About Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 20, 2019)
Wednesday, February 20,2019 dawsonnews.com I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I 5A FROM 1A Nix Dawson County’s inter ests,” the resolution reads. The resolution also notes that if Nix continues the practice of breaching attorney-client privilege and the executive session privilege, the board would be left with no choice but to take legal action against her. Nix said Tuesday that she accepts responsibility for her actions. “I made inadvertent mistakes and have already apologized to the board, and they wanted to take it before the citizens.” Nix said. “I apologize to the citizens and all of my sup porters.” Commission Chairman Billy Thurmond had no comment on Tuesday. Previously, Headley had sent Yarbrough a for mal review of her perfor mance in the HR director role on Jan. 18, in which he consistently marked her performance as “below expec tations” and “unsatisfactory,” particularly in regard to how she handled sensitive or confidential information. “Discretion is not maintained and there are times that information makes its way to selected commissioners on sensi tive personnel issues,” he wrote. “I have counselled Ms. Yarbrough and other senior staff members on these issues, and remind ed her and them to follow appropriate channels of communication and the chain of command as required by county policy and by the county manag er form of government in which we function.” He also wrote that Yarbrough “needs to comply with county poli cy that prohibits disclo sure of information with out specific approval.” Along with issuing his evaluation, Headley required Yarbrough and other members of the human resources depart ment to sign a confidenti ality agreement, which Yarbrough eventually signed Jan. 31 after con sulting with a lawyer. Yarbrough however refused to sign the evalua tion, and sent Headley a response on Jan. 28 in which she said many of his statements were false and inaccurate. She asked him to provide examples of a time she had dis closed sensitive informa tion, violated the chain of command or did not respect the county manag er form of government, among other issues. “You also mentioned that you have counselled me on discretion and the chain-of-command,” Yarbrough wrote. “That is completely false and has never occurred. I do not consider a blanket state ment made at a senior staff meeting that ‘If you talk to a commis sioner, make sure you tell me’ a form of counsel ing.” She also said in her response that Headley’s evaluation read as a “personal attack on her character” and said she hoped he would “reconsider the harshness of the evalua tion,” as well as ques tioned the timing of the review, which she said was due in September. According to the termi nation letter, Headley was reviewing Yarbrough’s emails to provide more information on the disput ed claims made in her evaluation when he dis covered that the commis sioner, now identified as Nix, had sent Yarbrough confidential documents as well as communications marked “attorney-client privileged” concerning Yarbrough herself. “While your receipt of such materials at any time would be disturbing, importantly, some of these private, confidential, privileged communica tions were received by you as recently as after you received your evalua tion, provided your rebut- tal and signed the Confidentiality Agreement,” he wrote. He cited the employee handbook in regard to “Acts of Dishonesty” and “Gross Insubordination” as sufficient grounds for termination. Headley marked in Yarbrough’s personnel file that she is not eligible for rehire at the county. “It is an unfortunate sit uation, however, as this is still an ongoing personnel matter, we do not have any further comment at this time,” Headley said in a statement Tuesday. Yarbrough’s personnel file also contains evalua tions from former county managers and commis sioners, all of which were favorable. Yarbrough said Tuesday that she has sought legal counsel and appealed her termination. Yarbrough had been employed by the county since 1999, when she became a 911 dispatcher for the sheriff’s office. A year later she was pro moted to administrative assistant for then Maj. Kevin Tanner and was responsible for human resources and accounts payable for the sheriff. After Tanner was named county manager in 2009, Yarbrough became his administrative assis tant. Yarbrough was appointed to the position of county clerk in December 2011 and still served as executive assis tant to county manager until she became head of human resources in 2014. She turned over her clerk duties to Kristen Cloud in January 2018. Headley FROM 1A Chamber and services. The services that benefit from the fees include libraries, parks and recreation, roads and public safety. All service categories will receive money from the fees collected on residential develop ments, but only roads and public safety will see fees from commercial buildings as well. Moore asked the board to consider reducing the percentage of maximum allowed impact fees in the roads and public safety categories to 25 percent, because those are the only two categories that apply to commercial entities. The board voted 3-1 Aug. 16 to impose the fees at the maximum possible amount allowed by law, and the board has the ability to change the percentage they charge at any time. Chairman Billy Thurmond said he had asked Moore as well as Director of Economic Development Betsy McGriff to come to the meeting and speak to the effect they had seen on businesses since the fees were imposed. Of the over $500,000 in fees collected since August, Moore said so far only $73,000 has been commercial impact fees, with Olive Garden and Wendy’s making up the majority of those fees. Moore said reducing the fees would increase competitiveness in attracting target industries that pay higher wages for citizens. “Our concern was not that the commercial impact fees would hurt the large businesses, the Olive Gardens of the world, they are used to impact fees. But it could really hurt some of our attempts to attract some other organiza tions that we really want in our community,” she said. Moore gave examples of businesses that the county missed out on or may end up missing out on because of the fees. “A large fitness center was considering building a new center here in Dawson County ... their impact fee would have been $51,000,” she said. “The moment they found out about that fee they changed their mind.” District 1 Commissioner Sharon Fausett asked what the tap fee would have been from the Etowah Water and Sewer Authority for the business. “We’re nothing compared to that,” Fausett said. She also said that she didn’t think it was fair to only blame the impact fees for the business deciding not to build in Dawson, and District 4 Commissioner Julie Hughes Nix agreed. “I understand where you’re coming from, but in this particular case it was the $51,000 impact fee,” Moore said. “People assume that they are going to have to pay water and tap fees the same way they assume they are going to have to pay property tax.” Moore said that in this case Dawson County lost out on significantly increased property tax revenue, as well as additional jobs, sales tax revenue and additional options for citizens to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Another example Moore presented was a manufacturing company already in the county that wanted to expand. The $109,000 in impact fees the company would have to pay could negatively impact their decision. Moore said the land for the proposed expansion is zoned residential agricultural and brings in $335 per acre in property tax, where as if the manufacturer expanded, the county could expect around $2,500 per acre in prop erty tax, an increase of more than $50,000 per year. “We’re also talking about an additional at minimum of 50 net new jobs, and y’all are aware that manufacturing provides a wage that is well above the average wage in Dawson County,” she said. The third example was John Megel Chevrolet, which Moore said had recently halted plans to build a used car facility because of the fees. The fee would have been around $10,000. “This may seem like much,” Moore said. “But it is an additional fee that honestly seems like a punishment to a business that has been actively investing in our community for years.” Moore also said the reduction would bring Dawson County more in line with its neigh bors that do impose impact fees. Of the coun ties that touch Dawson, Lumpkin, Pickens, Fannin and Gilmer counties do not impose impact fees, but Cherokee, Forsyth and Hall counties as well as the city of Gainesville do. She also said the reduction would increase opportunity to create a more balanced proper ty digest, as out of the property taxes Dawson County collected in 2018, 66 percent of those were collected for residential property. In conclusion Moore said that the county only has about zero percent, or 70 acres, of industrial property. “I know that that has been something that I’ve heard our commissioners are really inter ested in us pursuing those types of businesses, and unfortunately right now impact fees really impede us from doing that work,” she said. District 2 Commissioner Chris Gaines, who voted against the impact fees in 2018, said that with the new hospital going in on Ga. 400 in Lumpkin County, Dawson has a great oppor tunity to attract medical office space that would be ancillary to that hospital, which would diversify the type of business and jobs in the county. “We might not control what Etowah Water does, they have their own board, but we do control this,” Gaines said. “I think we need to take a good look at this and make sure we don’t miss out on some high-paying medical jobs that can revolve around the hospital that’s coming- that’s new news since we visited this before.” The board could vote to reduce the impact fees at the Feb. 21 voting session, which begins at 6 p.m. Dr. Larry Anderson is proud to serve the Dawsonville community as your neighborhood doctor. Our friendly, experienced staff provides excellent care in a friendly, caring and professional environment, and serves each patient with the time and attention they need. We accept most insurance plans, including: • Aetna • Blue Cross Blue Shield • Cigna • Coventry • Humana • Medicare Call (706) 265-1335 to schedule an appointment today. 81 Northside Dawson Drive, Suite 205 Dawsonville, GA 30534 andersonfamilymedicine.com NORTHSIDE HOSPITAL TOWN HALL MEETING Cordially invites you to attend a Town Hall Meeting On Saturday March 2, 2019 at 9am. The meeting will be held at the Law Enforcement Center located at 19 Tucker Avenue. V A
