By: Robin Ford Wallace, Staff Reporter

The regularly scheduled February meeting of the Dade County Commission last week, running an unusually long three hours, held a few surprises as well as routine business.

South Dade Fire Chief Roger Woodyard, speaking last, introduced a worrisome issue of faulty fire hydrants that reanimated exhausted attendees of the Feb. 4 meeting and further extended proceedings. This issue is discussed in an accompanying article.

Residents of the Pike’s Drive subdivision on Sand Mountain, led by Rich LaValla and Sue Feuerstein, appeared en masse to present their case to the Commission.

Showing maps and photographs of their neighborhood, Ms. Feuerstein explained that Pike’s Drive was a private road the maintenance of which was the obligation of its residents.  The road was being ravaged by logging trucks operated by Carruth Logging, which used the road without permission, she said, and the neighbors had tried dealing directly with Carruth without success. “He’ll tell you anything under the sun you want to hear, and you’ll never see him again,” said Ms. Feuerstein.

She said the neighbors had asked the Dade County Sheriff’s Department to protect them but had been told the department’s hands were tied because it was a private road. “Why aren’t our private property rights being enforced?” she said.           

Dade has a bond requirement for loggers in case of damage to its public roads, but Pike’s is not covered because it is privately owned. Subsequent discussion revealed that the road, which is not gated, is private only because the county will not take it over as residents were promised when they bought in.  

The subdivision, consisting of some 11 houses, is a development of local contractor Ron McBryar and former County Commissioner Leroy Smith, both of whom the residents say have walked away from the project, denying further responsibility for the road. Ms. Feuerstein quoted Smith as saying: “It’s Sand Mountain and I can do whatever I want.”

Robin Rogers, the county attorney, said that Dade’s involvement in the matter must be limited to the law enforcement angle, but County Executive Ted Rumley promised as a matter of representing the county’s citizens he would personally look into the matter. 

The Sentinel will report further on this issue.

In other business, District 1 Commissioner Lamar Lowery said that Georgia counties are no longer required to own an ambulance in order to own rights to their own emergency service zones.  That was the case in late 2008, when Hutcheson Medical Center, which had been providing emergency medical services locally, abruptly ceased doing so, leaving Dade and two other counties to their own devices.  

At that point, Dade bought an ambulance rather than leave itself to the mercy of commercial EMS providers which potentially could apply for the zone, then charge the county whatever they liked for service. Later, Hutcheson donated a second used vehicle to the county. One is now being used by the county rescue squad and one by the county as a backup to the ambulances owned by Lifeguard, the provider that took Hutcheson’s place.

“Now that we no longer have to have it,” concluded Lowery, “I think it’s time for us to get out of the ambulance  business.” 

Alex Case, county emergency services manager, disagreed.  He said that the spare ambulance had been used several times when the Lifeguard vehicles were otherwise employed and in fact had been needed just the night before when bad weather resulted in several car wrecks at the same time.  “My feeling is no,” he told the commissioners. “I’d rather keep that ace in the hole.”

The Commission discussed the expense of keeping the spare ambulance stocked with medications, and how much selling it would bring. But Case pointed out that if for some reason the contract with Lifeguard is not renewed, Dade would be in the same boat it was when Hutcheson bailed out. “I don’t want to wait 20 or 30 minutes for an ambulance to cover Dade County,” he said. 

The issue was tabled without resolution.

Another item that went nowhere was a tentative county plan to begin issuing business licenses. This project was quashed via an impressive demonstration of the democratic process at work.

The business license notion, brought up in early 2009 by a newly elected Commission as a potential revenue generator for a county hard up for money, was presented at Thursday’s meeting by Peter Cervelli of District 4 not in that light but as a method of guaranteeing that businesses were paying their fair share of sales taxes and otherwise obeying county law. “We need to track the cost of managing it to make sure we’ve covering our costs,” said Cervelli.

The audience balked. What was the sense of that? demanded one citizen after another. Wouldn’t it mean more tax dollars spent for policing, and more grief for smalltime operators who might babysit or repair cars out of their yards? “I say let that alone for the present time,” said one citizen.

Clearly a little abashed by the vehemence of public reaction, the commissioners elected to do so – at least for now.

The Commission okayed preapproved SPLOST funds to replace 911equipment at the request of Alex Case. Commissioners also voted to regularize their meeting procedures in the future, taking one vote for resolutions and two for ordinances, the latter requiring a public hearing.

Additionally, they passed resolutions regarding a routine budget amendment, applying for a transportation grant, and dedicating the week of Feb. 8-12 to adult literacy 

In his monthly address to the public during the business part of the meeting, Commissioner Lowery of District 1 said the new courts facility was coming along amazingly well given the weather. He urged citizens to fill out questionnaires for the new Code Red service so that they can receive emergency information on their cell phones as well as landlines.   

District 2’s Scottie Pittman urged the public to take a lesson from the Pike’s Drive citizens group; he had seen this problem over and over during his tenure. “The developer has promised them when they get three houses, five houses, that the county will come in and pave the road. Well, that’s not the way it works,” he said.  The county, he stressed, will not pave development roads and will only accept maintenance when the roads are paved to county standards.

Pittman blamed real estate agents and developers alike for misinforming prospective buyers. “There’s not a lot of bad apples. The same names come up,” he said.    

District 3’s Robert Goff reminded the public that the U.S. Census is still hiring, with representatives at the Administrative Building every Wednesday morning. He also urged citizens to fill out their census forms to ensure the county gets its fair share of government funds.

Commissioner Cervelli of District 4, reporting on financials, said sales tax trends were flat, with revenues about 9 percent down from last year.

In his own report to the public, Chairman Rumley said the county had applied for a $10 million grant to bring sewers into the north end of the county and another to repair the dam at Lookout Lake, with about a 50 percent chance of getting it. 

To clear up confusion, he said, he wanted waste service providers to know that the cost to all commercial dump trucks for using the county landfill was a uniform $34 per ton.

And he reported that the Georgia Department of Transportation had been slow to respond with needed salt trucks during recent snow and ice. “Their excuse was no funding,” he said. He said Dade was attempting to persuade the DOT to leave road equipment inside the county for future emergencies.    

County Attorney Rogers told the Commission that defending Dade against Rex Blevins’ lawsuit, which was defeated in Superior Court but which Blevins recently announced he would appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court, would cost around $15-20,000.