The same county commissioners who demanded in November that McCoy be fired — Bettye Bozeman, Fred Dent and Jerry Childree — got their way Thursday in a decision hotly disputed by Commissioner Tony Hall.
Hall’s suggestion for the board, retired Cmd. Sgt. Maj. James Nelson, who in 2005 was the highest ranking enlisted member of Georgia’s 48th Infantry Brigade, was not included in the group Bozeman moved to name to the EDA board, though two of Dent’s nominees were.
“I don’t think this is fair, the way this is being done,” Hall said.
“I personally think that we had a bit of a problem down there,” Dent said. “I think it’s time to right it and I think we’ve got to appoint people who’ve got the qualifications.”
“This guy (Nelson) is more than qualified,” Hall said.
Commission Chairman Dan Miller, who sided with Hall in several previous decisions involving the EDA, said the governing authority needed to be “diversified.”
Nelson, a former Sylvester City Council member, would have been the only black member of the local government authority. The authority has no women members.
“We’re not looking at the whole picture,” Miller said.
Doerun resident Faye Brock, attending her first-ever County Commission meeting, questioned the board’s move.
“I’m in District 4, but I agree with Tony Hall on that,” said Brock, who moved to Worth from Dougherty four years ago. “Maybe they need to look at it a little more.”
Winning appointment to the EDA board 3-2 were three real estate developers well known in Worth County and a retired telephone company technician.
Dent’s nominees were Fred H. “Hal” Carter Jr. and Donnie W. Ford Jr., neither of whom could be reached for comment.
Carter and his wife, Priscilla, remodeled the historic Woolard Hotel in downtown Sylvester and the Bel-Air in Bainbridge, but have additional residential and commercial developments, including Sylvester’s newer Twin Creeks subdivision of houses, an apartment complex and a small shopping center, according to property records. He also rents two downtown properties to Georgia agencies.
Ford’s Worthmor Enterprises also enjoys a state contract, leasing the county’s Department of Family and Children Services office to the state for $128,100 annually, according to Georgia’s database of state leases, properties and assets.
Ford and his wife, Leigh Houston Ford, own LHF Inc., which since 1999 has published the Sylvester Local News, the county’s legal organ which has been critical of McCoy and the EDA. Ford and county Planning Commission Chairman Jimmy Rouse own Ford & Rouse Development Co., Ford & Rouse Properties and Empire Mercantile, named for Rouse’s father’s downtown department store. The pair, with Ford’s brother, Todd, developed Sylvester’s upscale Northlake subdivision, among several others.
While he’s not named on corporate records filed with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, Ford’s mother, Peggy, and brother are officers in Georgia Mobile Estates, the mobile home park expected to become East Albany’s first Wal-Mart.
“Hal and Donnie are two very astute businessmen,” Dent said. “Very bright and very dedicated to the county. “Donnie Ford certainly brings a lot of talent to our board.”
Bozeman’s successful nominee was local developer Mike Garvey.
Garvey, together with Worth’s longtime surveyor Roger Medders and Billie Medders, develop and finance residential real estate, primarily mobile homes.
From a single office in downtown Sylvester they run Medders Enterprises, DGM, American Sunbelt Properties, American Sunbelt Auctioneers and W&N Land Co.
“We’re in the real estate business,” Garvey said. “We manage property in about nine or 10 counties.”
With developments scattered around Bacon, Berrien, Brooks, Mitchell, Sumter, Colquitt and Turner counties, as well as Worth, the firms also show more than 200 foreclosures in Worth County manufactured housing subdivisions alone, according to property records.
Commissioner Jerry Childree’s nominee, Daniel Nesbit, brings a rare lack of real estate background to the development board.
After retiring from General Telephone in Florida, he moved to Worth County in 1995 and has done some work for BellSouth in the area, he said.
Neither Nesbit nor Garvey would speculate much about what direction the EDA’s board would take when they came aboard.
“I think it would be a little premature for me to start talking off the top of my head. I just want to do what’s right and do the best for the county,” Nesbit said.
“I guess I’ll know more next week after we have a meeting,” Garvey said. “We haven’t talked to each other and checked each other’s schedules out.”
The four new members, chosen by the three commissioners who in November demanded McCoy be fired, constitute a quorum, though the EDA’s bylaws specify only its chairman may call regular or called meetings.
Chairman Roy Sumner has expressed unwavering support for McCoy, through the county’s August decision to deny the EDA a millage rate increase to 2 mills to issue bonds and fund a new industrial park, and a November county decision to refuse peanut butter maker ConAgra a tax abatement.
The latest and most coherent in a long series of commentary printed in the Sylvester Local News was a lengthy letter, stating it was paid for by Dent, in which he outlines his opposition to the EDA’s proposal to build an industrial park on U.S. 82 West.
“When they brought it to us, it was to fund a 460-acre industrial park costing $12-15 million,” he said. “Twelve million dollars at 15 years (the maturity date for the proposed bond issue) is $1.7 million something a year dollars.
“That’s a lot of money for a small county. If they (an industry prospect) come in, it wouldn’t begin to pay for it (with a millage rate of 2 mills) and if they didn’t come in then you’ve got (debt service) of nearly $1.8 million, when the total amount of ad valorem taxes (Worth County) takes in is a little over $4 million.”
The named prospect, Georgia Alternative Energy Cooperative, recently announced a site in Turner County as its choice for an ethanol plant.
Legislation authorizing the Worth County Industrial Development Authority was approved by the Georgia Legislature in 1966. Its purpose: to buy land, make loans, issue bonds, enter contracts and perform other activities “to encourage and promote the expansion and development of industry, agriculture traded commerce,” among other things. Its members “shall receive no compensation for their service. In 1997, the board voted to change its name to the EDA to reflect a “broader perspective,” McCoy said.
The EDA hired the first of its four directors, Charles Sims, during the 1990s, he added.
The EDA contracts with one local entity, the Sylvester-Worth County Chamber of Commerce, to which it pays $45,000 annually to provide support for local businesses and promote the area, he said.
While there have been many harsh words exchanged, the new appointments don’t guarantee McCoy’s dismissal, nor has he resigned.
“Can’t say that,” Dent said. “I can’t say what they’ll do or not do.”