HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-15-2004 Joint Meeting
AUGUSTA RICHMOND COUNTY COMMISSION
COLUMBIA COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSION
RICHMOND COUNTY DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY
COLUMBIA COUNTY DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY
JOINT MEETING
THE BOATHOUSE
December 15, 2004
A joint meeting of Augusta Richmond County Commission, Columbia County
Board of Commission, Richmond County Development Authority and the Columbia
County Development Authority convened at 10:00 a.m., Wednesday, December 15,
2004.
Present:
Augusta Richmond County Commission: Tommy Boyles, Don Grantham, Bobby
Hankerson, Willie Mays, Barbara Sims, Jimmy Smith, Marian Williams, Bob Young;
Columbia County Board of Commissioners: Lee Anderson, Steve Brown, Ron
Cross, Diane Ford, Tom Mercer;
Columbia County Development Authority: Bill Coleman, Linda Crowell, Bobby
Culpepper, Tim McGill, Rick Evans, Marian Pittman, Ron Thigpen, Mark Wills, and
Richmond County Development Authority: Terry Elam, Robert Osborne, Loren
Perry, Charlene Sizemore, Walter Spouse. Charles Walker.
Mr. Mayor: Good morning, and welcome, everyone. I think the thing that drives
our discussion this morning is something that’s contained in a U.S. Metro Economies
report that came out last month, which shows the values of good and services produced in
all the metropolitan areas in the United States, and as broken out in this report there are
318 metropolitan areas, and out of those 318 the metropolitan area of Augusta-Aiken is
118 in the list; the value of goods and services produced here last year, $14.9 billion.
There’s a lot of stake and you can see the power of working together, $14.9 billion.
Commission Chairman Ron Cross approached me a couple of weeks ago and said his
Commission and the Columbia County Development Authority would like to have a
meeting with the Richmond Commission and the Richmond County Development
Authority, and that’s what has brought us here today. So Ron, I’m going to turn the floor
over to you and let you start things off.
Mr. Cross: First off, I want to say what an honor it is to be here with such a
distinguished group. Regardless of what happens today, I think this is, this is good, and I
think it probably should happen more often, particularly with the two Commissions. I’d
like to thank Commissioner Steve Brown. It was actually his suggestion that we do this,
at the last meeting we had, that we seemed to be talking around and through third parties
1
about the situation of a regional partnership, and why not just get everybody at the same
table and see what our differences really were. From our standpoint, we feel like a
regional partnership is the best for all of us, particularly in economic development. There
has been a lot of things said and a lot of things printed that may or may not be true, and
apparently a lot of misinformation and a few misconceptions. The article that was in the
paper a little while ago had some thoughts and ideas from Mr. Perry that really were very
foreign to us. We realize the importance of working together and we want that to take
place. We realize that what’s good for Richmond County is good for the regional, what’s
good for Columbia County is good for the region, what’s good for the region is good for
all of us. And surely there is a way for us to unite and to do this jointly for the benefit of
the counties involved. And this issue with the Metro Chamber, this is a concept that has
not been a part of our discussions in Columbia County. We do not feel threatened by the
Metro Chamber, but nor do we expect them to be involved in economic development.
We don’t expect the Columbia County Chamber to be involved in economic
development. We think economic development should stand on its own, the functions of
the Chambers of Commerce are different in their structure – to serve and be liaison
between the private business sector and county governments and other entities, but not to
pursue economic development. We don’t feel threatened that they are trying to intrude
on any of this. I may be, as Mr. Perry told me last week, a little bit naïve in this situation,
and I very well could be. But we don’t feel that pressure and don’t see whether that is an
issue with this particular discussion. Again, if a business locates in Richmond County,
Columbia County is going to benefit, I think, because a lot of people like to live in
Columbia County. If Columbia County or Burke County secures a business, Augusta is
certainly going to benefit because you have the majority of the commercial retail centers
and people are going to shop in Richmond County. We just feel like that a regional
partnership for economic development is a win-win situation for everyone, and that if
we’re going to be prudent in the expenditures of taxpayer dollars and those dollars of the
private sector, we should do it together. And that’s really about all I can, all I can say
about our position. I guess in the beginning I’d like, if anyone on our Commission or our
Development Authority would make a statement, would like to make a statement, be glad
for them to do so, and then the same for Richmond Commission and Development
Authority, and to see if we can identify where we really have any differences in this
concept. In my conversation again the other week with Mr. Perry, I agreed with most of
what he said as far as what his objectives were for Richmond County. They coincided in
a large amount with exactly the way we feel. Vice Chair Ford, do you have any
comments?
Ms. Ford: Mr. Chairman, I am here today to – thank you all for coming, first of
all, let me say – to listen to the comments from the Richmond County delegation and
from the Authority and see if we can come together and form this partnership. I don’t
really know what happened but I’m here to listen today, to see what comments y’all have.
Mr. Cross: Mr. Mercer?
Mr. Mercer: Echo what Ms. Ford has said.
2
Mr. Cross: Mr. Anderson?
Mr. Anderson: Here to help any way I can.
Mr. Cross: Mr. Brown?
Mr. Brown: I kind of want to hear a little bit of what our Development Authority
has to say first on our side of the situation.
Mr. Cross: Mr. Coleman?
Mr. Coleman: I’ve been involved in economic development about eight years and
I’ve talked to dozens of site consultants and executives in real estate and industry, and
without exception they all say you should market regionally. No county can stand alone.
We complement one another. I think we’ve got a great community and a great area and I
think our future is bright, and I think we would be making a serious mistake not to
cooperate and work together. Augusta is a brand name. I don’t think there is a person in
the United States who would be in a decision-making level who has not heard of
Augusta. After all, we host the most prestigious golf tournament for a week every year.
At the same time, one in 10,000 might know where Pollard’s Corner is [inaudible] Fort
Gordon. At the same time, whenever they say Augusta they’re talking about the region.
That’s what they know. People say move to Atlanta, I fly from Atlanta. You’re not
flying from Atlanta, you’re flying from College Park. My son went to Emory in Atlanta.
Actually, that’s Decatur, Dekalb County. Okay. Same situation here. There is nothing
magic about these county lines, and I think if worked together we can complement one
another. There is not a business in Richmond County that doesn’t have owners or
employees from Columbia County and who don’t have customers in Columbia County.
So I think we need to do it together. We can also raise money from the private sector
who will benefit from this. After all, let’s face it, utilities, banks, the real estate
companies, people like that, car dealers, the more activity there is, the more money they
can make. And I think if we work together we can raise more money jointly than we can
severally. I have talked to many people who say we don’t want to give to one individual
county, we want to give to a region. I think our money will go further if we do it
together. I think our professional staffs can work together well. If we want to have a
trade show, I think we work together and have one booth, and I think our money goes
further. It’s the way to do. I think there are some people who have some emotions in this
thing, about Columbia County versus Richmond. I was born in Richmond County. My
parents are buried in Richmond County. I went to school here. One day I’ll be buried
here. Yet, I live in Columbia County. I love Richmond County. I mean I cannot –
[inaudible] Hephzibah, Mr. Smith, you know where I’m talking about, Ms. Sims. I love
Richmond County. I went to Richmond County and Don, my buddy, we were
classmates. I want Richmond County to do well. And if Richmond County does well,
Columbia County is going to do well, also. Because industries that come in – and may be
in Columbia County, but they’re going to fly to the Augusta airport, go to the hospitals,
they’re going to shop in Richmond County. We’re all in this thing together. And I don’t
resent an industry coming to Richmond County. That’s great. I’m responsible for more
3
taxes in Richmond County than I am Columbia County, so I’ve got to get them paid.
Let’s have activity. Our Development Authority is convinced that regional marketing
and cooperation is the way to go. How we do it, there is some disagreement with the
Forward Together plan that was put forward. What the differences are, maybe Loren can
articulate them, but let’s see if we can get together. Charles, Charles and I talked briefly.
He’s interested in Richmond County being treated fairly; is that what you said, Charles,
proportionately? I’m not sure what that means, but Richmond County has got 200,000
people, Columbia has got 100,000. There is some disparity. At the same time, we’ve got
some strengths we can bring to the table, too. So we’re here to reach out and cooperate.
Mr. Cross: Any other Authority members like to speak?
Mr. Speaker: I’d like to say that our competition is not Richmond County or
Burke County. Columbia County is not competition of Richmond County. The
competition is the Columbus region. The competition is the Macon region. The
competition is the Greenville-Spartanburg area. And all these areas have a regional
approach, and we’re competing against regional approaches, and to go at that competition
as individuals I think we’re not going to be as successful. I think that’s the way we need
to look at this and figure out how we’re going to tackle the other regions that are out there
that are taking businesses away from this region, and we need to figure out how to bring
people to this region, and a regional approach will help us do that and help us raise the
money for that.
Mr. Cross: Mr. Mayor, if you’d like to schedule or orchestrate your group?
Mr. Young: I’ll do the best I can. Thank you, Ron. Let me just say, at least from
my standpoint, and I believe I speak for the other Commissioners, with respect to the
proposed regional partnership, we were not privy to any of the negotiations or even any
of the paperwork that came out of it until a couple of weeks ago. I know this was
delivered to my office about two weeks ago. First time I’ve seen it in well over two years
of discussions about this thing. Our previous Administrator may have been involved in
some negotiations and some meetings, but none of the Commissioners, to my knowledge,
individually were briefed, consulted or involved in any of the sessions at all, and much of
what we’ve heard promoting a regional partnership or opposing a regional partnership
has been what we’ve seen in the news. From my perspective, it’s that simple.
Mr. Perry: Mr. Mayor, let me speak to that just a second, if you would.
Mr. Young: All right.
Mr. Cross: That’s probably an oversight on our part, because our Development
Authority involves the Columbia County Commission on a regular basis. As a matter of
fact, any number of Commissioners usually attend Development Authority meetings, and
we just assumed that that was taking place with Richmond County. So I apologize to the
Richmond County Board of Commissioners and to you for not getting that information to
4
you, because the assumption was that the Commission and the Development Authority
interacted routinely like we do in Columbia County. So I apologize for that oversight.
Mr. Young: I appreciate that, Chairman, but I make that point because we as a
Commission have not discussed this. We don’t have any formal position as a group. We
haven’t discussed it. From my personal perspective, I think we ought to have a regional
approach to what we do. We’re at the heart of a trade area of 1.2 million people, and we
need to be working not only with Columbia County and Burke County, but with
McDuffie, with Lincoln, with Aiken, with Edgefield, with Barnwell, with everybody who
is in this region. It’s the big picture approach. That’s the way I personally feel about it.
To me, that’s a regional partnership, not two counties together and three counties
together, but the entire region. And whatever steps we can take to move in that direction,
I would be in full support of. It took us a great deal of effort for the Commission just to
participate in the Unified Development Authority, so we could get a larger tax credit for
new jobs that are brought into Richmond County. That was not an easy task, just to get
involved in that. But those are the type initiatives that we ought to be undertaking as a
community, working together. And just as Bill said, you know, what happens in
Columbia County benefits Richmond County. And what happens in Richmond County
benefits everybody else. One thing we can’t keep doing in Richmond County is bringing
business in here that’s off the tax books and depressing our tax digest. We’ve just had
too much of that, and the homeowners and small businesses are paying property taxes at a
higher rate in this city because we’re subsidizing tax-free industries that are coming into
this community. So there is a tradeoff for having everything in Augusta. So I’ll just call
on some of the other Commissioners and then we’ll get to the Development Authority. I
don’t see our Mayor Pro Tem here so I’ll start with Tommy, our Finance Chairman. Is
there something you’d like to say?
Mr. Boyles: Not particularly, Bob. I guess I’m here to listen, like everybody else.
I’ve not been involved in any of the industrial development, but I think what I’ve heard is
what I’ve read, too. I’m just here to listen and glad to be here. Thank you for letting us
come.
Mr. Young: Commissioner Marion Williams has joined us. Marion?
Mr. Williams: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Like Tommy, I’m here also to listen. I
heard some great comments and I think some of those comments are very accurate. We
been divided against ourself. We been talking about Richmond County, Columbia
County. I been hearing it for many years, and that’s something I think we need to change
or get a handle on. Anything that happen to Augusta or Richmond County affects
Columbia County, and vice versa. We are too close together to, to let something or to
have something that wouldn’t affect both counties. Same thing with North Augusta, as
well. So I’m a little bit concerned about how we market and how we say, what we hear,
what we say about Columbia County and Richmond County. I remember someone from
the media called and asked me about the School Board of Columbia County, wanted to
know what did I think about the difference in the School Board, with the school system in
Columbia County versus Richmond County, and I said wasn’t no comparison because
5
Richmond County has an inner city, has a situation that been here for [inaudible] years,
but Columbia County is a brand new area. Augusta doesn’t have that [inaudible], so you
couldn’t compare. But there are a lot of things that we can compare. Augusta, Georgia,
like you said, anywhere you go, when people ask where you from, you say Augusta, the
first thing that come in their mind is the Masters®. And they don’t say how close to
Columbia County, but when they come, I mean Columbia County is so close they can
almost reach out and touch it. So we got to be mindful of that and I want to listen to see
what is going to come out of this meeting, what we can do. We are too closely connected
together to start get divided about a land line, cause really the line is so close you can’t
even see it.
Mr. Young: Thank you, Marion. Commissioner Hankerson?
Mr. Hankerson: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. I’m a listener this morning. I kind
of feel like a marriage counselor, that I’m called to counsel to couples and one spouse
already said that they going to leave, and I’m here to try to listen to see why and want to
hear from both sides to see why one is seeking a divorce. And I’m only speaking from
what I read and was said. One thing I am concerned about is true partnership. Not lip
partnership, but partnership from the heart, if we’re going to partnership and we’re going
to make sure that a regional partnership, a partnership that the good is for all parties that
are involved and not steering to one particular area, because I’m just hearing too much of
steering, and with all the negative talk I’ve heard about my own county and so forth, and
I’m very concerned about we have – we are desperately in need for economic
development and that’s what I look for the lead, the [inaudible] to focus on economic
development in Augusta- Richmond County, as well. From my reading and so forth and
information that I received that it seems that other areas are doing pretty good. Retailers
are coming in Burke County, retailers are coming into Columbia County, retailers are
coming in South Caroline, but when they talk about Augusta they say Augusta is drying
up, and I was one of the ones that said Augusta now is in a state of intensive care, and we
actually need help. So I’m very concerned about that, with the economic development
for Augusta-Richmond County. I received some calls from some – from some business
people that say, you know, I came to this city, I came and I live where I live because the
realtors told me that Columbia County was the best place for me to live. And most of
those realtors do business in Richmond County. And I know it’s a violation. I spoke of
that as a violation of spirit, that if any realtor companies here steer someone to another
area just for that reason. So I’m very concerned and I hope something very positive that
will come out of this meeting this morning, but again as I started, began to say, I’m just
like a divorce counselor this morning, I’m the counselor to see what happens and hope
the best happen out of this, but I would like to hear from our Authority and their
comments and so forth, and not to be left out. I’m concerned about being left out,
decisions being made and I don’t know anything it until it’s already, it’s already broken,
you know. I’d like to be, I’d like to know before, beforehand. A lot of things happen and
so forth that we did not know about, and we are Commissioners and we need to know.
Don’t take for granted that we already know. We can always pick up a phone or drop a
piece of mail and say give us a copy of something that’s going on. I just don’t like to be
left out and following up at the end to try to help fix something. Thank you.
6
Mr. Young: Ms. Sims?
Ms. Sims: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, members. I’d like to piggy-back
on what Commissioner Hankerson said. First of all, I was going to say we are married,
all of us together are married because we are at the table. And I hope we don’t get
divorced. We are working on going back into a [inaudible] positive situation. I think one
of the most important things maybe is to truly identify the differences that we have and to
state the objectives and I think at some point we just need to sit down and say what’s
different about us, what we like, what we don’t like, what we can adjust, what was the
change, and to put forth the objectives that we have from all of our communities. And
the region is important. We are important to everybody, and everybody is important to
us. So I’m basically here to hear what you all are saying, because I, too, read that in the
paper. I had no idea. We just do not have the information. So I thank you for the
opportunity to be here and to hear what is going on.
Mr. Young: Mr. Grantham?
Mr. Grantham: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate the opportunity to have this
meeting this morning. I think it’s very important. I had spoken to Bill Coleman – he’s a
longtime friend and classmate of mine – but the reason I was concerned about this, and as
a new Commissioner coming in for not even serving one year’s term right now, I’ve been
in Augusta all my life, and I’ve seen what can happen when you do get behind the groups
of development and economic development and see this area grow. What concerns me
more right now is the bickering that I’m reading about in the newspaper. And the word
battles that we have back and forth. I feel like this is not in the best interest of not only
Augusta, but Columbia County as well as Burke County. I also reflect back on a little bit
of time when we saw a very similar reaction and situation in Fulton County, when it was
all happening around Atlanta. Well, that just didn’t stop. Somebody had to do something
to correct it and make things happen. Fulton County, Dekalb, Cobb, wherever they were
expanding to. And people will tell you right now we live out close to Madison, Georgia,
but we live and work in Atlanta, I mean we work in Atlanta. And from that standpoint I
think we need to develop that regional attitude and not to be tunnelvisioned as to focusing
on any one particular area, such as Richmond County or such as Columbia County. I
think we need to set goals. We need to look at certain ideas important to this entire
region and not being one location, and trying to accomplish and achieve those goals. We
need to be proactive. Proactive is the only way that I’ve ever been able to accomplish. If
you go in with a defeatist attitude and one that you’re negative to begin with, then you’re
not going to get anywhere. So attitude is going to be extremely important as to how this
new body can be created and how this body can then go forward with the type of attitude
that’s not only going to help Augusta-Richmond County, but Columbia County,
McDuffie-Thomson – I look across the table and see Mr. Culpepper and I know what
he’s done over there and what accomplishments he’s made moving from Harlem out
there. Harlem didn’t want to see him leave, but he hadn’t left Harlem. He’s out there
doing a job that’s going to help himself, as well as the other people within Harlem and
within Thomson, Georgia. So I look for us to be proactive and I look for us to have an
7
attitude saying that we can get started on the right foot and do things for the best interest
of this region. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Mr. Young: Mr. Smith?
Mr. Smith: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think [inaudible] my opinion is a big
problem. I think we need to cut to the chase and find out what the differences are with
the [inaudible] and [inaudible] where is the problem, put it on the table, let’s don’t dance
around it, let’s find out what’s going on.
Mr. Young: Mayor Pro Tem Mays has joined us. Willie, do you have any
introductory remarks you’d like to make before we begin our discussion?
Mr. Mays: Mr. Mayor, I thought I’d graciously skip this swing-around. I was
coming in and I sat down and I went to the restroom and I said well, you’ll be through
with everybody by the time I get back. It’s great to see so many folks here this morning
concerned about our community. When I say our community, it involves all of us. It
doesn’t necessarily stop at different boundaries. I think that each of the entities that are
represented here have so many things in common, and yes, there are some differences.
And I think that in those areas where we can thoroughly work together for those things
that happen in this entire community, they are good for everybody. I do thing there are
specifics that certain areas may have to concentrate on because they may have different
needs and I think that comes with a vision for those particular areas, Mr. Mayor. I think,
as I said recently when we met with the Board of Education and with the Tax Assessor’s
group, that sometimes some things are defined in a picture by who you allow yourselves
to be defined by, whether you set certain goals and define them yourself or whether you
sit back and you allow other people to define you. I’ve heard a lot just in the last few
minutes about what’s been read about in stories. Maybe as a lame duck going out of
office, I can give some of you that’s coming in one good piece of advice, is that you learn
not to read so much, and consider the sources. Because a lot happens to be perception.
Some of it’s real. I think that’s why you meet face-to-face so that you can distinguish
between the two and that you get real answers rather than just in stories. So I learned a
long time ago when – I haven’t gotten a dividend check yet, I sell a lot of papers, but I
don’t read a lot of them. So I try and define what I set as goals, those things that I would
like to see done, do the best that I can in doing them, and I think when we set those type
of goals, if they are real and if they are honest, we move ahead, and some things just
happen to come with the territory. And that includes press, that includes stories, whether
they be good or bad. But I think a lot of it in a meeting like this can best be defined with
that which is real, that which is perception, and then be able to set some goals from that
point, and then move ahead. And on those areas hopefully where we all can move jointly
with those things, that’s the best route that we can take. And in some cases, where we
have to define ourselves to do some specifics in a given community, then we should do
those and we should not be afraid to do them when we have to. I mean if certain things
happen in a community and you’ve got to promote something and you’ve got to do it,
then it’s not as though you’re abandoning anybody else to do it. If it has particular needs,
then you move. Those other things that happen where you do them on a regional basis
8
and where you can do them together, I think those things are great and for the most part I
think over the years we have been able to do a lot of that. But I think I’m more interested
in getting down into where, what those differences might be and let’s seriously, you
know, talk about them, you know. If we’re going to talk about the things that are
regional, then, you know, let us be regional but then let’s not be afraid to say that, that
when we are critical even within our own regional family – and maybe this will get us
started here. I came in for a good discussion. If we want one, then let’s have one. But I
think to a point that when we sit at the center seat in terms of maybe having the largest
populace, being the City of Augusta, that it’s very important to a point that when we
work out of a regional concept that certain perceptions don’t just fly, certain negatives
don’t just happen, and all of those things don’t just come from some folks who are in
other communities and in other counties. They come on even our own side of the fence.
So you know, maybe after this meeting, maybe there needs to be another inner-family
meeting with those who propose certain ideas and that we discus them. Because, you
know, if you, if you live somewhere and you’ve got a family problem, then sit down and
you talk about it, and I think some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. Those
things, Mr. Mayor, that happen in a community where people say we are working for one
entity, we’re working for what happens here, but that we get the folk who are doing some
of those promotions are the people who promote the far worst and who talk about the
central city, as bad as it can get. So if that gets you off and started, then I’m ready to go.
Yes, sir.
Mr. Young: Thank you, Mr. Mays.
Mr. Mays: Yes, sir.
Mr. Young: Mr. Perry, you have some opening remarks or comments you’d like
to make?
Mr. Perry: Yes, sir, I’ve prepared some remarks I’d like to –
Mr. Young: Sure.
Mr. Perry: - read them to you, if I may. I’ve thought about this for a long time,
and ironically, as I sit here, I realize that we’re not that far apart. But let me share my
remarks with you and then we’ll talk about [inaudible]. Mr. Mayor, members of the
Richmond County Commission, and other distinguished guests, as Chairman of the –
Chairman of the Board of the Development Authority of Richmond County, I have
formally polled other members of my Board and the opinions I express to you this
morning are shared by a majority of my Board. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for inviting me
to this meeting and [inaudible] that we a Trojan horse at our gates. Having participated
in several meetings with the former Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Director
of the Chamber of Commerce, I can assure you that this meeting is not about economic
development or regionalism, but simply it’s about money and power. It’s an attempt by
the Metro Chamber of Commerce to seize these things from the individual Development
authorities represented here this morning. By originating this new entity, the Chamber
9
has created a vehicle that masquerades as something many communities leaders believe
we need – regional cooperation. However, the truth inside this horse is that the Augusta
Regional Partnership would give the Metro Chamber control of all economic
development. It would deliver them the purse strings of all three counties. A review of
the proposed board for this new entity provides the names of many current and past
Chamber leaders and sympathizers. If we allow the Trojan horse through our gates, I can
assure you the will of the Chamber will be imposed upon all of us. In the past, the
Chamber was in total control when $6.3 million raised for economic development was
spent. They never quite got around to doing the task of regional marketing. In my
opinion, the money was simply wasted. Effective January 1, economic development of
Richmond County will be in the hands of our own Development Authority, just as it is in
Columbia County and Burke County. We are not renewing the long-standing annual
administrative service with the Chamber that has existed for many years, because it has
become a source of distraction and [inaudible] to our staff. Mr. Mayor, Commissioners,
citizens of our community, I assure you that the Development Authorities in our three
counties have been working through a spirit of cooperation through the last couple of
years. Among other things, we all observed the protocol established by [inaudible] and
approved by both the County Commissions. We will continue to build on a foundation of
cooperation we enjoy today without the need of outside supervision, without the Metro
Chamber pulling our purse strings. I challenge the Chamber leadership to focus on your
own mission and grant us the opportunity to do the same. There is a need for an effective
Metro Chamber in our community, just like there is a need for our counties to pursue
economic growth and prosperity together. I am committed to making our Authority
strong and successful. I am committed to forging relationships with our neighboring
counties when it is in the best interest of all participants to do so. I am fully against the
Trojan horse named Augusta Regional Partnership. In conclusion, it’s my
recommendation to the Board of Commissioners of Richmond County to take no action
or position on this matter, but leave it to its duly appointed Board of Directors to resolve.
In saying that, Ron, I’d like to say that I agree with you on almost everything that’s been
said this morning. Most of the people have said we need to work together. We’re willing
to work together. Three years ago, I didn’t even know who Bill Coleman was. He’s
become the Chairman. He’s become the Chairman of the Authority. The first thing I did
was pick up the phone and make a call to him and to our counterpart in Burke County,
Dub Harper. And since that time, we’ve had many discussion and gotten to know each
other almost [inaudible] one another. We have a good working relationship. We had a
barbecue that Mr. Thigpen so graciously agreed to pay for, where all of our counties
came together to discuss this very issue of cooperation, partnership, working together.
But what’s at issue here is who should handle the purse strings. You know, in the past
we contracted with the Chamber of Commerce to do our work. We had an administrative
service agreement wherein we used their office space and their personnel to accomplish
our goals. It just doesn’t work. So we’re doing the same thing that Columbia County
did, we are pulling out of the Chamber of Commerce to allow them to focus on their
mission and to allow us to focus on the job of economic development and bring the jobs
to our community. And I’m here to tell you that every one of our Board members is in
full agreement with cooperating regionally, in fact, we already are cooperating with the
region in many issues. There’s three projects that have come down this year that we’ve
10
been successful because we’re working as a region in getting Georgia [inaudible]. So
we’re having success stories and we’re accomplishing things together.
Mr. Cross: Mr. Perry, let me interrupt one second. Would you point out –
Mr. Young: Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we let the folks do their
introductory remarks, Ron, and then we’ll get into the substance? I want to give
everybody the chance who wants to be heard to be heard first before we go further.
Mr. Cross: I do, too, but I think this would be pertinent to what their comments
would be.
Mr. Young: I would prefer we come back to it.
Mr. Cross: Okay, sir.
Mr. Young: We will come back. Are there any other members of the
Development Authority, Senator Walker, want to say anything? Terry? Mr. Osborne?
Mr. Osborne: I’d like to say something. Again, I’m delighted to be here and I’m
just overwhelmed at the number of people, Commissioners and Development Authority
members that are here. I think it might be beneficial for me just to clarify, because it was
on my watch as Chairman of the Chamber, and maybe it actually might have started a
little bit with Ed Tarver. I can’t, time lines I’m losing a little bit on, but I know that the
bulk of it got rolling when I was Chair of the Chamber, and just to address what Mr.
Perry has said, what we were trying to do with the creation – and it really was just, it
wasn’t a creation of any new entity. We did think about changing the name because we
felt like we wanted to give us a new focus of being regional as opposed to Forward
Together, but it was basically taking the Forward Together operation and moving it out of
the Chamber. That was the, that was why we wanted to do this to begin with, so that the
economic development activity, the marketing activity, would not be done by the
Chamber but would be done by individual counties in conjunction with a regional
partnership. So our intent was to get the economic development marketing function out
of the Chamber of Commerce, and that is what the whole rationale was behind this, so
that we could give accountability so that the money that was being put into economic
development was going to be in a separate entity, that we could account for it, and we
could go to the investors and say this is what we did. So the whole rationale was not to
get it into the Chamber, but to get it out of the Chamber, and that is still the intent, and
the only issues where there were ties remaining to the Chamber were, frankly, on what I
call infrastructure issues where you had staff functions that needed to be performed, such
as bookkeeping, and it was on our part from the partnership standpoint a way to save
money. You know, why do we have to have back room clerical support when we could
outsource, like so many industries are doing these days, with another entity, the entity
that we had been doing that with happened to be the Chamber but we would have
separate bank accounts, separate books, separate income statements, balance sheets,
everything, but we were simply going to outsource, and then the issues that Mr. Perry
11
addressed in the article in the paper of the head of the Chamber of Commerce being head
of the partnership, frankly, we did not see with the individual county Development
Authority Directors operating that there was going to be a huge need for another director
that again was going to be an expense. And we acknowledged early on that down the
road, we might need to have a separate director, but for the time being and for being
careful with taxpayer money and the private investor money that we would allow the
head of the Chamber to wear both hats, as we said, temporarily. That was never
envisioned to be permanent. But that’s, that was the rationale of what was going on when
it first started because that was on my watch and I think, Mr. Thigpen, that continued and
the same thing with Charlene Sizemore. So I just wanted to kind of clarify that and get
that straight for everybody because that was why we did it, to get it out of the Chamber,
not get the Chamber controlling it.
Mr. Young: Do we have any other introductory remarks from the Development
Authority members? Yes, Charlene?
Ms. Sizemore: I think probably everybody is waiting on Loren and I to exchange
conversations. And I’m not sure from Willie’s perspective where do you set the record
straight, and I’m not sure where that part is. I did tell my guys that they could sew my
lips shut this morning and we decided Super Glue might be the best thing, so if y’all see
them shutting me up, it’s okay. A couple of things – and we can go – I’ve got all the
detail you want. We can look as far as you want to. But I have had the pleasure of
chairing the Chamber of Commerce in Augusta, Georgia, which has a Board of Directors
and an Executive Committee, and for the past ten years those reputations are above
reproach. I have no concern whatsoever with anybody on that board or on those boards.
I have been involved in economic development in this community since I first got into
the business world thirty years ago, because what this community does means does my
business grow and does your business grow? And that’s all we’re talking about, is what
do we do with this region? We were successful as a Chamber of Commerce to take a
group of 157 businessmen, do a campaign called Forward Together, recruit – there is a
final report of the first campaign. It was public knowledge. There was no hidden agenda
to it. It outlined everything that we did. It was so successful that we were able to get a
second campaign together that started in 2000, a regional approach. We had at that time
thought – the conversation was among the Chamber that economic development didn’t
need to be in the Chamber and we should look at another way to do it. Several – and I
want to clear up the Commissioners, because that concerns me a little bit. On February
27 there was a trip to Richmond, Virginia, in the realm of looking at economic
development initiatives in the Southeast and how they worked. Senator Charles Walker,
Mayor Pro Tem Richard Colclough, Commissioner Ulmer Bridges, Commissioner Bill
Kuhlke and George Kolb went from the Commission side. And there were other
community people – Peggy Golosky, Greg Halvorsen, Robert Osborne, myself, Ron
Thigpen and Jim West. We didn’t, we didn’t just do Richmond. We went to Greenville,
South Carolina. We’ve had consultants come in and look at that regional approach and
what do we do. The things that I think we don’t want to lose in this meeting, and before
it gets tied up in all the stuff, there are five things that the Richmond – and we brought
this back and I’ve circulated this to a lot of y’all. There are five things that we should be
12
concerned about as a region. Marketing and recruiting do business nationally and
internationally [inaudible] looking at new business for our community. Educating and
training our workforce, educating and training our workforce. I do that business every
day and every day people say to me I need better people. And that’s what we should do
as a county. Retaining and expanding greater Augusta’s business and industry. That is
what we do all day long as a Chamber of Commerce. Servicing the needs of small
business and planning for the future of community initiatives. This is the program that
we saw in every county and every city we went to, and these are the things that Augusta
needs to address. Our goal since the trip in 2002, and George Kolb was at almost every
meeting we had, and I’m sorry he didn’t deliver that information back or that there was
not an economic development committee on the Commission to do that – as soon as
George left town, the first phone call we made was to Fred Russell and said we’ve got a
Partnership meeting as we’re working through this process and you need to come. And
so we thought from a Partnership side that we have been communicating, and we
apologize for that if we have not. But since this 2002 trip, a group of concerned citizens,
not necessarily the Chamber of Commerce – there has been a lot of flak about the
Chamber and I have said it a dozen times – Forward Together gave the Chamber of
Commerce the money to distribute. Ed Presnell is the President of the Chamber and he
was going to be involved. It stops December 31 and Ed knows he’s not involved. He
wasn’t involved in it this year. I mean we pulled him back because there was so much
controversy. But that was it. We were not trying to direct it. That was the initiative that
we started years ago. So there has been a tremendous need in this community for
economic development and I am frankly appalled that there are people in this community
who would turn down $6.3 million from private investors and say we don’t want to be
part of you.
Mr. Elam: Mr. Mayor?
Mr. Young: Terry?
Mr. Elam: I feel very conflicted by this whole conversation because from a daily
basis I’m a regional person. I provide services for five counties, and while I live in
Richmond County and have a real interest in economic development in Richmond
County, I also have a real interest in economic development in all the other counties.
Frankly, I have fought this for years because I work projects in all of our counties, and
some even larger. The issue that I – number one, is two things. One assurance, that the
Development Authorities’ autonomy will be protected. And I think that’s taken care of
by the legal laws that really put that together, and I think that, that needs to be put out
there and that’s going to be done. That Development Authorities will run their
Development Authorities. And I think that is the first one major issue, that no one is
going to come in and tell a Development Authority what to do and how to do its business
in each county. Because it’s made up of citizens who represent that county. I think if we
can agree to that, we’ve made a major step forward. From a marketing standpoint, the
region is what you market now. Whether it’s this partnership that we have on paper
today or something that comes down or comes out of this, something like that has to
happen. And because you don’t want to waste money. My position has been defined by
13
many in the paper, and I appreciate that, [inaudible] I’ve been reportedly to have voted a
certain way. I’m for a regional partnership. I’m for Richmond County, Columbia
County, and I’m surprised the one entity that is supposed to a part of the partnership is
not even here today – Burke. Because they’re included, too. And I think the big issue is
[inaudible] communications issue. You didn’t know it until recently, many other people
didn’t know what was going on until things had happened. So to me, if we’re in a
marriage counseling, as my buddy said, there needs to be someone who gives us the
professional help to iron out the details, because we can sit here and talk about it and say
how great it is. Unless we have someone to actually put this together, and there are
people who do that, and I’m going to suggest that we be bold about this. If you want to
do something, do it right, call someone like the Carl Vinson School of Government.
They’ve got experts on how to iron out issues like this. We can sit here and talk about
what has happened, what we read in the paper, but something needs to be put together
that – and it comes from outside source – I think we all have our own opinions inside of
this room about what’s been done. Forget what’s been done. We’re trying to move
forward.
Mr. Mayor: Charles, did you want to say something? Did you have your hand
up?
Mr. Walker: Would someone address the issue of the – for some reason I was
operating under the assumption that we had a CSRA Unified Development [inaudible].
Is that [inaudible]?
Mr. Speaker: [inaudible]
Mr. Young: I think it’s run through the RDC.
Mr. Walker: I mean does that exist?
Mr. Speaker: Yes, it does.
Mr. Walker: What is it supposed to do?
Mr. Speaker: Coordinates the writing of grants for all three counties and brings
us together for joint initiatives. It’s what we really are talking about here today. I mean
most of us are ignorant of the fact that it exists, but it does and it’s functioning and it’s
helped us bring in [inaudible] money to this region.
Mr. Walker: I was under the assumption that the Richmond County Commission,
Columbia County Commission, and the Burke County Commission voted to join on a
temporary basis the Unified Development Initiative, that that body was supposed to
provide regional economic development for the entire region, and I think that’s already in
existence. I mean I don’t know, I’m asking the question.
14
Ms. Sizemore: Can I answer? I think that is the – the Development Authority
voted and I think you were probably at the meeting when we voted to join that
partnership. And that is great, but there are 157 people who have given millions of dollars
for economic development, and that’s what you don’t want to lose.
Mr. Speaker: But I think, Senator –
Mr. Walker: [inaudible]
Mr. Speaker: That’s 17 counties.
Mr. Walker: I’m not asking, I’m not dealing with [inaudible]. I want to get some
clarification. The Chamber and others came to the Richmond County Development
Authority and asked us to participate in [inaudible] Unified Development [inaudible] and
we [inaudible] discussed it for six or seven months, then the County Commission voted
to join it, and we joined it. What is the status of that body? Where, who are the people
who are running that body? [inaudible]
Mr. Young: Well, we have two County Commissioners who were appointed to it
and they have not attended any meetings since they’ve been appointed.
Mr. Walker: Well, see what I’m saying, Mr. Mayor, I understand we’ve got these
bodies out there that are supposed to be doing certain functions. Now we’re trying to
create a new one.
Mr. Cross: No, these are not competing agencies. They are limited in what they
do as far as marketing and fund raising and those functions, which we are trying to
initiate here, with this partnership.
Mr. Walker: [inaudible] we don’t have to do it this morning, but at some point,
would somebody sort of draw a clear [inaudible] of the distinction between what we are
supposed to be [inaudible]?
Mr. Cross: Andy Crossen will be glad to come to any meeting and explain the
role of that group, I think at any point in time.
Mr. Young: Ron, you wanted to ask Mr. Perry some questions?
Mr. Cross: Yes. Loren, after we talked a week or so ago, I got to thinking, I said
well, maybe I’m not reading the agreement correctly, and so I requested another copy that
was delivered. I would like, if you could, to point out in these bylaws that we were asked
to sign to be a member of this group where you feel like that the Chamber is a threat. I
don’t see that in the agreement.
15
Mr. Perry: You know, on any board, if you have a majority of votes, they control
the board. If you look at the Directors that have been proposed for this entity, they’re all
present, past, future Chamber chair people.
Mr. Cross: I don’t think that’s, I don’t think that’s correct. The membership of
the Board of Directors is to come mainly from the private sector of the stakeholders in the
Authority. Am I not correct in that?
Ms. Sizemore: Right.
Mr. Cross: The Chamber of Commerce has one position on this Board, the same
as the Columbia County Chamber, the same as the Burke County Chamber. Now this,
this entity is supposed to be ran by the private sector consisting of the main stakeholders
in the Authority. I don’t see any reference that the Metro Chamber is going to receive
any funds or to provide any services or to dictate any policy at all.
Mr. Walker: Ron, I think what the problem is [inaudible] what they’re saying is,
and Robert Osborne pointed out this morning very clearly, [inaudible] what he was
saying [inaudible] but he said it very clearly. What will happen is that the Chamber –
once this Board is formed, in order to save money, they will subcontract with the
Chamber of Commerce to run [inaudible].
Mr. Cross: No, that is only an option. That is only an option.
Mr. Walker: [inaudible]
Mr. Cross: It does not have to take place.
Mr. Perry: If that was an option, why did Ed Presnell move into the big corner
office in the space provided for this purpose and put his assistant in the next office and
put another assistant out in front of her, and then put our Executive Director three doors
down in a little, tiny office off to the side and put his assistant out as the receptionist for
this group?
Mr. Cross: Loren, I –
Mr. Perry: Actions speak louder than words.
Mr. Cross: I don’t know.
Mr. Perry: That was exactly what they intend to do, that’s what actually tipped
my hand, and then at the very last meeting I attended, when Ron called me ahead of time
and changed all the things that he’d promised to change back to the original format so
that they would have control, he said to me, Loren, just give this a try.
Mr. Speaker: That’s a false allegation.
16
Mr. Cross: Loren, I don’t know the answer to why Ed did that.
Mr. Perry: Actions speak louder than words, and the last thing that their attorney
said was okay, on my “to do” list I’ve got to form this administrative service contract
with the Chamber. And I threw up my hands and said [inaudible].
Mr. Cross: Where does it state that in this agreement?
Mr. Perry: I’d like to read the names of the people they’re proposing for this
Board of Directors. Williams Edwards, Georgia Power, very active in the Chamber in
Burke County. Terry Gunn, Doctors Hospital, also very active in the Chamber.
Mr. Speaker: He’s moved.
Mr. Perry: [inaudible] Julian Miller. Julian has been very active in the Chamber.
Charlene Sizemore. She’s President. Ron Thigpen.
Mr. Cross: Why are you holding activity in the Chamber against these people?
Mr. Perry: Because the Chamber has been controlling the funds for the last ten
years and this year, excuse me, we have budgeted from the Chamber out of this $6.3
million, $70,000 to be spent in our Development Authority and your Development
Authority. Do you know how much we got? $40,000. And we’ve been informed by Ms.
Sizemore that they spent the rest of it in-house at the Chamber and none of it’s available
for economic development. Now –
Ms. Sizemore: That is a lie.
Mr. Perry: Of over $6.3 million, we’ve received roughly a third of it in the two
counties for use for economic development. And that covered things like trips out of
town for our people, it covered postage, office supplies or office expenses, some fringe
benefits for employees. The rest of the money was spent on salaries in the Chamber, on
people who had nothing to do with economic development. Now if we’re going to
develop, if we’re going to pursue economic development in this region effectively, we’ve
got to be able to collect money for economic development and spend it for economic
development.
Mr. Cross: That’s exactly what this agreement says.
Mr. Perry: $6 million and spend $2 million on economic development.
Mr. Cross: That’s what this agreement says. What does it say, Jerry?
Mr. Dye: [inaudible]
17
Mr. Cross: Not the Chamber Board of Directors.
Mr. Young: Listen, this is a meeting of the Authority, and not the staff, Jerry, so
just hold your comments to your Authority meeting.
Mr. Cross: No, I asked him a question. I directed a question.
Mr. Perry: [inaudible]
Mr. Young: This is pretty embarrassing.
Mr. Speaker: [inaudible]
Mr. Young: Listen. Listen. This is pretty embarrassing to be conversing like
this, really. I mean we’re representatives of the people of our communities, and our best
interests ought to be the people in our community and not who’s got how much money
and who works for who. My goodness, we’re losing sight of the big picture.
Mr. Cross: Mr. Mayor –
Mr. Young: It seems to me that if the issue revolves around the Chamber today, I
don’t know why it hasn’t for the last five years when all that money has been spent and
Chamber Board members have been sitting on the Development Authority. All this time,
this has been going on, so why is it an issue today? I don’t see that. You know, you
could go down that list of proposed Board members, how many of them are in a Rotary
club? How many of them are Baptists? You know, this just doesn’t make any sense,
folks. It makes no sense at all to me. Somebody explain it to me. Maybe the marriage
counselor can. I don’t get it.
Mr. Coleman: Mr. Mayor, let me say something. When Loren called me several
months ago and we met and went to Waynesboro and had lunch with Dub Harper and we
talked, we looked at the Board as it was set up. There were originally to be 15 voting
members, and we agreed that was too many, and we deleted the Presidents or
Chairpersons of each of the three Chambers of Commerce. Went back to 12. Isn’t that
right, Loren?
Mr. Perry: That’s correct.
Mr. Coleman: Okay. We did that. Now the only three people who were named
to be on the original Board were the Chairpersons of the three Development Authorities,
Dub Harper, Loren Perry and myself. I realize that in Columbia County we want to be
away from the Chamber of Commerce. They’ve done their thing, let’s move on. Okay.
So the new Board is going to be important. So Loren and I talked and Dub, and we
agreed, I thought we agreed on some good Directors for this. One of the first names that
came up was William Edwards. Well, he may be a member of the Chamber, but he also
works for Georgia Power in their Economic Development Department. He’s from Burke
18
County. He looked like a good one to me. Terry Gunn, who is a member, who is with
Doctors Hospital - we needed that. Terry Elam, who is on your Board, Loren, was one
we talked about, because education is so important. Everybody we brought on we all
agreed on would be interested in regional approach. Now I don’t know who is a member
of the Chamber and who is not, but the reason they came on, not because they were in the
Chamber but because of what they could bring. Like William Edwards. Georgia Power
is a big contributor. I think, I think and Columbia County thinks there is nothing wrong
with the contributors having a majority say how the money is spent. Julian Miller from
the newspaper. The newspaper is a big contributor. Why don’t they deserve a
representative on this thing? So everybody who was talked about was someone who was
a contributor. Not a Chamber member, but a contributor. So I think we can work
together on who is going to control this thing. And I think that the people who give up
the money are entitled to a majority say of how it’s spent. That’s the way I feel about it.
Mr. Cross: Charlene, I never heard the figure of $6 million that was raised in this
Forward Augusta and I’ve never seen of the accounting for the money. You say, you say
that is public information.
Ms. Sizemore: There is a –
Mr. Cross: What was the total amount of money raised in that endeavor?
Ms. Sizemore: I’d have to clarify that. $6.3 million? I think it’s $6.3 million.
Over ten years. Over a ten-year period, the – in addition – unfortunately, the only piece
of economic development is not the Development Authority office. There are other
things. The – Forward Together has supported regional economic consultants coming to
town, talking about how do we build this community and what do we do with it. Forward
Together supports the Legislative Barbecue in Atlanta every year. Forward Together
supports the Legislative Luncheon. Forward Together supports marketing initiatives. All
the information that’s ever been printed on Augusta, Georgia is printed in Forward
Together dollars. I mean all the brochures and the stuff that we do, providing, supporting
the CSRA Alliance. I mean those are big dollars. So you can’t say that if I don’t get all
of the money nothing can be spent. There are things that need to go on, whether we do or
not. In March of this year, we have spent – I will say this, just for clarification – Senator
Walked had been briefed on everything we have done for the past two or three years as
this processed. He was on the trip list in 2002 to go to Richmond. He and George Kolb
have worked together. He worked with Commissioners, he knows everything we were
doing. When the Development Authority had a change of Chairmen in January and
Loren came on board, I met personally with Loren and Bill Coleman at a Chamber
building and went over, a four hour meeting, to get Loren up-to-date with where we were
in this partnership initiative. That was January. I mean that was March. The
Development Authority voted in March to join the partnership. And it has just fallen
apart since that vote. And so we’re a little frustrated. And for Loren to say the majority
of his members do not belong or do not believe, that is an untruth. I have been left out of
the Development Authority meetings for months. I’ve not gotten any conversation from
Loren. I’ve not been asked on any of those votes. And I don’t believe Robert and Terry
19
have been asked, either. So I’m not sure who the majority is. I have personally met with
Michael Sheffis and Ron Brown and they all want to be a part, too. So I’m not sure
where – I mean there seems to be a couple of people who don’t want it, and there’s a
majority of us that do.
Mr. Osborne: In fact, we voted in March, the Authority voted in favor of going to
the Regional Partnership to work out the details on the bylaws. And that was reflected in
the minutes of the meeting and then those minutes, quite frankly, have never been
approved because there were some additions, that I brought up the issue of some of the
things that were in the minutes were not what we recalled having voted on in the March
meeting.
Mr. Cross: Loren, let me ask you. What would it take – let’s get away from, let’s
get away from all this portion of the meeting – what would it take for you and your
supporters to feel comfortable that the Chamber was not going to dictate policy and
dictate spending in this organization?
Mr. Perry: For them to get out of it completely and let the three Development
Authorities do the work that needs to be done. Let us raise our own funding. Let us do
the fundraisers and let us – we could raise half as much money [inaudible] –
Mr. Cross: But you want individual fundraising, you don’t want a regional
fundraising?
Mr. Perry: No, no, I think we can come together as three [inaudible]. You know,
if you go to church on Sunday and the preacher gets up and says we need new
hymnbooks [inaudible] give money and buy new hymnbooks. You know, we’ve got it
backwards here. What the Chamber says is exactly backwards. If the preacher would get
up and say y’all give until it hurts so we can increase our balance at the bank [inaudible],
that’s [inaudible] stand around and try to figure out what you can do with it. And for the
life of me, I can’t see that it’s been properly invested. I think it was spent on salaries in
the Chamber, on people that were unnecessary. I’m saying –
Mr. Cross: Loren –
Mr. Perry: - let’s get together, let’s let the experts come together and say what we
need to do to market the region.
Mr. Cross: That’s what we have right here. That’s what I can’t understand.
Mr. Perry: You think it is, but I’ve been behind the scenes.
Mr. Cross: Loren, I can read what it says.
Mr. Speaker: [inaudible]
20
Mr. Perry: [inaudible] a little example I’d like to give you.
Mr. Grantham: It just seems like all we’re doing is living in the past right here.
Mr. Cross: You’re exactly right.
Mr. Grantham: And for me to sit here and listen to all this is ridiculous, because
what we’re doing is trying to develop a power position. And I don’t know which side is
going to win out, as far as power goes. What bothers me is we’ve got Development
Authorities that come in and allow tax exemptions without even notification to the
Commission, and we’re caught on the short road with a budget and have to answer to the
public and taxpayers without having any knowledge of it. Now is that right? I mean we
could get into a lot of arguments about what’s right or wrong, but now –
Mr. Speaker: [inaudible]
Mr. Grantham: Exactly right. We need to start from today forward, and I think
Mr. Cross just made a good analogy. Take this thing and find out what it’s going to take,
massage it, get it right, come back together, and develop this regional group that we’re
talking about. And if not, I don’t want to be a part of it, I’m telling you. That’s my
feeling right now.
Mr. Cross: Barbara, you had something else?
Ms. Sims: I just, I was interested in who the people are, the majority of the
people on this Board that are for it and all the people that are against it, and I just think
we don’t know what created the problem here. I’d like to know what your, what your
document says and what the problems are with the document.
Mr. Cross: We agree with Loren that we don’t want the Metro Chamber involved
in this and taking part from a management standpoint, collecting money, distributing
funds. We agree totally with that. We just don’t feel the threat that they feel that this
will happen under this agreement.
Ms. Sims: Well, may I ask a question? Are you telling me that you have a
problem if I am a member of the Chamber I could not serve on your committee? I mean
I’m just a person here. Are you saying that anybody that is a member of the Chamber of
Commerce should be exempt from being on that committee? I’m –
Mr. Perry: Well, I’m saying this, that for the last ten years, as long as I’ve been
on this Board [inaudible], the Chamber has run everything. We have stood silently by
and had a contract with them to carry on our business, and they dropped the ball. Three
years ago, there was a conflict in leadership of staff of the Chamber. Jim West left
Augusta and in losing Jim West, we lost our man. For two years nothing was done.
We’ve got a new man on board now and he’s coming up to speed. We’re working in
cooperation with our neighboring counties, we’re looking forward to ways we can work
21
together. And now the Chamber has forced this issue upon us to try and put another
Board in place to confuse the work that we’re trying to do.
Ms. Sims: Wait a minute. Isn’t the Board the same Board that we’re trying to get
together, with Columbia and Burke County on? Aren’t those the – aren’t we the three
entities here?
Mr. Cross: You’re right.
Ms. Sims: Is that correct?
Mr. Cross: You’re right. But the thing that Loren doesn’t point out is that what
happened previously was done under a different organizational structure. This is a totally
different structure for us to achieve the Regional Partnership for marketing, for
fundraising, for promotion of the region. This does not involve the Metro Chamber.
Mr. Perry: You’re wrong. If you –
Mr. Cross: Well, I don’t know what else to say. All you have to do is read it.
Mr. Perry: Unfortunately, in a community this size, the cream rises to the top.
The leaders of the Chamber are also leaders within the community. But what’s at issue
here is how are we going to spend the money that’s raised for economic development.
Are we going to let the Development Authorities have a large say in how we spend the
money? We’ve had no say.
Mr. Cross: Y’all have the total say. The Regional Authority will have the total
say.
Mr. Perry: The Board of Directors of this organization, these people, will have
the total say as to how the money is going to be spent, and these are the very same people
that have been saying how the Chamber should operate. Now they’re good people,
they’re busy people, they’re business leaders that have jobs, people who are overseeing
their own organizations, they come to a meeting like this, they spend a couple of hours
and then go back about their own personal business, and the work of the Chamber is left
up to the daily support, the staff, if you will.
Mr. Cross: But, Loren –
Mr. Perry: Those are the people that are mismanaging the funds.
Mr. Cross: Those people will be acting in a capacity as a member of the Regional
Development Authority and not as a member of the Metro Chamber. See, they’ve got
different rules. Commissioner Mercer wanted to speak a minute ago.
22
Mr. Mercer: I’ve been wanting to say something for about 30 minutes. Mr.
Perry, that’s a pretty strong accusation of mismanagement of funds. And these funds has
to be documented somewhere, and Open Records – I don’t understand why you didn’t go
get them and look at how the money was spent. You said you didn’t, never had seen
those documents. But see how that money was spent and then make your own conclusion
about whether there was mismanagement.
Mr. Perry: [inaudible] but if you look at the number of people employed at the
Chamber [inaudible] the funds were coming in, and they have [inaudible] businessman
[inaudible] and it comes to something like $700,000 a year, add fringes, five years
[inaudible]. I can’t account for about [inaudible] and the rest of it I can see, what it was
spent on [inaudible] wages at the Chamber. But the point is, you know, this last month,
our Executive Director was asked to come to New York to work on the Pfizer deal.
Pfizer has a [inaudible] try and help Pfizer sell that plant to somebody else who will
operate it and keep those jobs here in Augusta. So our Director was asked to come to
New York City, bring a couple of [inaudible] with him. He was told that we don’t have
the money to pay for the ticket. Why? Because the money that the Chamber was in
charge of was already [inaudible] something else. That’s the kind of problems we’ve
been living with on a day-to-day basis. It’s gotten ridiculous. Our man is working on a
$28 million deal and he goes [inaudible] and says I need a new keyboard for my
computer, she said we don’t have [inaudible] to replace it for you, you’ll have to go
without. You know, right now, they’re not paying their bills. We have a credit card our
man carries [inaudible] visit our community. It’s maxed out. There is a $25,000 limit.
They’ve been paying the minimum for some time now and when he goes out to take
people out to dinner, he’s embarrassed because he has to [inaudible] money out of his
own pocket or use his own credit card. This shouldn’t be. This is what has been going
on behind the scenes that you’re not aware of, that I wish I didn’t have to speak about in a
public session. I wouldn’t be saying these things if Charlene and Robert, two members
on our Board that are for this proposal, had not pushed it to this point.
Mr. Cross: That’s the reason for the change.
Mr. Mercer: My second –
Ms. Sizemore: [inaudible]
Mr. Mercer: Mr. Cross, let me –
Mr. Cross: Yes, sir.
Mr. Mercer: My second part of this, Mr. Perry. Mr. Perry, if I can get your
attention away from your attorney there, please, sir.
Mr. Perry: Yes, sir.
23
Mr. Mercer: The second thing is, I heard you say that you wasn’t against the
Regional Development Authority with Burke, Richmond and Columbia County. The
problem you have is with the Chamber.
Mr. Perry: The problem I have is who is going to pull the purse strings.
Mr. Mercer: Okay. Is it, is it possible that we could enter into a Regional
Development Authority and have it govern some kind of other way or oversaw some
other kind of way?
Mr. Perry: Yes.
Mr. Mercer: Now would you be willing to have a documentation such as this,
whatever changes we could change on this, to make it acceptable to you, to make that
happen? Because I think we need a document. And we could say we’ve got a regional
department and not have any documentation. But I’m not in agreement with that. I think
we need some type of documentation so we all get a fair shake. And I’ve been here four
years and I feel like that Columbia County hasn’t always gotten a fair shake from the
Regional Development Authority. And that’s why I’m here. I want to make sure that we
have some type of an agreement where we are going to get a fair shake. I think Columbia
County has got a lot to offer. I think Richmond County and Burke County has a lot to
offer. But I think that we all need to be equal partners in whatever the Development
Authority or whatever agreement we come up. We’ve got to be equal. We’ve got to also
support each other. When somebody comes to Columbia County, then I think Burke and
Richmond ought to support that initiative, because we win. And the same way with
Richmond County. Somebody leans toward Richmond County, we ought to get behind
them and give them the support because all of us win when that happens. But we have to
have documentation to seal that partnership.
Mr. Cross: Have to have an agreement.
Mr. Perry: Well, I say what we should do is we should scrap this and let the three
Development Authorities take their Executive Directors, the people that are charged with
the responsibility of doing this work every day, where the rubber meets the pavement, so
to speak. Let them get together and come up with a new plan that allows us to do the job
of collecting private funds from our communities, sharing them equitably for the real
purpose of economic development. It should not be a meal ticket for the person that
holds, for the entity that holds the purse strings, namely the Metro Chamber. Now you in
Columbia County pulled out of the Chamber [inaudible] pulled out and I think for the
very same reasons that I’m stating today.
Mr. Cross: No, that’s not correct.
Mr. Perry: Well –
24
Mr. Cross: No. We have, we have a good partnership with the Metro Chamber.
We do some joint activities, but we felt like we had reached the point that we needed an
agency in Columbia County to serve Columbia County businesses and that it was time for
us to start that initiative. We don’t, we didn’t have a disagreement with the Metro
Chamber. We didn’t have ill feelings. Ed attends our meetings. We attend the Metro
Chamber meetings. We have got a partnership. And it works. They’ve encouraged us,
they’ve loaned us money, we’ve paid it back. That has worked. And we don’t see any
reason why this won’t work. Mayor Pro Tem Mays has been wanting to speak for a
second.
Mr. Mays: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the things that I’m glad of,
and particularly amongst the elected officials from different places, we, we have probably
a lot of dialogue that maybe the general public doesn’t even know about, and particularly
where we respect our different constituencies and I think that’s a good thing that we do
have. Maybe to try and bring part of this to a close, because obviously part of the dispute
that’s outside, per se, of the two elected bodies is not going to necessarily end around this
square or circle today and I think we can probably all agree on that. But I think in every
community, you’ve got to have successful entities outside of those, those frames of
government, be it your Chamber, your Development Authorities, and then even other
partnerships that exist, and all of them have to work and they’ve got to be good lines of
communication. The Mayor mentioned a minute ago in reference to the group that we’re
a member of, and I was checking with the Clerk, Mr. Mayor, cause one of the things –
and I think all of us on our body, you know, we probably need another meeting, you
know, like we do another bill, but from the standpoint that, you know, when they meet
I’d be honest to say I really don’t even know, Mr. Mayor. You know, we get notices
from everybody. If they are meeting and maybe some other Commissioner knows or you
may know, but I don’t really know. And I checked with the Clerk to see if any
communication was coming through there. If it’s happening, and it may be happening,
but it’s not being sent to us per se. And I just wanted to clear that up because when you
mentioned that about there being that group and that Commissioners hadn’t attended,
then I think it shouldn’t be said that per se in public that, you know, wasn’t necessarily
attending, but you know, you attend some things, you know they’re happening, and when
and where they are taking place. And that’s a good start, to know where they are. I think
from the standpoint of the City of Augusta, and I make no bones about it and I’m glad to
have followed the Chairman’s statements, because when, when I looked at what they did
in Columbia County it was not a situation that, that bothered me at all. Because when
you’ve got that type of population that’s increased over a short period of time, the
dynamics have changed. There are some specifics I think that Columbia County had to
deal with and needed to deal with. That’s why I think when I said, when I opened with
what I said about getting into those things that we agree on, those things that we don’t,
that there are specifics that every area has, and we should not be critical. Unfortunately,
sometimes we are the recipients on this end that when we move to do some things maybe
independently, it’s as though we are the renegades in the bunch and then everybody else
is progressive. And I say that and I make no apologies for saying that. One of the things
that I thought about in the City of Augusta, while we have to work and to flow through
all of the various entities – and I’m still one, I guess because of the number of years of
25
seniority, that I want to see us continue to work with the various groups that are there.
There may be somebody else in this room that will go back to an 83-year-old business
this morning, but I don’t think so. I will when I leave here. And am proud of the fact of
being in business, our family, for that long and five generations that have worked for
themselves. And a family that dates back to the signing of the Declaration of
Independence and of the people that came out of this City. So I’m proud of what this
community has been able to do, and I’m also proud of the fact in honor of what has been
given within my own ranks to do that. So I care about what happens on a business
perspective. I do business in Columbia County. I do business in South Carolina. So I’m
concerned from that standpoint other than government. But I think one of the things that
has happened, and I’ve said this and I say this to support the Mayor. I hope before I
leave that we’ll have the room in our budget to deal solidly with – and I say this with no
negatives intended to any groups that work with the City – but a Mayor’s Office of
Economic Development, to a point that I think it has to have a central focus, I think it has
to be one that that when people are talking about coming to the largest populace that’s
here, that they work and flow through all of these other entities, but there should be some
independence there and there should be some solid funding. One of the things I think
that has hurt us from the standpoint politically [inaudible] happened, when there has been
say a start-up to do some things independently on an economic development basis, it’s
been where we would look at it from a budget standpoint to move monies from existing
agencies that might still need that support. And I think that’s where the rift has been. My
feeling is that we can still do both. I think we need to be involved and where we can
support our Chamber. I don’t think you can have a city per se of 200,000+ people and
folks that will work in your Chamber [inaudible] good, bad or indifferent, it has to exist.
And I think you’ve got to be supportive and you deal with fine tuning whatever that
structure is. But I think in a city also this large and as diverse as it is, that it has to do
some things for itself that it’s not doing. And I don’t think that when we look at the
funding sources that they should be combative and competitive per se. And that’s a little
different maybe from the argument of the entities that are dealing with the other
approaches that are here. I can only speak from an elected side of it and what I’d like to
see us do, Mr. Chairman, on the City side of it. So I understand where you all are in
dealing with that. My thing is I’ve only [inaudible] argument when y’all did and I said
they have their needs, let them address their needs. But also do not be critical. If we
propose certain things on Augusta’s side of the fence that are not abandoning any
regional approaches, that are not going against what the Chamber does, but I want it to be
and I got a hard-working, traveling Mayor, I’ve got a Mayor that does a lot of things in
some cases that he doesn’t get credit for, I want it to be in that office to a point that
whatever happens in this community, that regardless of whoever bases are touched, that
the Mayor of this City knows about it, and that there are point people on board and there
is an office to deal with it and to deal with it effectively. And I think that’s Augusta’s
perspective. I think that’s ours, negative of where we have not done that, and again I say
it, you’ve got a story to tell. If you don’t tell it, if you don’t formulate it, if you don’t put
your vision together, if you don’t sell it to other people, somebody else will do it for you.
And you cannot tell how that’s going to come out. So I think we still need to be
supportive of all the entities that work, because everybody is concerned about what
happens in this community. But I also think that we should not view it as to a point that
26
if we do something on an individual basis that it’s something that should be struck down
in its infancy and it looks as though, well, what is Augusta doing, they do not want to be
involved with anybody else or even though entities that are there or that are in the
business community, I think the City has long wasted enough time in a consolidated
government and it has not moved positively with a vision and have the impact to a point
that we can still work on those parallel entities, but there are just some things that the
City needs to, quite frankly, do for itself. And I hope, Mr. Mayor – and it will be my last
budget that I’ll get a chance to vote on and then I’ll go back to that 83-year-old business
and make me some money and I’ll come visit y’all every now and then when I’ve got
some time. But that’s one of the things I want to see get done prior to my leaving there.
And I hope it does. But I hope this other interest that is going one here this morning that,
that the minds can meet some more on it, that they can deal with some things that can
work, and that we can all make this community a better place. But I don’t think you are
going to solve that particular one in here, not in this building and at this table this
morning.
Mr. Cross: Thank you, Mr. Mays. Mr. Hankerson wanted to speak, and
Commissioner Brown wants to, and then we’ll try to wrap this thing up. Bobby, you had
something to say?
Mr. Hankerson: [inaudible] comments. I’ve got a couple of questions to ask
about the Regional Partnership that we are talking about creating. Because I don’t have
information. I’m just hearing. How would the Board, who are the members of the Board
and how are they or how will they be selected?
Mr. Cross: You want to address that, Bill, or you me to just give him a copy of
this document?
Mr. Coleman: The last version, we had 15 Directors who would vote and three
Directors who could not vote. The Administrator of each entity – Steve Szablewski from
Columbia County, Fred from Richmond – would be on there to represent the interests of
the taxpayers. Okay. Then the Chairpersons of each of the three Development
Authorities are on there. The other 12 members would be selected from the contributors.
The initial board we talked about, we were going through and trying to pick out people
who were knowledgeable of economic development, and at the same time were part of an
entity that contributed the money to run the thing. And we never got to the full 12, did
we, Loren? We had about seven or eight.
Mr. Perry: We were in that process.
Mr. Coleman: Mr. Hankerson, I think – Columbia County thinks if the people are
willing to give $5 million or $10 million, those who do that I think are entitled to have a
vote on how the money’s spent, and I think that their interests are going to transcend
whatever county they live in or wherever their business is, because they want to do the
right thing for the community.
27
Mr. Hankerson: So are you saying the Board is selected by the ones that pay the
most money or have the money to invest in it; that’s how it is [inaudible]?
Mr. Coleman: That’s part of it, yeah. I think if you’re asking people to give
$25,000 or $30,000 a year towards it, they have a right to say how the money is going to
be spent for economic development.
Ms. Sizemore: Can I make a –
Mr. Hankerson: Are the – how is the representation? I hear names and I’m trying
to get representation. I heard one from Richmond County, one from Columbia County,
and then I heard names. But how are the representation on this board to represent a city
with 209,000 citizens in it versus cities with 22,000 and 15,000? How are the
representation, the diversity of this board? I want to hear –
Ms. Sizemore: Can I answer –
Mr. Hankerson: - in making a decision, how many, how many from Richmond
County, how many from Burke County, how many from the counties involved, and also
the diversity on the board?
Ms. Sizemore: Let me go back and address the original question from Bill. I
think I might be the only one in the room who went to Richmond, Virginia, when we
looked at that. Okay. No, Charles didn’t go. When we went to Richmond, Virginia, and
Greenville-Spartanburg and had the Fantas Group and Otis White Civic Strategies come
to Augusta to look at a Regional Partnership and how it should be formed, one of the
things that they said to us was the government has to participate, the Authorities have to
do what they do and make those bond deals, but you want your private sector involved in
a regional economic development team, and all of those cities had a Board of Directors,
and then they also had a list of people who were partners, and so those were other people,
and they also went to the community and said we need the technical college, because
they’re going to educate our workforce. We need the power companies, we need the
hospitals, because those are your economic engines that drive your community. And so
that board was picked literally by looking at the investors. There are only a few slots
held by the investors. The other picks were trying to include a Development Authority
member from every county on this Board of Directors, trying to include a Chamber of
Commerce person from every county on this Board, because whether you like the
Chamber or not, we have a mission to do and that is membership services, and we have to
keep that. We have never claimed to do economic development, and you can ask Walter
Sprouse. The first thing I said to that man when he was hired was if anybody in that
office asks you to push the copy machine button, tell them you can’t do it. Did I say that
to you? I did. So –
Mr. Hankerson: Just a minute. Let me get back to my point, because I only have
a few minutes and I just wanted an answer because I’m going to have make a final
decision on all that I’m hearing. I need these questions answered. Can I get back to the
28
question of identify the representation. Can anybody identify the Board representation?
We’ve got five from Richmond County, we’ve got two from Columbia County, we’ve
got – you know, we’ve give five, we’ve got four Blacks, we’ve got – whatever. Give me
diversity –
(Tape 1 ends)
(Tape 2 begins)
Mr. Hankerson: - give me the numbers of representation. I just want to know
who is going to represent me if I decide to change or whatever.
Mr. Brown: This is why I want us to talk today. I wanted to – my conversations
with my fellow Commissioners, people in Richmond County, and our Development
Authority, to create a vehicle that was unbiased. Period. And to appoint these people on
the Partnership that didn’t represent their personal interests. Those people would come
from the Hospital Authority, someone who is employed by a large corporation that
doesn’t get their other income from other sources, that their mission on this partnership
was to promote this community. That’s the bottom line and that’s how the partnership
should be formed. I’m not counting names, numbers, representation. I want a
partnership that represents the region period. Now the funding that comes in will have to
be divided among the partnership. Whether it comes from McDuffie County, Columbia,
Richmond, that’s immaterial. It has to be funded towards one vehicle.
Mr. Hankerson: But in order –
Mr. Brown: And if we don’t get past that goal, that understanding, we will not
move forward.
Mr. Hankerson: But in order to get this marriage to work, that’s going to have to
be considered.
Mr. Brown: Yes.
Mr. Hankerson: You can’t have an unbalance and say that you’re unbiased. That
has to be considered. It’s not just, well, the ones that come financially, which is highly
respected, just coming and giving money. I mean I respect the business people and the
wealth that they have the money to invest and they need to have a voice for the money
they invest, but in living in a community as we live in, we have to be sure that we have,
that we consider the representation that we are receiving [inaudible] Board or Authority
in place, and I [inaudible] have problem with the Authorities in place now that we don’t
have no say-so, that we don’t know anything and they just doing what they are doing. So
I don’t want to create another animal. So in my closing as the marriage counselor, I think
that my recommendation is that we some more space to think about our differences,
space or time, we need some time to share the information with the ones that will have to
make the final decision. Thank you.
29
Mr. Cross: Ron, did you have something you wanted to add in closing?
Mr. Thigpen: I did. I wanted to make a couple of comments and see if maybe we
could go back to this marriage counselor perspective in terms of what we’re really all
about here. We’ve spent a good bit of time this morning talking about the past, and I will
have to tell you that there have been some blatant misrepresentations and misstatements
by Mr. Perry with regard to some of the Chamber activities. But that’s, that’s history.
And to put a little historical perspective on this whole initiative, the recognition was there
that the model that existed was not working. And the intention was to try and form a new
model. And take off my Development Authority hat, take off my Chamber hat, or my
Columbia County hat, and put my business person hat on, and business people came
together and said this Forward Together is not as accountable as we would like it to the
community or to the Development Authorities, and let’s see what we can do to build a
vision for marketing. Now, you’ve got to understand marketing versus deal-making, and
doing the details. But what can we do to craft a vision for this region, for the future as it
relates to economic development? So we put this group together and some went to
Greenville-Spartanburg, some went to Richmond, Virginia, and they looked at those
models and they said how is it working here, how is it working there, what can we
possibly learn from you to build on with regards to that model? It doesn’t matter about
the individual people in some respect of the names that were opposed to or the Chamber
affiliation, but it’s trying to build that larger picture. And so the model that was put
together for here drew from both of those communities, because they have successful
regional economic development initiatives. And the business community, though, I think
we need to recognize, the business community is the entity that has funded this enterprise
in our community for the last ten years. And I think you go back and you look at a
number of the things that Charlene mentioned earlier, the involvement in Red Carpet, the
Augusta Showcase, all those other things have been very successful and have helped put
Augusta on the map in a more profound and visible manner when we try and compete
against Greenville or Birmingham or whatever, and they recognize Augusta. So the
intent was to build a better model. Obviously there is some distrust, for whatever reason,
with regards to the Chamber affiliation, in the context of the accusations that have been
made. The issue with regards to the Richmond County Development Authority – and
Charles mentioned this earlier, Senator Walker – the Unified Development Authority has
been in existence for many, many years. And that program was put in place years ago
under the Governor to afford the opportunity for respective counties to get job tax credits,
and tax credits so that they [inaudible] jobs. As a matter of public record, the Richmond
County Development Authority resisted joining that so that they could get a higher
stipend in Richmond County for many, many, many, many years. And they wouldn’t
cooperate at that level. And so we’ve got that illustration of that history. And with all
due respect to Mr. Dye, you know, when we first started crafting this document – and it’s
not a perfect document, it’s a work in progress but it’s trying to represent a vision for the
community – his first objection that was voiced to us is we need to structure this in a
manner so that it doesn’t compete with the Development Authority. Well, the reason
they didn’t join the Unified Development Authority was the same reason, worried about
issuing bond authorities and the fees that go to him relative to that enterprise. And so
consequently that was the first objection. So if you look at the document, the document
30
is very specific. It says it does not do anything in that regard to compete with a
Development Authority. It’s a marketing organization. The intent is there is somebody
out here in the business community who has a vision for our future, who wants to
represent Burke and Richmond and Columbia and maybe even other counties in the
future, so that we can compete effectively out there and do things properly and bring
those funds in here, bring those prospects in here. The marketing organization only
functions at this level up here, to get our name out, to get prospects coming to the door.
Once those prospects come to the door and they want to go to Richmond or Columbia or
Burke Counties, then the Development Authorities have the responsibility for putting
together the packages and doing the deals and the bond issues or the incentives or
whatever the case may be, to close. And everybody collectively supports that process.
And that’s what that essentially is all about. You know, and we need to move past
accusations and mistrust, and you know, if you look at the Board that Loren mentioned
earlier and what Charlene alluded to, the intention there was – and I’ll correct some of the
numbers – there’s actually 12 Board members. Eight came from the major investors.
One – and this was at Senator Walker’s suggestion when we were originally crafting the
document – there needed to be a representative of small business, so there is one Board
member from small business. There are three Board members that are the Chairmen of
the respective Development Authorities. Then there are ex officio Board members that
represent the two Chambers and represent the County Administrators of the three
counties again so that, Mayor Young, they are tied in and that information is
communicated back to the respective Commissions. And that is the marketing
organization that exists up here. The only mission of this partnership is to spread the
word about our region, to market our region, to get prospects at our door, and that is for
the good of all of us. We’ve heard numerous accounts this morning of “if it’s good for
Columbia County, it’s good for Richmond and Burke” and all that. We acknowledge
that. And that’s the intent. And if you look at that initial Board, the diversity that was
represented there, while it wasn’t perfect, the intent was to bring some representatives
from the medical community representatives from another medical authority that’s doing
the same kind of regional thing, Mr. Elam in terms of regional education, Georgia Power
– again, from a regional perspective. Georgia Power has a very significant effort in
Atlanta where they do regional economic development and a number of companies that
want to come to any region or any part of Georgia first come in to Georgia Power, so
they are a source of referrals to all of us. So that’s the perspective that we’re trying to
bring to this whole thing. It’s not about individual names, it’s not about the Chamber and
the past. The Chamber acknowledges by virtue of the genesis of this initiative that what
was there was not working properly, and it’s an attempt to bring everybody together and
to establish a level of trust and understanding so that something out here bigger than us
individually can go market this region and make us successful against the Birminghams
and the Greenville-Spartanburgs and the Richmond, Virginias, and whatever and then
individually underneath that, in cooperation with that, the Development Authorities take
the fine, professional staff that we have in place and let them do their magic in terms of
closing those deals and structuring those transactions. And we all win in that
environment. And this document essentially, if you can get past the names and the
mistrust and the allegations that have been made, that’s what this document represents.
31
Mr. Walker: Mr. Mayor, let me, let me not respond, but let me articulate a
position that I think has been spread around this table this morning. First of all, I don’t
think anyone [inaudible], I don’t think anyone has a monopoly on vision, on ideas, on
concepts. The concept that is being articulated by Loren Perry, by the Richmond County
Development Authority, Mr. Thigpen [inaudible], I think we all share that vision.
Everybody wants the best for our region. The issue then becomes how do we achieve
that and at the same time allow each individual Authority autonomy in order to operate
and work on behalf of the entity in which they were appointed. And that’s the
[inaudible]. Now to simply reduce this whole conversation down to whether Jerry Dye is
going to get a commission on a bond issue is unfair to Jerry, who is our legal counsel, and
is unfair to our Development Authority. It is not about Jerry Dye. It is not about Loren
Perry. It is about Richmond County. Richmond County needs, just as Columbia and
Burke, we need economic development. A regional approach to the – a regional
approach to advertising and promotion is a good approach. I think everybody agree with
that. But it’s not, should not be done and it cannot be done unless we have the collective
appreciation and intellectual honesty between [inaudible] Development Authorities.
People have to believe in the concept. And Richmond County Development Authority –
over the years I’ve participated in these discussions, I have become comfortable with
talking to some of the people who are leading this initiative. But at the same time, our
mission, our primary mission as the Richmond County Development Authority, is to try
to bring developmental activities to Richmond County. Period. Now in order to do that,
we [inaudible] regional, a regional as well as a statewide approach to it, and we are happy
to receive any help that we can get. But that entity must be an entity that is fair and
balanced and representative of the population and economic resources of a given
community.
Mr. Cross: We need to, we need to kind of close this up, Senator, excuse me.
People have a great deal of –
Mr. Anderson: Mr. Chairman, I’d like to say if we’re going to move forward,
let’s move forward and quit talking. And if we’re going to set up a meeting to meet
again, let’s set a meeting.
Mr. Cross: I’m going to address that.
Mr. Anderson: And let’s go.
Mr. Cross: Mr. Mayor, we need to, we need to wrap this up, with your
permission.
Mr. Young: Go ahead.
Mr. Cross: I will take the responsibility of organizing the next meeting with the
three Development Authorities. We’ll make sure that Burke County is represented. And
I would like to include the Administrators of the three counties, from the governmental
32
perspective, have those people meet, see if they can take this agreement and agree on one
that would be satisfactory to everybody. Loren, are you okay with that?
Mr. Perry: I’m for cooperation, not capitulation. It’s capitulation that I’m
struggling with here.
Mr. Cross: What capitulation are you referring to?
Mr. Perry: Well, if you put a carrot on a stick and hold it out there, you get things
done. And that’s [inaudible] in this document [inaudible].
Mr. Cross: I’m not talking about this document and I’m not talking about things
that you perceive to be in that agreement that none of the rest of us see. You said that if
the Development Authorities could get together and discuss, we could make this happen.
Mr. Perry: Yes, I did.
Mr. Cross: And that’s what I’m trying to initiate.
Mr. Perry: And again, that’s Mr. Coleman, Mr. Dub Harper. I talked to Dub
Harper shortly before this meeting and I asked him if he was coming. He said no, we’re
neighbors, we’re going to sit on the sidelines and let you hash this out and when you
come to the conclusion we’ll be there with you. So Dub is with us, with the
Development Authorities.
Mr. Cross: I realize that.
Mr. Perry: Bill is with us. I can work with Bill, I can work with Dub, we’re
already working together. Give us a chance to do the job.
Mr. Walker: Mr. Cross, I would suggest that you – [inaudible] what we might
need to do is let the Chairman of the Richmond County Development Authority, the
Chairman of the Columbia County Development Authority get together on their own
accord and let them work. I don’t think we need you at this point to facilitate that.
Mr. Cross: Well, would you like, would you like to call the meeting? I mean all I
was going to do was set it up.
Mr. Perry: Let us call the meeting. For once in our lifetime, you know, we are
now mature organizations. We’ve got great people [inaudible]. I just want to make sure
that when you give a dollar for economic development, you get a dollar’s worth of
economic development. And I think my counterparts in both counties will say the same
thing. That’s all we’re after here. We’re after the same goal.
Mr. Cross: Loren, contrary to the way that you operate, apparently independent
of the Richmond County Commission, our Development Authority tries to operate as a
33
single entity representing Columbia County. So you can meet with Zack and y’all can
hash everything out, but it will still come back through the Development Authority itself
and through the Commission because that’s the way we operate.
Mr. Perry: Well, we have an open meeting and the public is welcome to join at
any of our meetings and the paper is always there and any of your County
Commissioners are welcome to come and, you know, hear what goes on.
Mr. Cross: All right, give us a timetable as to when you would like to do this.
Mr. Perry: We have –
Mr. Walker: We meet tomorrow at 10:00. And when we meet, we can
communicate that to Mayor Young. I don’t think we need to be [inaudible] to the
Columbia County Commission at this time.
Mr. Mercer: I don’t think we need to have you involved in it, either.
Mr. Perry: Senator Walker is a former Chairman of this Board. He’s had a great
deal of experience in dealing with the matters before us today. And I think he brings a lot
of the needed leadership.
Mr. Cross: Well, in closing, Columbia County is going to promote the region.
Either way, we’re going to promote it. And we hope that all others will take part in that,
and again, thank all of you for being here today and we’ll continue this at another time.
[MEETING ADJOURNED]
Lena J. Bonner
Clerk of Commission
CERTIFICATION:
I, Lena J. Bonner, Clerk of Commission, hereby certify that the above is a true and
correct copy of the minutes of the Joint Meeting of Augusta Richmond County
Commission, Columbia County Board of Commission, Richmond County Development
Authority and Columbia County Development Authority held on December 15, 2004.
________________________
Clerk of Commission
34