Jeff Whitten, Correspondent.
As property assessments go up, Bryan County’s millage rate keeps going down.
County Commissioners adopted the rollback rate at their Sept. 10 meeting, dropping the rate from 6.665 to 5.939 mills. It’s the eighth straight year the county has rolled back its millage rate – which officials say helps provide some relief for property owners in light of rising property values.
But that was only one item on a crowded agenda resulting in a marathon meeting lasting more than two and a half hours that also saw commissioners approve emergency repairs for three roads damaged by Tropical Storm Debby in August – Harry Hagan Road, Ash Branch Road and Canterwood Drive. The combined repairs will cost in excess of $575,000.
The county has also hired GMC, a national engineering and emergency services consulting firm, to study the county’s response to the storm and help it in dealing with the Federal Emergency Management Agency as Bryan County awaits news of whether FEMA will give the county disaster funding. GMC’s hiring was announced during a lengthy presentation from Bryan County Administrator Ben Taylor on the county’s response to the storm and its coordination with various other agencies.
After Taylor detailed the county’s day-to-day operations over a more than three-week period before, during and after the storm, he recommended the hiring of a full-time director for emergency management.
Longtime first responder and division chief Brian Van Es is currently serving as the county’s interim director of emergency services in the wake of the retirement of former chief Freddy Howell.
Officials lauded Van Es’ performance during the response but Taylor said it was time to bring on a full time director “reporting directly to the commission and the county administrator, independent of Bryan County Fire and Emergency Services.”
The plan to separate the EMA director from Fire and Emergency Services was not due to poor performance by BCFES, but rather the need for “an independent entity responsible for emergency management and education in a very large, and spread out county,” Taylor said.
In all, 10 homes in Bryan County were deemed destroyed by flood waters while another 130 suffered major damage, 91 had minor damage and another 33 showed some effects of the flooding – caused early on in North Bryan by heavy rains and flooding and in Richmond Hill by flooding from both the Ogeechee and Canochee Rivers, both swollen by as much as a foot of rain.
At least six people and several pets were rescued during the storm, and as many as 70 people received help with shelter during and after the storm. An array of volunteers and the United Way and Bryan County Family Connection were among the agencies involved in aiding those impacted by Debby.
What’s more, on the night of Aug.12 and morning of Aug. 13, 89 patients were evacuated from the Bryan County Health and Rehabilitation Facility, as well as two people and a pet on Rushing Street, Taylor said.
The evacuation of the rehab facility brought a word of gratitude from resident Steve Galbreath, who at the tail end of the lengthy meeting during public comment stood up and thanked commissioner Patrick Kisgen for his help in working to get rehab facility residents evacuated.
“I know times like this there’s a lot of negative stuff said,” Galbreath said.
“There’s no way I want y’all’s job, but I want to commend those who put in the work.”
Kisgen thanked Galbreath for “waiting 2-1/2 hours to say that. There are other people in this room, staff and others, who were there all night, and many nights before, and nights after. I won’t name them, the folks in the room know who they are.”
Also speaking out was Richmond Hill resident Meredith Gibson, a realtor who is running as a write-in candidate for the chairman’s seat held by two-term incumbent Carter Infinger, who in May handily won the Republican primary.
Gibson, also serving as a volunteer coordinator for Richmond Hill’s response to Debby, said she represents residents critical of the county’s handling of the storm and asked Infinger at the meeting why the county’s leadership wasn’t better prepared.
“I just really can’t figure out how we’re not prepared. How did we not have a plan in place for what happened?” she asked.
The first person to speak during the public comment portion of the meeting was Old Cuyler Road resident Stephanie Wilson, who scolded commissioners for their lack of response to her blind husband’s complaints of speeding by work trucks on the road and the impact the building of a nearby warehouse has had on her and her husband’s quality of life – which she said has been even more limited since he was injured falling into a hole left near their mailbox by workers laying pipe to deliver water to Hyundai.
Wilson said commissioners would’ve voted the project down quickly had it been in their neighborhood. And she leveled a scathing attack on the commission as she wrapped up her remarks.
“Thanks to the decisions you have made, you have made me hate where I live,” she said, adding that she and her husband can’t sell their home.
“Nobody wants to buy a house with a warehouse across the street,” she said. “We’re just hoping somebody will give us enough to at least allow us to buy something we can afford, but would you want to live beside a warehouse? I don’t think so.”