Three citizens and some members of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners verbally attacked commissioner Tom Crow Monday night for his reported part in a lawsuit filed by four citizens to stop work on the new West Jackson EMS station. A hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled for 9 a.m. Monday in Jackson County Superior Court.
Albon Gilbert, Jerry Tate, James Lyle and Doug Waters Sr. claim the county has not lived up to the terms agreed to in the 2010 SPLOST, which is funding the EMS station. The plaintiffs are asking for a temporary restraining order to stop work on the controversial EMS project. Crow, the incoming BOC chairman, helped facilitate the lawsuit.
At the BOC meeting Monday night, citizen Ron Johnson told Crow, “You need to man up and be honest with people. You want to move it closer to Jefferson ... You are trying to get more service for people in Jefferson … Shame on you. You are wrong. You are wrong. You are wrong. Who is going to pay that money back when you lose the lawsuit? … You don’t care about the taxpayers. You care about one person and you are sitting in his chair. That is all you care about.”
More than 15 area public safety volunteers and interested citizens attended the meeting. Three spoke on the lawsuit and the EMS station. No action was taken and Crow’s response to the citizen questions was: “All of that will be determined at the court hearing on the 10th.”
Larry Ewing of Hoschton also questioned Crow on his efforts to stop the EMS station construction in West Jackson, pointing out that $400,000 has already been spent at the site. Ewing also directly asked Crow if he is in favor of moving the EMS station.
Crow’s response, “I think it is too close to the county line.”
The BOC was split earlier this year on where to build the facility, with some members wanting it to go on land further east of the current site to cover more of the center of the county.
EMS director Steve Nichols addressed how the decision was made on the location of the West Jackson station.
Nichols said the county looked at several locations: “One was up close to the Hall County line. The second was on Hwy. 124 in the city limits of Braselton and it had a structure on it already. The cost of it was in the $800,000 range. We backed off of that one somewhat. We brought up the 124 property at Publix that the county already owns. This was reviewed and we got the recommendation that we not use that property because it wasn’t big enough for a retention pond. We looked at property on Zion Church Road at Braselton Industrial Parkway. It appeared that was the best piece of property for us. That is when we brought the recommendation to the board.”
While the location has been the center of the controversy, the lawsuit only deals with technicalities of how the project was handled. According to the terms of the 2010 SPLOST, the county was supposed to create a 10-member citizens review committee and a five-member joint technical committee to oversee the SPLOST funds. But the county never created those two groups, according to the lawsuit. In addition, each year the county is supposed to publish in the local newspaper an accounting of its SPLOST projects’ status. The lawsuit alleges that the county has not published any SPLOST status reports from 2005-2011.
At the BOC meeting Monday night, county attorney Julius Hulsey said, “The lawsuit is claiming that the county has not complied with the intergovernmental agreement between the county and municipalities as far as SPLOST regulations go.”
Commissioner Chas Hardy questioned what the stop-work order means to the county as far as finances and the possibility of the county incurring damage expenses from the contractor. County manager Kevin Poe said that the contractor’s attorney has sent the county a letter stating their could be monetary damages due to the stop-work order.
Hardy asked if the county can recoup any financial costs due to the lawsuit. Hulsey said no, because local governments can’t sue individuals who address their complaints against the government.
“Either way, the taxpayers are at a loss, win or lose,” Hardy said. “If the contractor decides to sue, we have to pay at the taxpayers’ expense.”
BOC chairman Hunter Bicknell said, “There is certainly the potential that is exactly what could happen.”
Hardy added: “Everybody knows what the issue is. Does anyone want to talk about it?”
Commissioner Bruce Yates replied: “To me, it is inconceivable that we have ourselves in this position when the individuals who decided to file this complaint could have come to us and said they have a grievance. Nobody tried to correct it. Instead, they decided to go the difficult way and means that will cost the taxpayers dollars and cents rather than try to make sure we take care of it. There are a lot of ways to go about it. There is the ugly way and the nice way. The nice way is to tell you and correct it. The ugly way is to not tell you and go to the back door and do it another way. I find it inconceivable that anyone would want to do that — especially if they are a member of this board.”
Bicknell added: “It is a pending lawsuit and we need to be cautious of what we say. I do feel very confident that the outcome will be favorable for this commission.”
