Local tea party members skeptical of development plans

Published 11:42 pm Friday, August 22, 2014

Don’t take someone’s private property in the name of economic development.

That was the message several members of the Dalton Tea Party sent to Whitfield County Board of Commissioners Chairman Mike Babb Tuesday night.

Babb addressed the group, covering a number of subjects, from the county’s budget to a referendum on the November ballot that would permit the sale of alcoholic beverages on Sunday to a planned referendum next spring that would create a new special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST).

But the topic that garnered the most discussion, and the most concern, was tax allocation districts (TADs). Voters in Dalton and Whitfield County will face referendums on the November ballot that would allow those governments to create TADs.

TADs are based on the idea that development in an area will increase property values and retail sales. Local governments reserve the extra revenue they expect to get from any development to pay for infrastructure, land, buildings, public artwork or other amenities to attract a developer or developers to that area. That “extra” money does not go into general revenue.

Supporters say TADs can help turn around blighted areas by luring developers.

“I don’t think we would give the money to developers up front,” Babb said. “What we would do is tell them that we would reimburse them for certain pieces of infrastructure if they build it.”

Babb said he expects that only particular properties that a developer has an interest in would be designated as a TAD.

“Once you place something in a TAD, its property taxes are frozen. I don’t think we would want to have some three square mile area where we can’t change the taxes,” he said.

But those promises didn’t allay the concerns of some in the audience.

“Mike Babb is only one of the commissioners, and he won’t be on the commission forever,” said tea party member Harold Hoover.

Several audience members pressed Babb on eminent domain, the power of the government to take private property without the owner’s consent for the public good, expressing concern that local governments would take land for economics development.

Babb noted that local governments already have that power, and he said that he could not see the commissioners using eminent domain to take property from one owner and giving it to another.

“I’m not saying we wouldn’t use eminent domain, but I think it should be for a road or a park or something like that,” he said.

After the meeting, Babb said that if the TAD referendums on the November ballot are going to pass, supporters are going to have to overcome such concerns. Voters rejected TAD referendums three years ago.

Whitfield voters will also decide on whether to allow the Sunday sale of beer and wine in unincorporated parts of the county in November. Babb said that is also an economic development issue. He noted that Dalton as well as surrounding areas already allow such sales and that puts businesses in the county at a disadvantage. He said permitting the Sunday sale of alcohol by the drink will make it easier to attract hotels and motels and restaurants to unincorporated parts of the county.

Babb also talked about county finances. He noted that Whitfield County is one of just seven of Georgia’s 159 counties that does not have a SPLOST. That means that all of the county’s capital expenses — such as fire trucks, any new fire stations, road repairs — must come out of the general budget.

Meanwhile, he said, just 21 counties in Georgia have lower maintenance and operations property taxes than Whitfield.

That is why, he said, commissioners plan to ask voters to approve a SPLOST during a special election in March 2015.

“That will be the only item on the ballot,” he said.

Babb said commissioners are still developing a list of the projects that SPLOST would fund as well as deciding how long it will last, and producing an estimate of how much revenue it will raise.