Stability, progress came under Mayor Hardy's 22-year tenure

In fact, Hardy never wanted to be mayor in the first place. During a recent interview, he said his first run for mayor in 1989 was by default.

“I tried to get several other people to run,” Hardy said, recalling that the city was in its first years of transitioning to the city manager form of government. “The whole thing was to make the city manager form of government work.”

And it has, in no small part due to the hiring of Clarence Bryant 20 years ago. Bryant’s tenure has largely paralleled that of Hardy.

“We’ve also had a lot of good people serving on boards and authorities,” the mayor added. “The Commerce Civic Center Authority, the DDA (Downtown Development Authority) and the Library Board. They’ve always done a good job.”

When Hardy (and later Bryant) took office, Commerce was in terrible financial condition. Its utility systems suffered from the city’s inability to afford repairs and upgrades, it had no reserve funds, it was borrowing money every year to operate and its ability to build for the future was severely limited. Over the next two decades, the changes were remarkable.

Among the most significant, Hardy indicated, was the establishment of the East Jackson Fire District. The district levies a small property tax, proceeds of which go to the Commerce Fire Department. In exchange, the department provides fire protection for the district, and the district enjoys lower fire insurance costs.

“The fire district pays for half of our (fire department’s) operating expenses. It’s bought all of our new trucks since 1994,” Hardy noted.

The late Forrest Hagan, then a county commissioner, was “very instrumental” in that happening, said Hardy.

“I got with Forrest and we talked about it, and he said, ‘Let’s create one,’” Hardy recalled. The two of them named the members of the fire association board, most of whom are still serving.

A lot of the accomplishments Hardy notes have to do with positioning the city for the future.

Those include the conversion of the entire city electrical system to 12KV, a five year project that makes the system more efficient and capable of handling larger loads; the enlarging of the city’s natural gas and water service territories, the upgrade of the water plant to four million gallons per day, the construction of a state-of-the-art waste treatment plant, the establishment of the Commerce 85 Industrial Park through a partnership with Rooker & Associates, the creation of the shared tax district that stopped litigation between the city and the Jackson County Board of Education over annexation and guaranteed that both school systems will benefit from industrial growth along I-85 from Maysville Road to U.S. 441 (it served as a model for a similar tax district for the Jefferson and Jackson County systems), the relocation of City Hall to the former post office building (and the remodeling and sale of the old facility), the relocation of the utility departments to property acquired on Homer Road, the renovation of the Wrangler Building into the Commerce Civic Center and the formation of the Commerce Civic Center & Tourism Authority, the acquisition of land for the pending enlargement of the city library, the construction of a new city maintenance shop, the participation through the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia in the construction of two new nuclear units at Plant Vogtle to lock up a future supply of electricity, and the installation of a GIS system that maps all city streets and utilities.

Hardy views those improvements as keys to the future. Speaking of the wastewater treatment plant expansion, he said, “That will hold us for a long time to come. It will pay itself off when growth comes back.”
The same is true at the water plant. Recent droughts have demonstrated the stability of the city’s reservoir, and the plant is permitted to withdraw more than three times the amount of water it currently uses. In an area where drought is becoming more common, Commerce has water to spare.

But other improvements were as much quality of life measures. Among them are four community development block grants (almost $2 million in total spending) for neighborhood improvement projects – three of them in the Johntown community, the winning of federal T-grants for sidewalks from the Johntown area to the schools (another grant will soon build a sidewalk from Commerce Middle School to Lakeview Drive), the reconstruction of Willoughby Park (including a new Boy Scout hut), the redevelopment of Spencer Park, the Streetscape project that rehabbed the downtown curbs, gutters and sidewalks in the mid-1990s, the restoration of the Commerce Cultural Center, the purchase of the old Collins Cleaners building and its renovation, the purchase of numerous off-street parking areas, the construction of two new ball fields and the acquisition of land off Waterworks and Stark roads for a new park, the renovation of the city swimming pool and the paving of roads in Grey Hill Cemetery.

All of those improvements are results of stability in government and good fiscal management — neither of which existed when Hardy first ran for mayor. As he leaves office on Dec. 31 as the poor economy lingers, Commerce remains financially solid. The changes were also possible because city staff is more professional than ever, thanks in part to good hiring and in part to certification requirements in the utility departments. Governments just do not operate like they did in 1989.

Hardy said he hopes the new mayor and council will continue to be heavily involved in MEAG, the Municipal Gas Association of Georgia and the Georgia Municipal Association.


“You just meet so many nice people from all over the state,” he said. “You find out that everybody has the same problems. If you go and participate in the meetings and talk to everybody, you certainly come back with more information than it cost the city to send you.”