It just happened to happen, and I don’t expect it to again.”
Then Worthan got in the final words of the meeting, making clear one last time where the county stands on the biofuels company locating at the landfill.
“Not interested,” he said.
Also at Friday’s meeting, Atlanta Kitchen Equipment, located on Industrial Access Road in Douglasville, announced plans to add 20,000 square feet of space and an additional 20 employees.
The expansion will cost $2.5 million and the DADC agreed to help the company get tax-exempt bonds.
Also, Pumphrey also said a land owner in the northwestern corridor of the county had approached the DADC about buying 109 acres just north of the railroad tracks, which could be used to spur industrial growth in that area.
Pumphrey said the DADC is looking “to see what options are there.”
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