HomeMy WebLinkAboutJoint Meeting September 18, 2012
JOINT MEETING COMMISSION CHAMBER
September 18, 2012
The Joint Meeting of Augusta Richmond County Commission and the cities of
Hephzibah and Blythe convened at 4:00 p.m., Tuesday, September 18, 2012, the Honorable
Deke Copenhaver, Mayor, presiding.
PRESENT: Hons. Lockett, Guilfoyle, Mason, Smith, Hatney, Johnson, Jackson, Bowles
and Brigham, members of Augusta Richmond County Commission; Chairman Robert Buchwitz,
City of Hephzibah, Georgia and Mayor Patricia Cole, City of Blythe, Georgia.
ABSENT: Hon. Aitken, member of Augusta Richmond County Commission.
Mr. Mayor: I’d like to welcome Chairman Buchwitz and Mayor Cole to the meeting.
Thank ya’ll for making it here and with that I will open the meeting and turn it over to Mr.
Russell.
Mr. Russell: Mr. and Mrs. Mayors and Chairman of the Commission, thank you for the
opportunity to speak to you today a little bit. As you know, the state legislatures passed
legislation in the last session that involves the sales tax on energy; House Bill 386 exempts sales
tax on energy that is used in manufacturing. We’ve got some issues to deal with with that and
some discussion to begin at this particular point in time. Part of the discussion is the fact that we
really don’t know exactly what the impact will be on us at the moment. We are required to invite
our cities with us today. We sent them a letter at the first of the month and this is the follow up
meeting to that invitation. At some point whatever we do we need their input and direction on
assisting us to go forth with a plan here. This is just the introductory conversation. I expect no
action to be taken today at all, but we did need to begin this conversation so that we can continue
to move forward. We’re sort of burning the candle at both ends in a lot of different areas and
this is one that particularly hits us pretty hard. As the state has looked for ways to increase our
playing field by reducing taxes for industry, which I applaud as a good thing, they’ve also added
additional costs to us as we continue to move forward. So as we continue to burn the candle at
both ends, we all know exactly what that means. The candle’s life is lessened greatly. The
theory behind this is most other states, and I think Georgia was only one of a very small number,
that actually charge for sales tax on energy for manufacturing. To level that playing field and to
make us more attractive to industry, the state in its wisdom decided that they would eliminate
that. In addition to that because they knew the impact that it would have on cities and counties,
they gave us the opportunity to add an additional levy or levy an additional tax that would make
up for that lost income. The bottom line of that is that poor industry ends up in the same
situation that it’s been in in the past and they haven’t really gained anything other than the fact
that instead of paying sales tax they would pay the franchise fee that we would introduce. That
makes little sense to me on a practical standpoint. In addition to that, there’s expense that we’d
have to add for actually levying that tax and we’ve sort of defeated the purpose of providing a
level playing field if we increase our tax to cover that additional loss of revenue. The issues that
face us is what do we do to fill the hole for that loss of the revenue. An even bigger issue is how
do we plan to budget what we do to cover that because as you know, and you’ve heard me
complain about on more than one occasion, the state does not have a point of sales issue as far as
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sales tax goes. We get a nice check every month from the state and we greatly appreciate that
but there’s no rhyme or reason for that particular collection. We can’t trace it back to the store
on the corner that sold $10,000 worth of stuff and we get a percentage of that. The only thing we
can do is take the state at its word that this is what we get. For those of you that question my
remove I would also question the state in that particular area because I just sort of wonder how
that works sometimes. I remember once last year or the year before we ran a comparison, a nine
county comparison every month to keep a track on that and lo and behold, each of the counties
had lost the same percentage of income tax or sales tax which I thought was just, if I had been a
betting man, we’d have been buying lottery tickets at that point in time because the state had a
little bit less collection than normal and everybody lost the same percentage. I just thought that
was amazing the way that worked out. I say that to say that I’ve got some concern about how
this is going to be administered. I’ve got even a greater concern about how do we tally the loss
that we have and how do we continue to make sure that the slippage is sales tax money on
energy or just something else that we need to look at. I think that’s a conversation that we
continue to have with our legislatures as we go forward. Here’s sort of a summation of what I
just said. The house bill passed including major tax reform, authorized the local energy excise
tax to replace the sales tax revenue loss, progress having a meeting between the county and
government which we’re doing today, and then implement a path forward to replace revenue, if
that’s the will of the bodies. It’s phased in over four years so we lose 25% in the first year until
fully phased in in 2016. It applies to not only state sales tax and use tax but also to local sales
tax levy like SPLOST and LOST. It does not apply to the school tax from what I understand. It
authorizes us to levy a new tax but it does not require it. Each county will have to make their
own decision on that. They can very simply put us in a situation too where we would be
competing against counties next to us or whatever as we go down the road. So if Burke or
Columbia decided not to have a sales tax, they would have an added advantage competing
against us on a less than level playing field to do that. In theory the tax levy if levied would
equal the county revenues lost through the new sales tax. That’s the theory they went under but
once again that makes us the bad man in this particular deal here basically. The cities may be
included by signing an intergovernmental agreement and that’s why they’re here today to help us
begin this conversation. If we do not do anything, we’re going to lose money. That’s a given
and if we decide to do something, that tax can be terminated at any time by ordinance of the
county governing authority so that’s a tax that you’ve been authorized to levy if that’s the will of
the body. It’s not subject to referendum. The rates phase in at the same rates that the sales tax
phases out. Following the phase in, the excise tax caps at 2%. If your county is a combination
of LOST, SPLOST, POST or MARTA, you get the 2% energy tax. If only one of these energy
taxes, it’s only 1%. It’s essentially a county tax. There must be a comedic confer with the cities.
If the cities decline to participate, it will be collected countywide but the cities would get no
proceeds. If the cities choose to participate, they will get a share based on the same split they get
through underlying local sales tax laws which in our case is a loss negotiation. If the cities do
decide to participate, it requires an intergovernmental agreement as required. While you can
levy this at a later date, if you do not have it effective at this particular point in time and it
doesn’t go into effective in January, you’re going to lose some money. That’s just the bottom
line. It’s my understanding to have it effective in January we’ve got to have it passed by
November 1 at this particular point in time. Some questions. The first thing that I asked was how
much money we’re talking about and as I said before, it’s almost impossible to calculate from
point of sales data because there isn’t any. The state’s recommendation through the GEMA is
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that we impose the excise tax and see what the difference is. I’m not too sure that that’s the
recommendation that we want to follow. Is there a list of energy users affected? At the present
time no. The definition of manufacturing is somewhat vague. There doesn’t seem to be any
follow up on that at this particular point in time but ACCG is working with the energy providers
as well as the Department of Revenue to identify those subject to the excise tax according to the
ACCG e-mail. How will the counties know which manufacturers are qualified to take the
exemption? According to what the ACCG tells us, we won’t. They get to apply. If they apply,
they’re basically considered and we’re not the ones that make that decision and the definition of
manufacturing energy is very broad and includes things such as the local newspaper. They
manufacture newspaper and therefore they will probably not have to pay if they apply for an
exemption for the electricity it costs to print that paper. There is some other issues there that in
my mind aren’t very specific simply because if you have a training facility or an administrative
office next to that factory there doesn’t seem to be any way to separate that out and potentially
they would get the loss of electricity or loss, the ability not to pay tax on that energy too. So if
the county enacts an excise tax and the city does not participate, what happens? Actually the city
would be forfeiting their portion of that tax and we’d get that. If the amounts are not negotiated
on this if they do enter into an agreement with us, it’s the same as the LOST distribution which I
think we’ve all come to agreements relatively fair at this point. If the tax is actually collected, if
we actually do that by the companies that sell the energy, so Johnny would turn on his lights, the
energy company would bill him for it and between the two of them they’d figure out how much
tax we got according to the way I understand it. The user and the provider. That’s the way we
understand the law is written, yes, sir. All that being said, we have to make a decision later on
on whether or not we want to affect the tax on January 1. We have to make a decision.
Hephzibah and Blythe have to make a decision on whether or not they want to participate. If we
decided to enact the tax, the Law Department draws up the ordinances. All agreements adopted
would take effect January 1, 2013 and then we determine the mechanism and location of the
collections and devise a method to monitor these collections. We say all that today simply
because we had to begin this conversation. What I suggest that we be tasked to do is to work
with the Chamber who’s graciously volunteered, with our industry who we’ve had some contact
with and with the power companies that are currently with us and willing to work in ways to
actually figure out what impact this is going to have on our city. We do know that we have
major power users here. One of Georgia Power’s best customers is in our county and while we
would not want to lose their business if this goes into effect without the excise tax, we are going
to lose some dollars that they will not be paying in those taxes. As you’ve heard me say before,
budgeting is sometimes a lucky guess or an educated guess. In this particular case we’re
operating in the dark, in my mind, without tools to find some of those numbers that we need so
that’s going to make this budget even more challenging to put together. I know you’ve got lots
of questions. I’m not too sure if I have the answers at the moment but we needed to have that on
the table today so if you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them.
Mr. Mayor: Mr. Guilfoyle.
Mr. Guilfoyle: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Russell, right now everything is
undetermined at this time, is that correct, as far as what we’ve perceived as we’re going to get
cut on the revenue?
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Mr. Russell: The only thing that’s determined is if we take no action we will begin losing
money January 1 based on the sales tax numbers on energy for our manufacturers.
Mr. Guilfoyle: By implementing a 2% levy and a decrease of 25% what effect after four
years does the 2% offset have on our revenue?
Mr. Russell: The theory is that that would balance what we would lose in the sales tax.
Mr. Guilfoyle: Have we heard from the Chamber and the power company as well? I
know this commission has not.
Mr. Russell: This is just the preliminary conversation. I believe that you’ll be hearing a
lot from them over the new few weeks. They’ve fought hard to have this implemented and did so
gallantly to try to put us on a level playing field with other states around us. I think at some
point if you want to get back together, they’d be more than willing to present or to talk to you
individually about that.
Mr. Guilfoyle: I know that right now we have our undivided attention from both of our
Mayors from Blythe and Hephzibah and as a matter of fact I got a call today and I couldn’t
answer any questions because this is new information for myself.
Mr. Russell: That’s why we’re beginning this conversation because it’s new for all of us
today.
Mr. Mason: Mr. Russell, you had mentioned that some sort of action needs to be taken
by November 1, is that correct?
Mr. Russell: If we would plan on having no loss of funding, we would have to have the
ordinance passed by November 1 to ensure a continuation of funding in January. Anything later
than that we would begin to lose those dollars that are collected in January.
Mr. Mason: Obviously it September 18 and that’s not very long from now and it’s a very
serious issue the way I look at it. Clearly what I’m seeing here today is the state’s going to get
their money and they appear to have put something in place that allows us to get some money
back. Or be it vague, ambiguous and theoretical with what I see here and we have a short period
of time to have some discussion on moving forward.
Mr. Russell: Let me correct that just a little bit. The state is not going to be getting any
additional dollars. They’ll get the money they normally get but what they’ve given away is that
sales tax that we’re not receiving. They’ve sort of helped us give away our money in our minds
at this point.
Mr. Mason: Whichever way you look at it, we’re not getting it. What is your plan of
action moving forward because we are short on time and it is a very important issue and we have
other Mayors in other jurisdictions that need to weigh in on this as well.
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Mr. Russell: What I’d like to do and what I hope you would encourage or tell me to do
was to spend the next two weeks working with the Chamber and our local manufacturers that are
willing to participate, and some are not, to try to determine what kind of impact this actually has
on us so when I come back, I can tell you that the benefits of this House bill or the loss of this
House bill is approximately “X” number of dollars and that means we lose that amount of money
from the budget that we have to play with. At that point then we can determine whether or not
you want to go forward with some kind of energy excise tax or do you want to have the Chamber
or some other people come in and give you information on the benefit of this and why it’s a good
thing not to have the tax and how we can market that as a manner to increase the industry which
would increase the other access that we have without this tax. If you looked at the neat little
thing we got in our tax bills the top twenty something payers of ad valorem tax are industries
here so they already pay a lot of tax so there’s got to be a way to maneuver through that. What
I’d like to do is come back in a couple of weeks in a work session as part of the budget with a
number that we can actually wrap our arms around as close as we can get in some of the
challenges that I’ve talked about but that would be better than just shooting in the dark, I think.
Mr. Mason: I understand that there will be many challenges as I see here because there’s
just too many options where people can opt in or opt out, be a part of it, not be a part of it,
determine whether I’m a producer or a provider. There’s a lot of leeway here for everybody
involved.
Mr. Russell: On that occasion, though, it would behoove us for me to come back with a
number but it would also behoove us for ya’ll to listen to the proponents of this bill in the
Chamber, our industrial people and give them a chance to help weigh that out. I’m somewhat
prejudiced in this particular area that I’m a little mad that we’re losing the funding but there are
benefits to that and I think to hear that you need to hear both sides of that so that ya’ll can make a
decision in which direction we want to go in. There’s two sides to every story and their side is
compelling too.
Mr. Mayor: GMA and ACCG have tracked this regularly and put out updates through e-
mail and their website and this gets back to something that Mr. Russell said. I’ve been on the
Board of GMA since 2006 and the Legislative Policy Council and we have been pushing along
with ACCG for the state Department of Revenue to collect point of sales data which would have
alleviated this problem so we could have known what to budget on and they have simply refused
to do it and it is not a difficult fix. They’ve done it in other states but our state government has
refused to do that. That situation was not created by the Chamber, by industry. That was created
by the unwillingness of the state Department of Revenue to listen to these governmental
organizations who have to deal with these issues.
Mr. Hatney: I think the Mayor answered some of my question because my question was
to be in view of the fact that the state seemingly has been collecting this money all the time and
did I hear you say they would no longer be doing it?
Mr. Russell: If we decide to do the excise tax, we would have to collect those dollars.
Right now they collect the sales tax, yes, sir.
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Mr. Hatney: You don’t have any idea of the formula they use for distribution? You
don’t have no idea of nothing. Because I think I heard you say that you don’t exactly what you’d
be losing if you don’t collect any. My concern is how it’s going to be kind of difficult because if
it comes to the county, Richmond County, now you’ve got to develop a formula by which you
share with Blythe and Hephzibah –
Mr. Russell: That formula would be the loss formula that we’ve already got developed.
Mr. Hatney: You’ve already got that in place because the money comes to you to start
with so now you’re already doing that.
Mr. Russell: Right.
Mr. Hatney: So that part you’ve got pretty well worked out.
Mr. Russell: Yes, sir.
Mr. Hatney: Bless your heart.
Mr. Mayor: But, you know, from a family financing perspective, how do you, if you
don’t know what your revenues are –
Mr. Brigham: Fred, I’ve got several questions. Let’s start off with ya’ll said it implements
over a four-year period. I’m assuming then that we decide to exercise our right to implement this
excise tax that will also be phased in over a four-year period?
Mr. Russell: That’s my understanding, yes, sir.
Mr. Brigham: So it would be a net type thing supposedly.
Mr. Russell: The theory is that it did say we would have no loss in revenue. The
background of that is that the manufacturer has no savings either so that’s –
Mr. Brigham: I understand that. While we are talking about sales tax, does it also cover
use tax? Does the manufacturer pay a sales tax, a use tax now on the energy that they generate
themselves?
Mr. Russell: That’s a question I do not know the answer to but we will find out.
Mr. Brigham: I think that’s a question that needs to be asked because that affects also the
revenue. It is my understanding from what you told us that there is 2% involved. One of those
2% are SPLOST dollars and the other one is LOST dollars, is that correct?
Mr. Russell: Yes, sir.
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Mr. Brigham: And so SPLOST dollars would spread out our collection of SPLOST
dollars over a longer period to time.
Mr. Russell: That’s absolutely correct.
Mr. Brigham: We’re on a dollar limit, not on a time limit.
Mr. Russell: Right, so it would increase the time needed to collect the dollars that we’ve
allocated as opposed to cutting off the amount that we have.
Mr. Brigham: And that would also spread out the periods of time when we go back to the
public for SPLOST dollars. Okay.
Mr. Mayor: Fred, I want to correct you not in a bad way but a theory is something that
can be proven or disproven based on data collected. If you have no data, it’s not a theory, it’s a
guess.
Mr. Brigham: That was one of the questions I wanted to ask. Do we have a list of
manufacturers or potential manufacturers that will receive this credit?
Mr. Russell: At this time we do not. I hope that we would be able to work with Georgia
Power who has some issues with proprietary information with some of the people in the
Chamber to get a voluntary list at that point. One of our larger people contacted us today and is
willing to work with us.
Mr. Brigham: What I was going to suggest is if we had a list of vendors that maybe paid
this tax, we could find out from them with those that are willing to share information so that your
number that you’re going to pull out of the air is a little more realistic instead of just a complete
swag.
Mr. Russell: That was the plan going forward, yes, sir.
Mr. Brigham: I’m very curious about that.
Mr. Russell: I think there’s probably commissions and administrators throughout this
state that are curious at the moment about how this is going to work.
Mr. Brigham: Let’s go back to the LOST dollars a minute. If we don’t give that credit
because we give it up to the industry then is it my understanding that we’ve got to advertise even
though the gross millage rate is the same but the credit is less that we’ve got to advertise that
we’ve had a tax increase?
Mr. Russell: I think so, yes.
Mr. Brigham: Okay. I just wanted to see how bad we’re going to be.
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Mr. Russell: It’s the same amount of revenue, yes.
Mr. Brigham: Just to come in the same place.
Mr. Russell: Right. Instead of maintaining what you’ve got, you’ve got to tell people we
increased their taxes.
Mr. Bowles: I just think it would be self-defeating what the state Economic
Development Office is trying to do if we issue an excise tax on businesses they’re trying to
attract but I also find it humorous and kind of ironic that we’re now stating that we don’t trust the
state to send us money yet we were so antsy and pushy for the taxpayers to approve the
transportation tax that the state collects for us.
Mr. Mayor: Good point.
Mr. Guilfoyle: Fred, the next time we get together why don’t we have, this House Bill
386 naturally was not passed on this floor but anything that’s passed on this floor we have to
explain it to our constituents and we have to give them the reason and rhyme behind what we
done. Why don’t we ask our representative that voted on this to explain the reason why we’re
here and tell us the answers since they posed a problem to us?
Mr. Russell: I would be more than happy to invite them to that meeting, sir.
Mr. Guilfoyle: Thank you.
Mr. Hatney: Listening to what Mr. Guilfoyle just mentioned, in view of the fact that all
this stuff mainly is going to be handled by attorneys anyway, why don’t our Law Department
find this out because this is simpler that way because no doubt it, there’s got to be some legal
paperwork drawn up but my fear here is that you said we’re going to have lost income but then
how do we measure that when we don’t have no formula for collection? How are you going to
know what you’re losing or if you’re losing anything if there’s no formula of collection? Now,
you don’t get the little bit of revenue you’ve been getting and seemingly they don’t want to send
you no formula and they don’t know how much they were collecting. Because they’ve got a
formula.
Mr. Russell: I could make that argument alongside of you.
Mr. Hatney: I don’t see why they don’t send the formula right on down. I’m not being
funny. They’ve got some formula they use to collect money. Why don’t they send that whole
thing down with the House Bill and have the formula attached to it?
Mr. Mayor: It has been requested before but it’s a formula that allowed for the same drop
in sales tax revenues in a nine-county area. It’s a real good formula.
Mr. Lockett: Mr. Russell, you indicated that we know for a fact that we’re going to lose
money and I believe that we also know that we cannot survive with the loss of that money. You
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indicated that the Chamber is probably going to tell us that this is a good thing because if we
don’t implement the excise tax well then we will generate more business and so forth to come
into the community. Well, all that is long term but if we lose that money, that’s going to be short
term. So I guess my question is this. The three Mayors know what they want to do. The
Chamber knows what they are going to try and sell us so why don’t you just go on and tell us
now how you feel about it rather than have us leave this meeting wondering if we’re going to
wait another month to find out. Ya’ll have a general idea of what you want to do. Can we afford
to lose the money without implementing the excise tax?
Mr. Russell: My problem with that is at the moment is I really don’t have a clue on how
much money we’re talking about. If we are going to lose $50,000, I would not be as concerned
if it’s several millions of dollars. My concern is it’s going to be in the millions of dollars simply
because we have a great manufacturing base which is one of our strengths and that strength in
this particular case is going to hurt us because they don’t have to pay the energy tax. Hopefully
in a couple of weeks working with the Chamber we’ll be able to come in and tell you that we’ve
got, is it going to be a two aspirin headache or do we get out the whole bottle at this particular
point in time. I don’t know the answer for that. I think they worked hard to get this passed and
they have a rationale for why they did it. Mr. Bowles is exactly right. We’ve had people
working day in and out for years trying to get this passed and for us to add the excise tax back
sort of defeats the whole purpose of giving that. That being said, unless we have enough dollars
to fix the roads to get to their factories, I’m not too sure they need the power anyway. So
somewhere betwixt all of that is a position that we’ve got to take and at this point I can’t give
you how I feel about it because I really, the only thing I feel right now is apprehension.
Mr. Mayor: I’ll say I do think we have enough time to make an informed decision and
hear from all sides. I think that’s the best way to go about it and realistically the cities and local
governments all over the state are going through the same thing, the same issue at the same time
and realistically it makes a difference, as Fred said, if we decided to do it and the counties around
us decided not to do it, then that puts them at a competitive advantage so I think it’s take a deep
breath, get all the information, get everybody talking and I think that cooler heads will prevail in
my opinion.
Mr. Russell: I think that while we’re blessed with the industry, I think that blessing will
provide an additional hit for us. Some of the counties around us that don’t have that level of
industry, it’s not that big a deal. But for us it is a big deal and it’s going to be a tough decision
we’re going to have to make.
Mr. Mayor: It’s unfortunate and once again, I would just call on this body and call on the
Chambers from a business perspective when you can’t project revenues and that’s the situation
that the state’s put us in and when they don’t do point of sales data collection, it’s a difficult, it’s
hard to make good decisions when you don’t have all the information.
Mr. Mason: Is he looking for some sort of motion or action and before he answers that,
this bill was passed back in March, April, May –
Mr. Speaker: March.
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Mr. Mason: So we’re here on September 18 six months, five months there’s been, we
just wasn’t going to discuss it or waiting on what?
Mr. Russell: We’re looking for some direction from somebody that, I guess what
triggered my issue was when we got the e-mail from ACCG that said we don’t know what to tell
you anymore, basically. You got a copy of that too. It’s sort of like, okay, it’s moving along,
we’ve got problems and all of a sudden like, those wonderful people that are supposed to be
helping with this don’t have a clue either.
Mr. Mayor: Do we need a motion to proceed in that way? I think you just need
direction.
Mr. Russell: I think if that’s the direction that we come back in a couple of weeks with
both sides of the issue and hopefully some dollars to get us there.
Mr. Hatney: ACCG said we don’t know what to tell you and now you’re telling us you
don’t know what to tell us and we don’t know what to tell you either. This doesn’t make sense.
To have something that was passed that long and we’re here now with no direction, with nothing.
Mr. Mayor: I think everybody’s been trying to figure out the elephant in the room, how
do you get at that number you’re going to be losing and nobody’s been able to figure that out but
it goes back to we didn’t create this situation, the state not ever giving us the formula as to how
they come at those sales tax dollars that they return to us. It’s a tough situation but here again,
GMA and ACCG and I know they were working on it before I came on board but the state has
refused to go there.
Mr. Guilfoyle: I’d like to go ahead and make a motion once Fred gets direction
from the power, Convention, Walter Sprouse as well as our finance, come back before us
with some direction to go because right now there’s nobody that’s educated on this
whatsoever.
Mr. Mayor: And would that be to get together with all involved parties, just so –
Mr. Guilfoyle: Yes, sir.
Mr. Mayor: We have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion?
Mr. Hatney: One point I’d like to ask. What are you going to bring back because this
body back here is going to act on laws, not develop the law?
Mr. Russell: In this particular case what I hope we’ll be able to tell you are two things.
What we project to be the impact on our budget. What the people that supported this project to
be a positive impact of not having that tax and a direction betwixt the two that gives us an
opportunity to move forward.
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Mr. Hatney: And with that will come some instruction as to what you think ought to be
our point, somebody need to bring us, somebody need to bring back something that says this is
what we believe you ought to do.
Mr. Russell: Yes, sir.
Mr. Hatney: Between you guys and the Law Department, somebody should bring back to
this body a product.
Mr. Russell: Yes, sir.
Mr. Mayor: Okay, we have a motion that’s been properly seconded. If there’s no further
discussion, Commissioners will now –
Mr. Mason: I mean, just for clarity, what is that? Mr. Guilfoyle mentioned earlier about
one and/or more of our state representatives who, this falls in their lap to be a part of this
discussion when you come back or when you’re having the discussion. I’d actually like to see
their face when you come back to tell us what’s what so I might have a couple of questions for
them. So I know you can’t force that but is that a part of what we’re talking about here?
Mr. Russell: What I anticipate happening is you give me a couple of weeks, I’ll come
back with what I hope to be our best estimate of what the impact is going to be, the dollar
amount. We’re going to have people from the Chamber and industry talk about what a good
thing this is to do and I’m going, based on your instructions, to invite our delegation to be able to
be here with us at that meeting to share with you their reasoning for either supporting or not
supporting this bill depending on where they stood on the vote.
Mr. Mayor: That’s why I did the catch all, all interested parties. They sure should be
included in that number. We have a motion that’s been properly seconded. If there’s no further
discussion, Commissioners will now vote by the usual sign of voting.
Mr. Bowles votes No.
Motion carries 8-1.
[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 the Augusta Richmond County Commission and the cities
of Hephzibah and Blythe held on September 18, 2012.
________________________
Clerk of Commission
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