Members of the public, officials from Whitfield County, Dalton, other cities discuss possible SPLOST projects at open house

Published 11:22 pm Thursday, August 16, 2018

Dalton Mayor Dennis Mock pointed around the meeting room at the Mack Gaston Community Center.

“I think you can see we’ve done some pretty good stuff with it,” he said, pointing to photos of projects funded by the 1 percent 2015 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST). “We are proud of what we’ve done.”

The current four-year SPLOST expires June 30, 2019. It is projected to collect $64 million. The Whitfield County Board of Commissioners is talking about a six-year SPLOST which would be expected to bring in $100 million.

Thursday night, commissioners and officials from Dalton, Cohutta, Tunnel Hill and Varnell gathered at the community center to show off what they’ve done with the current SPLOST and to seek the public’s input on what they’d like to see funded with a future SPLOST.

The current SPLOST funded a new emergency radio system for first responders, new firetrucks for both the Dalton and Whitfield fire departments, and the park that is set to open next month at the Haig Mill reservoir, among other projects.

Dalton resident Kathryn Sellers came out to suggest a couple of projects for SPLOST funding.

“I’d like to see us finish the work on the Crescent City train car and to landscape the two major exits off I-75 into Dalton. They don’t look nice, and we need to give people coming into Dalton a good first look at the city,” she said.

Built in 1949, the Crescent City was originally a luxury passenger car for Southern Railway’s Southern Crescent passenger service that ran from New York City to New Orleans. After passenger service ended in the early 1970s, the car was brought to Dalton and used for many years as office space. Jonathan Caylor and Mark Hannah donated it to the city in 2011 and later that year it was moved to its current location next to the freight depot at 305 S. Depot St.

The city of Dalton has put more than $274,259 in cash and in-kind services into the train car. But it still isn’t open to the public because it has no floor.

Southeast Whitfield High School students Rafael Avila and Ronnie Walker came to the meeting to find out about the SPLOST to help meet the requirements of a leadership class at the school.

Avila said he was interested in finding out about the park at Haig Mill reservoir because he attends St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, which is next to the park.

The current SPLOST helped fund a new roof at the Dalton-Whitfield County Public Library, and Darla Chambliss, director of the Northwest Georgia Regional Library System, was at the meeting to make a pitch for work that could be done at the library with a future SPLOST.

“We want to extend the library to have more room. It would be on that side area where those bushes are now,” she said. “We feel it would be a better use of that space.”

She said library officials are also interested in a walking trail around the library and possibly around the Dalton-Whitfield Senior Center, which is next door. She said that could conceivably be connected to the Creative Arts Guild, which is across the street.

Chambliss said the library can obtain state funding to match any SPLOST funding, so those dollars would go further.

Mayors of the county’s smaller cities were on hand. They said they and their councils have been talking about projects they would fund with their share of any SPLOST but haven’t made any firm plans.

“The majority of our money would go to expand sewer,” said Tunnel Hill Mayor Ken Gowin. “We have three or four areas we’d like to take sewers to. That’s our main priority. Our next priority would be sidewalks. Our park is very well used, but we’d like to make it more accessible to our citizens, and sidewalks to it could help. And finally, we’d like to be able to get a couple of new vehicles for our police department.”

Cohutta Mayor Ron Shinnick said his council is contemplating improvements at the town’s park.

“Some bathrooms would be nice,” he said. “We’d like to put some funding into Andrews Chapel, the historic African-American church. We could match that with some grants and get that on the National Register of Historic Places.”

Whitfield County Board of Commissioners Chairman Lynn Laughter said commissioners are discussing a new administrative building. She noted that Administrative Building 2, where commissioners meet, isn’t handicapped accessible and has serious plumbing issues. Built in the 1940s, the county bought it more than a decade ago as a temporary home for court while the courthouse was being expanded.

“That building, in my opinion, needs to go,” she said.

Mock said the city of Dalton is “looking at doing a bit of the same” as it did with the current SPLOST.

“We’ve got bridges. We’ve got roads. We’ve got infrastructure that needs to be taken care of,” he said.

He said city officials are also looking at buying new vehicles for the police department and fire department and public works.

“We’ve got some old garbage trucks. We’ve got some very old dump trucks,” he said.

Officials plan to finalize the list of projects that would be funded by the SPLOST this fall and place a referendum on the ballot in March 2019.