The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office is taking issue with accusations that the sign in front of the new jail cost $750,000.
Dan Christner threw the number out there at a public hearing on the county’s proposed millage rate increase of nearly 30 percent as evidence of the waste that goes on in local government.
Christner said he got the figure from Commissioner Ann Jones Guider before the public hearing. Guider said she was just estimating.
Either way, Chief Deputy Stan Copeland isn’t happy about being dragged through the mud.
“I’ve heard this $750,000 crap,” Copeland said.
Copeland said money from the 1-cent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) was used to purchase the lot where the sign sits and erect the sign. Jennifer Hallman, the county’s finance director, said the sign sitting along Fairburn Road cost $54,720.
The land where the sign now sits was once the site of a Captain D’s restaurant. The Georgia Department of Transportation purchased it as part of the Fairburn Road widening project. Douglas County had to bid for the land and got it for $160,001, Hallman said. That’s $214,721 for the land and the sign.
Then there’s the landscaping around the sign. The BOC signed off on spending another $273,586 out of the general fund last week for sidewalks, brickwork, flowers and shrubs to make the entrance look nice.
That gets the total price of the sign and entrance up to $488,307, a tad bit less than the number Christner used in his speech last week and again in a letter to the editor in Friday’s Sentinel.
“Well, I stand corrected. Don’t I feel like a fool,” said Christner after hearing the actual cost. “It was a bargain.”
Copeland said he isn’t “trying to throw anybody under the bus” but that the first time he saw plans for the landscaping was at last week’s BOC meeting.
“The sheriff’s office and the sheriff have nothing to do with the landscaping up there,” Copeland said. “We didn’t request it. We didn’t have anything to do with the design.”
Mark Teal, the county engineer and director of development services, said a committee composed of landscape architects, commissioners and staff members looked at different ideas for the entrance over a 6-12 month period.
He said the area around the sign will be have flag poles, places to sit, about 700 feet of sidewalk, irrigation and a storm sewer.
The county’s long-term plan includes putting more government buildings adjacent to the jail site.
“It’s like a park and it has signage for the jail, 911 and possible future buildings,” said Teal.
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