Commissioners agree to refinancing agreement on Persimmon building
By SPARKY NEWSOME editor

An unusually short meeting, even for the Wilkes County Board of Commissioners, saw only one item of business acted upon and after the regular reports from various departments were presented, only 13 minutes had elapsed when the meeting was adjourned.

That one item of business involved the refinancing of the Persimmon Homes (formerly Concord) building off of Lexington Avenue. An intergovernmental agreement with the City of Washington provides that the county and city equally share responsibility as guarantors and that the property would come more directly under the control of the Payroll Development Authority.

For a number of years, since the $1.1 million deal began, the Municipal Electric Association of Georgia (MEAG) had been the lender. Under the new agreement, Farmers State Bank will become the lender in the refinancing arrangement at an interest rate (2.75 percent) which is virtually half the previous rate.

"We're changing from MEAG to a local lender who is giving us an alltime great interest rate," County Attorney Charles LeGette explained. "It is just a straight up, better rate, good deal - scout's honor," he said. "It is an opportunity for us to cut our costs, get the interest rate down, and get the property in the hands of the Development Authority where it needs to be."

The building is currently in use as a storage facility by Pliant Corpora- tion of Washington. There are no plans to change that arrangement. The City of Washington approved the new financing agreement at its regular monthly meeting on March 10.

Commissioners Divenski Lee, Donna Hardy, Jerry Stover, and Chairman Sam Moore were in attendance at the short meeting which was held Thursday, March 13, beginning at 7 p.m. Also attending were County Administrator David Tyler, LeGette, and a number of department heads and visitors.

In other business: l Tyler reported that Local Option Sales Tax had been received in the amount of $63,876.47 for the month of December and that $97,694.02 in Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax had been received for the same month.

l Moore reported that bidding is out for the resurfacing of the Metasville Road all the way to the crossroads at Metasville. He pointed out that the state's Local Assistance Road Program (LARP) is responsible for 2.1 miles of the project and the county will provide the remainder. The bidding calls for the whole project to be done together in order to get the best price, Moore explained.

l EMS Director Blake Thompson reported that there was a "pretty good sized crowd" at Aonia Pass for the GNCC races over the weekend. "We treated 19 and brought in four," he said, adding that another large crowd was expected for the coming weekend.

l Tourism Director Ashley Barnett reported that a new billboard on I-20 near exit 154 is expected to bring more visitors to Wilkes County as are new advertisements running in the current issues of Southern Living and Southern Distinction magazines. She also announced the unveiling of the new Washington- Wilkes website scheduled for this Friday, March 21, and she reminded the commissioners that Augusta television's Channel 6 will begin its new "Your Hometown" series with a live broadcast from The Square on March 28.

The next regular meeting of the Wilkes County Board of Commissioners will be held on April 10, 2008, at 2 p.m. with a work session just before beginning at 1:30 p.m.

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