County Attorney Ken Jarrard

FORSYTH COUNTY, Ga. – County Attorney Ken Jarrard delivered welcome news to the Board of Commissioners Tuesday meeting.

At the Oct. 12 meeting, County Manager Kevin Tanner proposed the idea of spending $17-$19 million of the $47 million the county will receive under the American Recovery Plan to construct targeted commercial and industrial sewer lines that could generate many times the investment in new tax revenue.

Commissioners liked the idea, but questioned whether legal safeguards could be built in that would prevent residential development from accessing the lines.

The good news Jarrard delivered is that he is working on an ordinance that will do just that.

“What we are going to do is come up with not just a policy, but an ordinance,” he said.” That will have a higher level of enforceability than just a resolution of the Board. “I think by doing it by way of ordinance, it is in our police power under the Georgia Constitution to establish that as a bona fide public policy of Forsyth County.”

Chairwoman Cindy Mills said, “This is exciting. This is the first time the county has ever done anything like this.”

When Tanner proposed the plan, he said, “We  want to do things that will have a high return in dollars on our investment and that 20 years from now, citizens of Forsyth county are going to know where their dollars went.”

At that Oct. 12 meeting,  Slade Gulledge, vice president of economic development for the Forsyth County Chamber of Commerce, said there has been a lot of interest from commercial, industrial developers in the area of Settingdown Road and Bottoms Road. “These two sites have a potential for 1.4 million square feet of industrial development. An initial analysis on that very conservatively would yield $14.3 million over a 10 year span.  If you do nothing, it will get you $600,000 over those years.”