SPLOST, THEN AND NOW…
Posted on June 20, 2009 | Email This!
There was once a time when voting on splost meant something. In those days the items were very clearly spelled out in the enabling referendum.
In those days you knew exactly what you were voting for. You knew the item and you knew the maximum amount.
In ancient times the money came in to the county from the state and was dispersed to the cities. The cities sat on the money and did not do the projects (sometimes for years).
The troika of Robert G. Becker (chairman), Jimmy Foddrell and Kenneth Hase came to power on the county commission. They (after a suggestion by the writer) instituted a new policy wherein no moneys were dispersed to the cities. Instead, the cities authorized projects and as they were completed sent vouchers to the county and then the vendors would be paid. This guaranteed that projects would be completed on a timely basis.
Now, everything has changed. The state changed the law so that the cities (and the county) could couch the language of the referendum in vague language, thereby not guaranteeing that what you thought you were voting for was what you got for your money. There were other changes too numerous to mention here.
Sandy Sez; The borrowings by the county and the pledging by the city of St Marys of splost monies to float the water sewer bond issue does the citizens a disservice. It is unfortunate that the politicians (both state and county) have taken a good thing and corrupted it.
Let us hope that the next elections (at least on the local level) will provide us with leaders who keep the faith we have given them.
P.S. I wonder if Mr. Becker would be interested in running again next year? We could do a lot worse.
Sandy Feller
“Watch out evil doers we are watching you.”
» Filed Under Odd Stuff & Admin | 2 Comments | Email This!
ST. MARYS
Posted on May 24, 2009 | Email This!
Yesterday Today Tomorrow
In 1941, “the mill” became a St. Marys landmark. Owned and operated by the respected Gilman family, the St Marys Kraft Division employed more than 1600 people at its height. These individuals played important roles in mill operations and in the prosperity of the City of St Marys. In 2002, the Mill sadly ceased operations.
The people who worked at the mill still make up much of the fabric of our great little community. Each of them represents a generation where people took pride in their jobs, worked hard and served the community in which they resided. Many of them were war heroes that came home for a job at the mill or dreamed of working in the mill theirentire life. In a number of cases, two and three generations worked at the mill together.
Today, St Marys is a vibrant patchwork quilt. We have citizens who worked at the mill and are now retired or working in a different field. There are residents who never worked at the mill and have lived here for a very long time. There are the brave men & women and their families who serve our country and work at Kings Bay Submarine Base. There are transplants from all over the country who have chosen to call St Marys or surrounding Camden County their new home. We have visitors that come to see our tiny little city display huge southern hospitality and always remember their day in St Marys.
The story of tomorrow is being written you read this piece. Let us meditate on our actions and the actions of our leaders. Let us remember that thinking before doing is not a sin, it is a virtue. In our quest for a prosperous future let us not make decisions that force out segments of our population because they can no longer pay the costs of living or taxes.
Sandy Sez; I want to thank the owners of “The Mill” restaurant for their help in preparing this piece. Stop be and visit them at their facility located on Osborne Road. It is truly a trip down memory lane and the food is great..
Sandy Feller
“Look out evil doers we are watching you.”
» Filed Under St. Marys | Leave a Comment | Email This!
AIRPORT MEETING REVISITED
Posted on May 12, 2009 | Email This!
WHO BENEFITS
THE REAL STORY!!!
This is the verbatum transcript of a meeting between St Mary’s officials and Sea Island officials.
It is vital that you read the whole thing.
We report-you decide.
July 23, 2008
SEA ISLAND Company
Meeting
ST. Simons ISLAND
July 23, 2008
930 am.
Present Were Senior Vice President and General Counsel Jim Gilbert, Sea Island Co.
Mayor Rowland Eskridge
Councilmember Bill DeLoughy
City Manager Bill Shanahan
Bill Shanahan The transfer of the original airport property would remain with the City of St. Marys.
Jim Gilbert Right.
Bill Shanahan What we are doing is actually, fishing for ways to do that without costing us any money.
Jim Gilbert Right.
Bill Shanahan Because if it costs anything, we can’t do it based on this resolution.
Jim Gilbert Right.
Bill Shanahan My understanding was some of it came from the last mayor. Some of it came from talking to Charlie Smith. Some of it came from meetings that I’ve been at, because I have been here about four years. Sea Island was real interested in this airport being moved up north. Up until a couple days ago, I thought you guys were actually the ones that initiated the possibility of moving. Then I found out…
Rowland Eskridge That it never even crossed their minds.
Bill Shanahan Yes.
Jim Gilbert The mayor and a consultant you all hired from Reynolds, Smith and Hills came to see me. I didn’t even know why they were coming. But they were real nice. Can I give you some background
Rowland Eskridge Please, we would love to have some.
Jim Gilbert I was there on that meeting. There was a nice lady named Hase.
Rowland Eskridge Deborah Hase.
1
JUly 23, 2oo8
Bill Shanahan She was the mayor at that time.
Jim Gilbert Bill
Bill DeLoughy Lewis.
Jim Gilbert No.
Bill DeLoughy Bill Sandifer.
Jim Gilbert Yes, Bill Sandifer and I don’t remember if there was another councilperson or not. They said that he had been retained. And, he did most of the talking at the time. They asked us if we would consider giving enough land for an airport in what we call little pasture. Of course, we couldn’t give them an answer then because nobody considered the implications of it. I don’t remember when that was but it was after we got the property rezoned. I think it was in 99 or 2000. I can’t really remember.
Bill DeLoughy It was a little after that I think it was after 2001, after 911.
Jim Gilbert Okay, I remember going down there.
Bill DeLoughy That was 2002 when Deborah took office.
Jim Gilbert There was a guy there probably from the county. A planner, I think. Bill Jones and everybody else were on board. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, I have a map here; I think there were probably 1,200 acres or more. One of the things we’re concerned about was whether there was enough land there to put a runway there that would do anybody any good. If there were going to be Piper Cubs and little Cessnas, it wouldn’t make any sense.
Bill DeLoughy Yes.
Jim Gilbert But, for the county to benefit, it needed to have enough runway length for jets and for the company to benefit if anybody was ever going to come and stay. You know Cabin Bluff is still probably years away from any kind of development. I was able to talk directly to Mr. Sandifer. He gave me a lot of stuff to read about airplane take off and landing, and all that. Then, they made a decision, fine, we’ll provide 680 acres. I have a map around here somewhere.
Bill Shanahan It’s around 600 acres.
Jim Gilbert There was a letter and an agreement was signed. Then, they did whatever they did. I found out later, there were actually nine sites considered. We were one of nine. Then it got narrowed down to three. Some of this is just conjectural. The other two of the three did not make the cut because either there were multiple property owners or a property owner or more than one didn’t want to sell. A condemnation would have been involved, but I don’t know that for sure. You would know that.
Bill DeLoughy I’m thinking that somewhere along those lines that there was a problem, that we would have to condemn. The county was not willing to do that. Obviously, if you get something like a piece of land that they could develop and make work. They had to work to get a runway at 5,000 feet.
2
July 23, 2008
Jim Gilbert Right. I don’t know how many they did. Maybe when they narrowed it down to just the one. They had environmental hearings. We did not go to any of those. I went to one meeting in an old school. I think in St. Marys.
Bill DeLoughy Right.
Jim Gilbert Maybe a couple years ago. It was a public hearing. I remember Senator Kingston’s guy (Rob Able) got there late. It doesn’t matter. We didn’t lobby for it. We just hope they would keep us up to date about what was going on. Finally, I think Ms. Hase was gone by the time they decided to call the number one site. It was approved and somebody called us and told us that. Our renewed interest is that whatever that first rezoning was. We’ve got 5,000 dwelling units on 17,500 acres. Not too long after that, it became real clear that was ridiculous. I wouldn’t say that. Economically unwise. What we thought at the time was that people would come in and buy 100 acre tracts. Very few people would pay a whole lot of money to buy a certain number of lots. Me, as a partner in some of those and joint owners of some parts the property with their counsel and with advice of planners, we realized, we needed to amend the planned development. Nobody is going to buy 17,500 because that’s bigger than Hilton Head. But, several people might buy hunks. That’s not a good real estate term, parcels. So, we needed an ability to have more dwelling units that we can say, this guy wants 3,000 acres. Fine you get 5,000. This guy wants 2,000. You get 1,500. So, we started working on a revision when we realized we had this letter and agreement outstanding on the airport tract and things seemed to be in limbo. And we wanted to know what the heck was going on and what were the plans I had heard about the vote that was taken. How long ago was that
Rowland Eskridge Last year.
Jim Gilbert Not last year.
Rowland Eskridge 2007.
Jim Gilbert Then I heard that the FAA had approved it anyway. I didn’t really understand that and I still don’t.
Bill Shanahan All they approved was the second phase of the documentation was completed. They received the inspections that were done and studies.
Rowland Eskridge The Environmental Study was complete.
Jim Gilbert So I called Charlie who had become a partner of my law firm and said please find out what’s going on and see if there was an interest in it because we need to make some decisions because we’re going to be filing a revision to our planned development. We don’t know what to really say about that property. So then, he’s been involved in it. His main involvement is with the Camden Partnership, which is like former base commanders, military people and maybe Sheila McNeil.
Rowland Eskridge Yes, that’s it.
Bill Shanahan Exactly.
3
Jim Gilbert Anyway, we’re not going to get any tax benefit. We’ll get some benefits, I’m sure if an airport were built there because it will be across the interstate. I’m not sure exactly sure how they will get across the interstate. They haven’t figured that out. But, I guess it depends on where the county will put their roads. There would be some benefit if somebody wanted, sometime in the future, wanted to develop part of it and if somebody lived there who had a jet. The Company over the past two years invested over a half billion dollars in a new hotel, new spa and new beach club. To get tax benefits you’ve got to have much profit. It’s going to be a while before we have any tax benefits, if anything. The benefit would be having an airport near your development. If the city doesn’t want it, we would be happy to have it. It’ll be an industrial area, not a real estate area or single family type area.
Rowland Eskridge Would you have considered building one there even if you had not gotten this one
Jim Gilbert No.
Rowland Eskridge You would not have
Jim Gilbert No, sir. The guy that writes for the paper. Now this was strange.
Bill Shanahan Rob.
Jim Gilbert Yeah. He’s a nice young man. He asked us a bunch of questions and we answered them. Then he came back. Almost in a belligerent way he said, Well, you have an airport already on Cabin Bluff, wouldn’t you save money if that got shut down and the public airport was opened up so you didn’t have to maintain your airport So I told him through Mary Tifften, the lady who deals with the paper that thing hasn’t been used since the 90’s and it’s a grass strip. The navy asked us not to use it, It hadn’t been used. We don’t have a windsock. And nobody has used it in 10 to 12 years and it will never be used. It’s a nice open piece of property that they hadn’t planted trees on it. We don’t have an airport and don’t intend to have an airport. Right now, people could come to St. Simons or Sea Island to lodge at the Cloister. If they have a big jet of a certain size they can land at McKinnon and we will pick them up. Or, some folks have jets that I can’t believe what they can afford. We can pick them up at Glynnco. Or, we pick up people every day from Jacksonville and Savannah. It’s not a chore, when you’ve got 160 vehicles or so.
Bill DeLoughy I guess you’re kind of ambivalent about where this airport goes. Is that what you are saying
Jim Gilbert No, what I’m saying is we’d be glad to help anyway we could. We think it would benefit. I know there is controversy about this and mean no offence by it, but a commercial airport. St Marys is a wonderful, unique place but it’s not right off 1-95. It seems like in that corridor it might benefit more of the county then St. Marys. It seems like it.
Bill DeLoughy Yes.
4
July 23, 2008
Jim Gilbert I talked to the Mayor of Woodbine about it over the years. Bill Miller used to work for us and I still stay in close touch. My thought is and the company’s thought is that if an airport is to be built there, we ought to bring in me, Plum Creek and every major land owner or developer where the growth is who has a self interest or community interest. You could start with people in the northern part of the county and you could move from there. So, I just really feel like if we got everybody together, we would be happy to help do that, we could come up with a bunch of money. I don’t know what we could come up with. But, I heard if you put stuff underground it might be crazy money.
Bill Shanahan $20-25 million.
Jim Gilbert That’s not going to happen. Nobody will do that.
Bill Shanahan But, if you just move it, it would be about $5-7 million.
Jim Gilbert Yes. We would have to come up with the money. The city is from the very beginning, it was my understanding, that the City of St Marys would be able to develop their own airport, or sell it. At the time, somebody first told me about it they said that you needed new water and sewer system or something like that needed improvements. I hear so much.
Bill Shanahan We are moving on that.
Jim Gilbert I’ve always thought, not Ms. Hase and the consultant, I don’t think they discussed it the first time. But, I later learned that the government would expect St Marys to put the value of the old airport into the new airport.
Bill Shanahan Exactly.
Jim Gilbert But, then I heard, and I don’t make notes about all this stuff, but then I should. That with the right political pressure involvement that could be waived by the FAA but it had never been pushed.
Bill Shanahan I have talked to the FAA recently. Basically make a request and come up with two appraisals of the property to get a value.
Jim Gilbert Right.
Bill Shanahan If we were to move forward with putting it in that area we would need a value of that land and put together a request. If we were to move this then the value of this land will have to be our match. No matter what. With that match the FAA would have to take over all the buildings, move the businesses that are there and any court cases that might come up because there can be no cost to the City of St. Marys.
Jim Gilbert Right.
5
July 23, 2008
Bill Shanahan Basically, once we found out what we had and what we could wheel and deal with then we would make a recommendation or request to them. They would say yay or nay. The chance of probably supporting us now is better than in the past because the Navy Base did make that statement that it is a security threat. Before, they have never actually come out publicly and said that.
Jim Gilbert I went back to all the old googles and old news articles. It looked to me that after 911, they were real strongly in favor of shutting it down. Then all of a sudden they just didn’t get involved.
Rowland Eskridge They actually did shut it down. Charlie Smith and a group went to Washington and got it reopened.
Jim Gilbert Then, for a long time they were really silent.
Bill DeLoughy My understanding is that Washington politics was . .1 don’t think they did. I went to Washington a few times. When I got there, the two years that I went, the first question out of Admiral Walton’s office was when are you moving the airport Well, we can’t do anything about it. Yet, there pushing it. Kingston, the first things he said, what are you doing with the airport, when are you moving. So, I think there is a little bit more in the background and with what the Navy finally said is I don’t want the responsibility because they know it would be money out of their pocket.
Jim Gilbert Kingston is up for reelection obviously.
Bill DeLoughy Yes.
Jim Gilbert And, Chambliss or not.
Rowland Eskridge Yes.
Jim Gilbert Seems to me that until November, I don’t know whether they’re going to take any firm positions on any dang gone thing. But, I know that they have been interested.
Rowland Eskridge I don’t know anything about them. I know that the man that was running against Jack used to work for Jack.
Jim Gilbert You’re kidding. To answer your question, I think the company would love it if there were an airport there. We’d like to help in any way we can and talk about what we could do to help. But, for whatever reason, I don’t fully understand, why Bill personally and the company have been trashed unbelievably We aren’t going to stand out there in front and say this is our airport. We want to pay for it and will do whatever it takes. But, we would be glad to get a group together if there is interest to raise some money and help.
Bill Shanahan That would probably be the way the resolution goes.
6
July 23, 2008
Bill DeLoughy But, I think we need to find out more from the FAA.
Jim Gilbert Could I make a suggestion
Rowland Eskridge Yes.
Jim Gilbert Where did the money come from to hire a consultant
Bill Shanahan Grants.
Bill DeLoughy From the federal government with capital improvement money.
Jim Gilbert If I wanted to know anything about this, he’s the guy I’d call because he stays up to date. I couldn’t believe he got the whole thing through with everyone he had to deal with. But, the environmental part said look here’s a plat with some wetland in here, you’re going to have to deal with that if you want an airport. We aren’t going to deal with it because we weren’t around
it. If we were going to put warehouses or something. I wish there was some way to get another grant. My impression is that he knows who to call. He knows the people in the FAA. He knows how to get this done because that’s what he does. May be we need to raise the money for that. Is the grant money all gone on the consultant
Rowland Eskridge Yes.
Bill Shanahan That was spent on the two studies that we had done.
Bill DeLoughy That was a quarter of a million dollars.
Jim Gilbert May I ask you all a question
Bill Shanahan Yes.
Jim Gilbert These are questions I don’t know the answer too. Sometimes, we ask questions that we do know the answer too. 1. What’s going to happen to this lawsuit and where are you all on that 2. Don’t you or someone need to be the sponsor
Bill Shanahan Yes.
Jim Gilbert There isn’t one right now. Is there
Bill Shanahan No.
Rowland Eskridge Not unless Camden Partnership has taken that position.
Bill Shanahan I don’t think they can.
Jim Gilbert I think it has to be somebody who can tax.
7
July 23, 2008
Bill DeLoughy That’s what I understand also.
Bill Shanahan We’ll start with the lawsuit. All this lawsuit is basically, the Airport Authority folks asking, do we have any say in whether this moves or not They are not asking to stop it. They are not suing us for any other reason. They’re asking a question. They want a judge to tell them that based on this charter they created under the state, do we have a say in it Right now, they manage that airport because we have a contract with them.
Rowland Eskridge There has been no hearing scheduled as of last week.
Bill Shanahan Amanda is working on getting that pushed quickly. We should hear something within 30 days at the most. As for a sponsor, until we know that we could do it, we have not even begun to look at sponsors. There are a lot of ideas but to me if it was to happen the best idea is to make it some type of regional airport, which might even be bring it up to Glynn County.
Bill DeLoughy To me, I would like to spread it over as many people as we could in terms of having an airport in this area.
Rowland Eskridge All the cities and the county have told me that they do not have the money to get involved with it.
Jim Gilbert What is the Georgia Joint Development Authority
Bill Shanahan They are a county authority that basically works on bringing businesses to the county.
Jim Gilbert The Public Service Authority, is it just athletics
Rowland Eskridge Recreation.
Jim Gilbert I looked for everything that had an authority when you all were coming.
Bill Shanahan The PSA, out of all of them is the one most able to sponsormanage something like this. The main reason is equal representation from all the governments are on the PSA. When you look at them you do not see an agenda if you come to them for help. Like they helped us with our bond.
Bill DeLoughy Yes.
Bill Shanahan They are real good. IDA, I don’t think they would be good.
Rowland Eskridge That’s controlled by the county.
8
July 23, 2008
Bill Shanahan There’s not trust there that the other governments would want them and allow them to run it.
Jim Gilbert Okay.
Bill Shanahan PSA might be different. Our bottom line is cost. Maybe a meeting would be a good thing. I understand that people are not going to just give you money and say do it. We have to know that there is a commitment before we start to address those other things. You don’t want to address it and get this big program set up then find out it’s going to cost the city money so it’s dead.
Jim Gilbert I called my old law firm and asked one of the corporate guys what a 501C4 is I know what 501C3 is. He said, there ought to be consideration when forming a 5OlC4 organization to bring people together to have an interest.
Rowland Eskridge Yes.
Jim Gilbert The people could be the cities of Woodbine, Kingsland, Camden, St. Marys, major land owners, Crescent. What’s Crescent
Bill DeLoughy That’s LandmarOsprey Cove.
Jim Gilbert Okay. There’s Plum Creek, the base contractor, the base and many others. Bill Shanahan I would have to check on it.
Bill DeLoughy I see where you are coming from on this. It makes a lot of sense in my opinion because this is what I have been thinking all along; in terms of if we do something. We need to have a good size base to draw from because there risk in everything you do. There’s risk as well as reward. I would like to see it spread over a lot of people. People who would have interest in it and St Marys.
Jim Gilbert I hear you say what the resolution says but it seems to me that. . .let me start back a little ways.. if I were going to do this, first I’d call a meeting with Spaco. This is what we’re thinking of doing because it would benefit you all and they don’t have any interest in little pasture. Unless you get a little bit from each of us who form this group. Then if we need to hire a consultant, not a consultant, someone that knows something about politics and about raising money. Put a little bit of seed money in it. But then I’d bet that all four governments would seek a little bit of money plus a whole lot of private people. First you need to raise money for the appraisals
Bill Shanahan Yes.
Jim Gilbert Somebody needs to spend the time to do the politicking. That’s not your job to go talk to the congressmen and the senators, to get that all lined up with the FAA. Somebody would need to do a budget. I don’t have a clue what a budget would be. I don’t think you would need
9
July 23, 2008
to set out to raise $3-5 million right away because part of the group’s goal ought to be to find money for all of it.
Bill Shanahan Yes.
Jim Gilbert I don’t really know how to start. But, when I asked a couple of the corporate guys about if someone put money into a company, that they would need to report it with the ethics people. Somebody would have to register as a lobbyist. Anyway, there’s some legal things that need to be done. We’ll do whatever you consider would be best. If you all decide it won’t work to put it there, I would like you to sign something that says we don’t want to withdraw the commitment because it would be like saying we don’t have faith in Camden County. I think I may have extended it. I think I may have told someone over the phone, but I don’t know who I talked to, that we would extend it. Somebody I told don’t worry about any dates.
Bill DeLoughy I think it was in an email.
Bill Shanahan Charlie told me that. I’m not sure who got a copy of the email.
Bill DeLoughy I got a copy of the email.
Jim Gilbert I may have signed something.
Bill DeLoughy It was supposed to be a letter or something, I thought.
Rowland Eskridge What I got was an email.
Jim Gilbert This is between Mary and Bob McDearmid.
Bill Shanahan He’s from the paper.
Jim Gilbert That’s the original one, I think. Did this have a deadline or not
Rowland Eskridge One of them had a deadline as of December 19, 2006.
Jim Gilbert This shall determine on or before June. Maybe we did define the final boundary. I asked somebody to find any maps and yesterday we got this. This came from the environmental assessment and this may or may not be what it really looks like. I don’t really know.
Bill Shanahan Pretty close. They changed the cross lane to make it long enough so there wouldn’t be any problems.
Bill DeLoughy Yes, because of the cross winds.
Jim Gilbert Any way, maybe that condition date was met. Okay, I was asked to reaffirm.
10
July 23, 2008
Rowland Eskridge I think that was recent, within the last six months.
Jim Gilbert I directed this email was to you (Bill Shanahan) for presentation to Mayor Eskridge through him to the council, June 13th with certain provisions. There is another deadline September 1st I don’t know what that was. The purpose of this letter is to reaffirm the agreement on behalf of Sea Island Company and give notice to the City of St. Marys who shall reserve with certain rights with regards to deadlines…
Bill Shanahan Maybe the best way is to send us an email saying that this property is available unless the city decides, no we are not going to do it and then it will come back to you guys.
Jim Gilbert Okay.
Bill DeLoughy I think that would work.
Bill Shanahan That way neither of us is locked into anything.
Jim Gilbert Should it go to you or your lawyer on that
Bill Shanahan Probably me.
Bill DeLoughy If you need Amanda she could help you with it.
Jim Gilbert When we file the amendment to the planned development there is very general language about that parcel.
Bill Shanahan Yes.
Jim Gilbert Whatever it is 1200 or 1500 acres. We left it just like we had in the original one. Also, you wouldn’t much worry about this but the island that Kenneth Yates house looks right out over it, Grover Island. We abandoned our bridge permit on that so it will never be developed. Someone could always take a boat over to the 300-400 acres. I don’t think there’s any way to change people from beating you up in the press.
Bill Shanahan If they ask questions, we need to change the perception a little bit. The perception now, if I’m wrong please tell me. You guys came to us after telling us that you wanted the airport up this way. Until you said Deborah Hase. I didn’t know that.
Jim Gilbert You all need to talk to her about it. She made the appointment and I didn’t even know why they were coming.
Bill Shanahan There weren’t any minutes where she was directed to do that by council. Bill DeLoughy I do recall that she brought it back to council that this was an opportunity. I don’t know whether it was stated one way or the other.
11
Bill Shanahan Yes.
Bill DeLoughy I’m going to tell you right now that I thought she approached you. I couldn’t swear to it. The point is that it is a political issue because it ended up that way. Frankly, all the other items were not effective.
Bill Shanahan I think if a question were asked our response needs to be that we approached you guys.
Bill DeLoughy I think we need to put that in there. And talk about it in terms of it could be a
win, win situation. But, as I see it, it has to be something that we can’t do as a city alone. I
think it is an opportunity to contribute to the overall area, not specifically to the City of St.
Marys. I think if that’s the way we’re going to go, then it’s the way we need to approach it. A
lot of people have interest in it and not just one particular group or developer.
Bill Shanahan Based on that resolution, I think we have no choice but to have a meeting because it directed us to find a way to make this happen with no cost. If we don’t try that we have not fulfilled our obligation.
Bill DeLoughy I think we need to go to the next step but I’d like to see us work with the FAA the other way. I really got the impression when I was at meetings that the FAA would not give us the property. We told them up front. We want the property. That’s it. Plain and simple. This is a national type issue. This is an issue that comes from security bases or whatever and we don’t feel we need to pay for it. Of course, they did not give us an answer. The fact is that up until a year and a half ago, it was still on the table. I’m sure we could get a minimum of 50% or probably get it all.
Rowland Eskridge If you would get 50% you could get this group together that might be interested in having it in that area. You might get the other half.
Bill DeLoughy We could do it that way.
Jim Gilbert One of the things that led me to call Charlie to find out what was going on and whether you were still interested was that I had heard there was no time limit on the FAA approval, but there was an expiration date on the environmental approval. I was wrong about the time.
Rowland Eskridge There is.
Bill Shanahan It’s longer than we thought.
Jim Gilbert I thought it was two years.
Bill Shariahan No.
12
July 23, 2008
Jim Gilbert Although I didn’t go to the hearing, I don’t know who showed up and what was said. It would be my guess that things are getting more and more sensitive environmentally and I don’t know what it takes to meet their deadline. I was concerned about that expiring and having to start over again.
Bill Shanahan Based on the FAA, as long as we are moving forwara, we are good to go.
Bill DeLoughy I thought that maybe we had to move forward in two years to turn over the dirt.
Rowland Eskridge There is a date on that.
Jim Gilbert I think Charlie knows the date.
Rowland Eskridge Yes, he knows it.
Jim Gilbert Let me show you one other thing. The Company, from the time that me and Sea Island did the rezoning, 6 or 7 or 8 years ago, realized that if people are going to live up there they need places to buy groceries and shop. I’m sorry the Mayor of
Rowland Eskridge Burford.
Jim Gilbert Yes. We went to him and the City Manager, a lady.
Rowland Eskridge Sandy.
Jim Gilbert Was there a dentist
Bill DeLoughy Bob Baird.
Jim Gilbert There wasn’t enough to have an official called meeting but we met with them to ask if they had an adequate zoning ordinance. You don’t have a master plan. We don’t want to tell you what to put in one but if you don’t plan what’s going on, on the river. I talked to Stewart Stevens too, separately because he’s been involved with marshlands and rivers, forever. If you can get some money to do that we will contribute up to $100,000 to $120,000 of the costs. So they did, I’m not sure the status of it but I got a bill three or four weeks ago for $105,000. So it’s in our interest, there is no quid pro quo in our interest for that place, right at the door step of Cabin Bluff to be master planned.
Bill Shanahan Yes.
Jim Gilbert Same thing with the airport. It would help if we had an airport. We could go back to where we were originally and plan that extra commercial support area.
Jim Gilbert What we don’t want to do is push anybody but I think through the right kind of structure we could help if that what you want us to do.
13
JuJy 23, 2008
Bill Shanahan I think that your help with setting up ts meeting would be appreciated Jim Gilbert You want me to get a bunch of folks together who might help
Bill Shanahan Yes sir. Probably our side of that would be to make sure we had FAA representation there and maybe some of our state people like Senator Chapman.
Jim Gilbert Do you want me to wait until you tell me I don’t want to do this on our own even if it is just a meeting. Do you want to talk to any other commissioners to see if they want us to do that or do you just want me to get started I’d like to do it though you, and let you know every step of the way.
Rowland Eskridge I think that we will be able to report to our council Monday night. Tell them where we are and go from there.
Jim Gilbert Okay.
Rowland Eskridge Then we’ll try to set up a meeting with all the other city heads.
Jim Gilbert Good.
Rowland Eskridge And, tell them what we got in mind. I think that the way it needs to be done.
Bill DeLoughy & Bill Shanahan Yes.
Jim Gilbert When I get a list of names and addresses, I might get some from you too. Which is the company that bought Gilman
Rowland Eskridge That was Landmar. Crescent really.
Jim Gilbert The Proctors are another group. What’s the guy who owns all that property
Rowland Eskridge McCarthys.
Jim Gilbert We could probably come up with more.
Rowland Eskridge Gross still owns a bunch of property. Bill Smith owns a bunch too.
Jim Gilbert Okay.
Tape Ended
14
Sandy Sez;
at the request of certain environment groups we are reprinting a post first seen on August 12, 2008. In light of things going on in the back room around the county we are happy to cooperate.
Sandy Feller
“Look out wrong doers we are coming after you.”
» Filed Under Government & Politics | 1 Comment | Email This!
