Wednesday, April 13,2022
dawsonnews.com I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I 3A
Board of Commissioners talks library, IT upgrades
By Julia Fechter
jfechter@dawsonnews.com
The Board of Commissioners
took the next step in planning for
future upgrades to the Dawson
County Library during their
April 7 meetings.
Board members voted 4-0 for
the county to commit to the 10
percent portion of a “90-10” cap
ital outlay grant, a critical step in
the library’s process for securing
state funding.
Chestatee Regional Library
System Director Leslie Clark
shared a preliminary estimate of
$671,000 for renovation and con
struction costs, of which the
county’s obligations would be
about $67,100.
Once the library system gets a
commitment letter from the
county, they can work toward
getting on the capital projects
list, which is updated during each
state legislative session, Clark
said.
While CRLS would most like
ly start at the bottom of the list,
they could work their way up
faster with a mix of support from
the community, state legislators
and a letter-writing campaign.
The library system’s first
opportunity to fund the updates
would be in fiscal year 2024, or
next July.
“With an active county board,
library and regional board, I
think we can move this project
faster, especially since it’s [just]
10 percent, and we’d like to be
able to do the [room dedication]
fundraising we mentioned at our
last meeting,” Clark added.
District 2 Commissioner Chris
Gaines wanted to clarify the defi
nition of impact fees and what
projects qualify for those monies.
“If the library is working to
expand or improve service deliv
ery to be able to facilitate more
people using services, [it] may
qualify for impact fees,” he said.
Chairman Billy Thurmond
didn’t think the library upgrades
would fall under impact fees,
since the Dawson County loca
tion won’t be expanding its foot
print. So, the board deferred to
county attorneys to study the
matter and come back to them
with an answer.
Vice chairman and District 4
Commissioner Emory Dooley
reminded his colleagues that the
earliest they’d be able to move
forward on the updates would be
spring next year, so they have
time to collect more information.
However, he cautioned against
waiting too long, should project
ed project costs increase.
IT upgrades OK'd
The BOC also voted 4-0 in
favor of a much-needed email
system upgrade that IT Director
Herman Thompson said would
bring the county’s email system
“into the 21st century.”
With the affirmative vote, he
and his staff will be able to tran
sition the older email system
from being hosted locally to
being hosted in Microsoft’s
Office 365 / Microsoft 365.
The upgrade will happen
across county departments,
including the Dawson County
Sheriff’s Office and almost all of
the government’s 500 full-time
and part-time employees.
Currently, emails account for
about 65 percent of all employee
communications, Thompson said.
The approval follows the coun
ty’s Microsoft Exchange server’s
multiple downtimes, open
records requests delays and a
looming end-of-life date for the
server, meaning it wouldn’t
receive new security updates
after 2025.
A more routine upgrade would
not help the county, Thompson
said, explaining he and his staff
have already tried implementing
smaller fixes, to no avail.
The project was initially
planned for 2023, but Thompson
explained the timeline’s been
moved up because of all the
issues they’ve been having.
With this project’s implemen
tation, the email server will no
longer be housed inside the
Dawson County Government
Center. County email users will
receive a 50-gigabyte mailbox;
spam control and virus protec
tion; Microsoft Teams access;
one terabyte of storage on
Microsoft OneDrive; and full,
regularly-updated versions of
'This upgrade, except
for the work that the
IT department did
after the 2018 hack, is
probably the largest
upgrade that the IT
department in
Dawson County has
ever done because it
affects every single
user. Now that we
have additional staff,
we can actually
make this happen.'
Herman Thompson
County IT director
Word, Excel, PowerPoint and
Outlook.
The cost is $44,750 for each of
the next two years, starting from
the date of implementation.
As part of this larger change,
the county will also be changing
its domain name to be dawson-
countyga.gov to promote
increased trust among citizens,
Thompson said, adding that any
one can go online and buy a
“.org” domain.
The county will still retain the
old domain, and employees with
“.org” emails will automatically
have their emails forwarded to
the new “.gov” accounts.
New emails will be created for
employees in stages by depart
ment.
“This upgrade, except for the
work that the IT department did
after the 2018 hack, is probably
the largest upgrade that the IT
department in Dawson County
has ever done because it affects
every single user,” Thompson
said. “Now that we have addi
tional staff, we can actually make
this happen.”
Gaines asked whether the
email changeover would be cum
bersome if IT had to create a
completely new pathway to
access Outlook emails and calen
dars.
Thompson clarified that it
should be easier to set up new
accounts and have messages
from the old accounts forwarded,
rather than importing the old
accounts.
Dooley commented that the
server and email changeover was
something the county “has to
do,” given the worsening tech
issues Thompson described.
“People can’t get their work
done on time,” District 1
Commissioner Sharon Fausett
said.
“One of our big things is pro
ductivity and looking for any
ways that we can help with that,”
Thompson added. “If county
staff aren’t working, that’s an
issue, and we don’t want the
issue to be with IT.”
Bathroom bid denied
The BOC also denied a pro
posed bid of $169,883 for a new
bathroom next to Rock Creek
Park’s popular splash pad.
If approved, the bathroom
would have been funded with
$129,374 from SPLOST VI
funds and $40,509 from impact
fee funds.
Gaines made the motion for the
bid to be denied and to allow staff
to proceed with looking at other
opportunities to facilitate putting
a bathroom there
“The timing’s not efficient for
using taxpayer money in an effi
cient manner,” he said. “If it was
my personal taxpayer dollars,
there’s no way I would support
this.”
He recommended staff look at
rebidding or table the project
until economic winds shift and
construction costs are in a differ
ent, more favorable position, and
Thurmond agreed, suggesting
looking at a portable bathroom
option.
Commissioners also looked at
a proposed city annexation of a
three-acre area along Cleve
Wright Road. Since they aren’t
objecting to the measure, they
didn’t have to vote on it.
Both County Manager David
Headley and Planning Director
Sharon Farrell said this was a
small residential parcel surround
ed by city land, and its annexa
tion wouldn’t create an island.
Rather, it is “kind of its own
enclave now,” Farrell added.
Dooley was in agreement with
the proposal “as long as it meets
the criteria for annexation.”
Gaines asked planning and
legal staff if they’d done their due
diligence in ensuring the county
would have no potential issues
with it.
County Attorneys Jeff
Strickland and Angela Davis
reminded the board that for the
annexation process, the county
has a limited amount of time, 30
calendar days, to raise an objec
tion and file a response. The
county received the document on
March 16, and it was dated
March 14.
“At the macro level, we need to
make sure we’re looking at any
annexation because as we all
know, annexations can potentially
create more service delivery on
the county’s behalf without us
having any say-so,” Gaines said.
“We need to very seriously take
every annexation that comes
before us and moving forward,
we need to take a deeper dive.”
Strickland said that the county
would only have a week to pro
vide a response but suggested the
option of a county attorney work
ing with staff to do a further
review.
“We were talking about wast
ing money earlier,” District 3
Commissioner Tim Satterfield
said. “This would be a waste of
money we can’t do anything
about, and we’re going to spend
money looking into [it] with sev
eral hours of attorneys’ fees and
have the same results.”
Satterfield added he could dis
agree with the idea of the annexa
tion but given the particulars,
there’s “nothing to be done about
it.”
Gaines elaborated that three
acres can make a difference in
allowing bigger developments or
businesses to happen or not.
“We have to cross our t’s and
dot our i’s with annexations mov
ing forward because it’s a long
term cost on the county regard
less of what happens,” he said.
Cumming man pleads guilty to
crimes committed during car chase
By Julia Fechter
jfechter@dawsonnews.com
The defendant who took
local law enforcement on a
high-speed chase almost
two years ago in Dawson
County was recently sen
tenced in court.
During an April 1 hear
ing, Joshua Warren Bush,
32, of Cumming pleaded
guilty to felony possession
of methamphetamine, pos
session of a drug-related
object and obstruction of
law enforcement.
His punishment for the
first count is three years of
probation, and the shorter
one-year punishments for
the two latter counts will
run concurrent with that
sentence.
In July 2020, Bush
unsuccessfully tried to
evade officers by driving
his Toyota Camry at speeds
of almost 100 miles per
hour. The chase ended on
NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING
The City of Dawsonville hereby gives notice that a public meeting will be held on
Thursday, April 21, 2022 at 1:00 p.m. at Dawsonville City Hall, 415 Highway 53
East, Suite 100, Dawsonville, Georgia 30534.
The purpose of the public meeting is to:
1. Inform the public of the need for improvements to the City’s wastewater
system;
2. To comply with section 391-3-6-02 of Georgias Water Quality Control
Rules and Regulations (and amendments there to);
3. To encourage public involvement in the development of a plan to improve
the sewerage system;
4. To discuss the Environmental Information Document for the proposed
improvements.
During the public meeting the City will attempt to identify public preferences for
alternative methods of improving the City’s wastewater treatment capacity. These
alternatives will be evaluated and included in the City’s Environmental Informa
tion Document.
Public participation is considered essential to the selection and development of
the final plan to be adopted prior to its approval by the State of Georgia, Depart
ment of Natural Resources.
This document is available for public inspection at the at the City of Dawsonville
offices located at 415 Highway 53 East, Suite 100, Dawsonville, Georgia 30534 or
at the office of Turnipseed Engineers, 2255 Cumberland Parkway, Building 400,
Atlanta, Georgia, 30339. The City will receive comments through April 21, 2022.
For additional information contact the City of Dawsonville at 706-265-3256.
DCN file photo
Joshua Warren Bush will serve three years of pro
bation after pleading guilty to three charges stem
ming from a 2020 car chase.
Burt Creek Road, near
Shoal Creek Road. Bush
ran from the car and fled
into the woods before later
being caught.
Back in 2017, Bush was
arrested by authorities in
Forsyth County for leading
them on a high-speed chase
in his black Mustang. His
car almost hit a father driv
ing his family in a van
before law enforcement
deployed a spike strip and
PIT maneuver to stop the
fleeing vehicle.
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