IDA Planning Industrial Summit For Local Industries

By LYDIA BERGLAR
News Editor

The Aug. 19 meeting of the Dade County Industrial Development Authority covered several invoices that needed to be settled, updates on paving and sewer projects, and an “industrial summit” to be held this October for local industries.

Before Evan Stone (IDA executive director) gave his report, James Cantrell (chairman) voiced appreciation for the committee (George Williams, Leisa Cagle, and Adam Austin) that is in charge of preparing covenants and restrictions for the new industrial park. He said, “We will present that probably by the end of this meeting” but there was no return to the subject during the meeting.

The property owners who live around the new industrial park location are very interested in the development of these covenants and restrictions, so after the meeting, the Sentinel reached out to Shan Anderson. Speaking on behalf of these property owners, he explained that they have asked the IDA to take their ideas into consideration when developing the covenants but have not heard directly from the covenants committee.

Anderson said, “When the covenant committee was created, I emailed Mr. Cantrell, Mr. Stone, and the board attorney, asking if the committee would be willing to work with adjacent property owners in the development of the covenants, relating back to previous meetings where they stated they would value any input. Since the board has put restrictions in place that prevent me from having direct communication to the board, all our questions and concerns must be sent through the board’s attorney. After not receiving any response from the board or attorney for a couple months, I received a response on July 29, stating that if I had any ideas or thoughts to send them to him and he’d get them to the appropriate people.”

Anderson sent 11 suggestions he formulated from studying the integration of industry into communities and has received no response since then. Noting that a number of citizens have asked him about concerns with the IDA, Anderson also submitted a letter to the editor. See page seven to read his letter.

Returning to the August IDA meeting, Stone then reported that the CHI Memorial building’s thermostats needed to be replaced, and now that the work is complete, he requested approval from the authority to pay W.J. O’Neil Company the total of $2,892.03.

He then mentioned Placer.ai again, which was first mentioned in the June IDA meeting (see the June 26 issue of the Sentinel). Stone explained that $7,500 was allocated in the budget to purchase a year’s use of this data gathering technology that uses cell phone data to track people’s shopping, working, and traveling habits. He explained that the county has paid its portion and is requesting the IDA’s $7,500 portion of the invoice. The authority approved the $7,500 payment.

Stone said that (in order to save time for what he anticipated to be a lengthy executive session) he and Seth Houts would give a further report on Placer.ai at next month’s meeting. He said that so far, they’ve found out interesting information about the many people from outside of Dade County who come into the industrial park each day to work.

Also, using Guthrie’s as an example, he said they were able to see that the Trenton location has more visits than any other Guthrie’s locations in Georgia and is in the top ten of Guthrie’s across all states.

Moving on to the recently completed paving of Vanguard Drive and Highlands Industrial Drive, Stone said, “Billy and the county did an outstanding job.” He said the county used industrial grade asphalt to withstand the heavy tractor trailer traffic. Stone added that the labor from the county was done in kind as the county’s contribution to the project.

The IDA had previously allocated $50,000 for the project, but the total came in at $210,366.35 As mentioned in last week’s paper, the City of Trenton also put $50,000 toward the project, leaving a remaining balance of $110,366.35 that the IDA approved paying.

Alex Case (Trenton mayor) attended the meeting and added that the city put $43,000 worth of rock and labor into the project.

Cagle asked if street lighting would be added, to which Case said, “That’s Georgia Power, and that’s a cost on the city…It is something that probably needs to happen.”

Stone added that Vanguard National Trailer Corporation announced a $1.2 million paving project for the company’s parking lot and a private road. “In case you’ve heard anybody say, ‘When Vanguard has to start paying taxes they’ll shut down, go somewhere else,’ well, they’re putting a $1.2 million investment into their property, so the likelihood of that happening is null.”

Lastly, Stone noted that the IDA is hosting an industrial summit in mid-October, intentionally coinciding with the week of the Joint Development Authority’s quarterly meeting which will be in Dade on October 16.

Stone is still working on an exact date for the summit (which will make use of the newly renovated top floor of the historic courthouse). Stone is inviting CEOs, CFOs, HR managers, etc. from industries in the county to the summit. Regarding incentives from both the county and the state, he said, “I want to make sure that every industrial plant in the industrial park is taking advantage of all the different things that they’re entitled to.”

As an example, he said Vanguard can apply to the state to get one percent of the $1.2 million upgrade as a tax break. “The state gives that to anybody that does over $100,000 of upgrades at their facility. I want to make sure they all know that.”

Case briefly reported on expanding the city sewer just north of town to the land for the new industrial park. LADD Environmental (the engineering firm) found that gravity can go 1,567 feet further, reaching about two-thirds of the property.

Case added, “There’s a gas line on the existing right-of-way, that if we could stay on private property…if it could stay outside of the state right-of-way, it would be a lot easier.”

Cantrell said they appreciate any help from Case and the city.

The authority entered executive session, and Stone later told the Sentinel that no vote was taken after the session.