Published: March 03, 2008 11:31 pm            

Ga. DOT official brings check, says more may be on way

Georgia transportation board chairman Mike Evans says Whitfield County voters “put your necks out there” when they approved a transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) last year.

“We are going to continue to fight to make sure you get everything you deserve, everything you expected,” he said.

Evans spoke to local officials on Monday at Dalton City Hall. He came to Dalton to present a $300,000 transportation enhancement grant check to the county to help fund sidewalks, trails and other amenities at the Tunnel Hill Battlefield Historic District and to connect the district to local residential neighborhoods.

But he also addressed some of the problems facing the Georgia Department of Transportation and how they may affect local projects.

Before voters approved the three-year SPLOST, forecast to bring in $48 million, in September, Evans and then-GDOT commissioner Harold Linnenkohl came to Dalton urging voters to support the referendum. Linnenkohl said then that communities that provide more local funding for roads and transportation projects “get a little bit more (from GDOT) than communities that do not have a sales tax.”

“We said that we would try to do up to 75 cents on the dollar, with the caveat ‘provided the money is available,’” Evans said.

Since then, GDOT officials have said there is a funding shortfall that will affect state-aid projects across the state, including Whitfield County.

“There is some hope that state aid, which is about $22 million in the hole, that by the end of this fiscal year, June 30, we might possibly be back on an even keel. If not, certainly by the end of the calendar year,” Evans said.

Asked how much matching funds the county might receive for its SPLOST, Evans said any attempt to provide a number at this point would be “just speculation.”

Whitfield County Board of Commissioners chairman Brian Anderson said talks with new GDOT commissioner Gena Abraham have gone well. She has asked local officials to confirm their transportation priorities and has promised to respond to them no later than this summer, he said.

“We believe by August we are going to get some more information on where we are going to be on some of our transportation projects,” Anderson said. “We may move some projects in and out of certain windows to meet the priority schedule the DOT needs.”

Dalton public works director Benny Dunn said GDOT has already started moving on some of the projects it had promised assistance on.

“This month they are letting (out to bids) one of our SPLOST projects — the upgrade of all the traffic signals on Walnut Avenue from Thornton Avenue all the way out to (Highway) 286,” Dunn said. “We also got resurfacing of State Route 3 from the Gordon County line to Connector 3.”

Evans said that since Abraham has taken over as GDOT commissioner, she has discovered a number of problems with the department.

“We’re wasting your money,” he admitted.

But he said Abraham had discovered many of those problems because people in the agency know she will address them.

“She’s shaking things up,” he said.

Evans said one of the biggest problems in the agency is how long it takes to complete projects, which drives up the costs. He said that Abraham has made sure that one person is now in charge of each project from beginning to end. That person, he said, can make sure that any roadblocks are overcome and can also be held responsible if they aren’t. Evans described that as a major change in the way GDOT does business.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.