Newspaper Page Text
f —lie Houston Home Journal -n
HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL TMURS., JUNE 6, 1974,
Nominated For Top Award
Perry Realtors Sell
$10.5 Million In ’73
Richard Goodroe, president
of the Perry Board of
Realtors, announced today
figures just released reveal
that realtors in Perry sold ten
and one half million dollars
worth of real estate in the year
1973.
The local board was one of
three nominated in 1973 as one
of the most outstanding
boards in Georgia. The Perry
Board of Realtors was
organized six years ago by
Malcolm Reese, president of
Security Federal Savings and
Loan Association of Middle
Georgia and a former Perry
real estate agent. Mrs. Betty
Day, now of Washington, D C.
The board presently has 43
members including local
realtors and associate
members from a number of
banking and lending in
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Crossroads CB’ers Help Out
Members of the Crossroads Citizens Band Radio Club of Perry operated a
safety break stand for tourists over the recent Memorial Day weekend. More
than 5.000 tourists signed the register and stopped in Perry for free coffee and
cokes offered by the club Club officers are Jimmy Taylor, president; Garrett
Nelson, vice pres.; Charles Collins, secretary and Harold Hackney, treasurer.
$1.02 Million Selling Price
County-Wamer Robins Land '
Sale Helps Tax Pocketbooks
Houston County and the City of Warner Robins
have sold 575 acres owned jointly by the two
governments for $1.02 million. Purchasing the
four parcels of land for speculative investment
purposes were: Joe Wall. Gene Wall, Glynn
Greenway, Claude Hattaway, and Lynette
Peacock.
The land includes: 483 acres south of Warner
Robins Air Logistics Center, 21 acres on Watson
Boulevard, 34 acres on Highway 247 near the
Warner Robins Industrial Park, and 36.78 acres at
the corner of Green Street and North Davis Drive
in Warner Robins.
The land was obtained in a now-famous "land
swap” between the two governments and Warner
Robins Air Materiel Area (WRAMA) about
eighteen months ago. County Clerk Sonny Watson
gave details on the land-swap. He said, "The deal
was made primarily to give WRAMA room for
expansion. As it was, they were boxed in on the
north by a subdivision, on the west by Highway
247, and on the south by a river and swamp.”
"So south wa’s the only direction open to them,"
stitutions in the area.
Past presidents of the board
include Glen VanFossen,
Herbert Moore, Dewey
Cloud Named City
Water-Sewage Chief
Perry City Council voted
Tuesday night to name City
Building Inspector MM
Cloud as head of the City's
water and sewage treatment
plants, along with his duties as
head of the building inspection
dept.
PAGE 2-A
Whiddon and Mrs. Sara
Tabor They hold monthly
meetings at the New Perry
Hotel and Houston Lake
Country Club.
The recommendation was
made by Councilman Henry
Casey who also recommended
a raise in salary for Cloud of
$2,340 annually to compensate
him for the extra duties.
Councilman D.K Houghton
voted against the measure.
Watson related. The county and city acquired
1,324.96 acres and in the exchange WRAMA
received all except 482.9 acres of that amount.
Watson continued, “We paid $467,000 as our half
of the 1,324 acres. So did Warner Robins. For that
nine hundred thousand dollars we had the 482
acres left. The two agencies got in return from
WRAMA - the 36 acre tract, the 34 acre tract, and
the 21 acre tract.”
Twelve acres of the 1,324 acres were deeded to
the state highway department to be used for part
of interchanges as a traffic clover leaf where
Richard B. Russell Parkway will intersect with
Highway 247 and Robins AFB. Watson com
mented, "Even if there had been no land swap, we
would still have had to acquire that land.”
According to terms of the contract, revealed at
Tuesday’s County Commission meeting in Perry,
the 575 acres sold for one million and twenty
thousand dollars. Forty thousand dollars was paid
down on the property, with $980,000 evidenced by a
mortgage from the purchasers, bearing no in
terest, payable on or before December 31 of this
President Richard Goodroe
said, “The Perry Board of
Realtors is willing and able to
help Perry in any way we
can.”
Council also voted to pay
Cloud $125 a month from last
December through June of
this year for the duties he
assumed in December when
former water and sewage
plant supt. A1 Meens resigned.
Houghton also voted against
this measure.
Councilman Casey pointed
out that the City will now hire
another building inspector to
work under Cloud in order to
meet specifications of the
Dept, of Housing and Urban
Development.
Cloud begins his official
duties of heading the three
departments July 1.
Braves Beat
Yankees 21-12
In opening game activity of
the Pee Wee League Monday
night at Ochlahatchee ball
park, the Braves beat the
Yankees 21-12. Coach Gary
Bishop's Braves were paced
by Randy Yelverton, who
played an outstanding game
at shortstop, and provided
several key hits.
Also for the Braves, John
Bishop hit a home run in his
first at bat. David Thames and
Chip Langston also played
well. Standouts for the losing
Yanks were third baseman
Tim Arrington, Randall
Buice, and Cha-Cha Wilson.
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i * ££!&£ *1 SJkA.* _jft P WON T EIIVATION
The above drawing shows the proposed County
Complex, originally almost a certainty to be built
at the southwestern tip of Warner Robins. At the
left is the State Court building, already approved
by the County Commission. At right is the “offices
annex’’ building, to have provided Warner Robins
office space for several county offices. Now this
Referendum Doubtful?
Petition Drive May*
Be Slowing Down
That drive in Warner
Robins, originated last week
to get signatures on a petition
for a referendum to move the
county seat to Warner Robins
has apparently slowed down.
Reports indicate that the first
“spurt” of signatures was
heavy, but that public support
of the referendum call seems
to be dwindling.
The apparent ebb of petition
signatures is partially at
tributed to the realization by
the Warner Robins residents
that a county seat shift to “the
International City” could cost
taxpayers up to fifteen million
dollars in new construction.
The petitions, never publicly
endorsed as having been
originated by any one person,
apparently sprung up in
Warner Robins to counter a
threatened suit in Perry to
year.
County Attorney Walker Burke and Com
missioner Charles Carter said after Tuesday’s
meeting that the 1.02 million dollars will enable
the county and City of Warner Robins to ‘‘pay off
our loans, with the interest, pay advertising fees,
and all other costs, and still have a small profit.”
Attorney Burke said that “the county taxpayers
benefited 200 percent by the deal.” He reasoned
that Warner Robins AFB needed the land, and
would have obtained it anyway. Through the
landswap, Burke observed that the land was
saved from having to be bought, added to which
the entire 575 acres, valued at 1.02 million dollars
“as is” goes immediately on the county tax books.
Heretofore, the land was not on the books since it
was owned by the governments.
Burke added, “Os course, as those properties
are improved, through building of businesses, or
apartments, or whatever, their property values
will increase. As it increases, so does the tax
digest.” Burke didn’t say it, but he insinuated that
the addition of the property to tax roles saved
Complex Plans Derailed? *
“restore all county offices to
the county seat, Perry”. A
group of Perryans are
allegedly still contemplating
filing the suit.
The proposed suit would ask
courts to determine the
legality of the County Com
mission and county depart
ments maintaining offices
away from the county seat. It
would also supposedly halt the
construction of a two million
dollar state court building in
Warner Robins (which would
contain county juvenile offices
and county sheriff’s depart
ment offices).
In order for a referendum to
be called to move the county
seat, forty percent of the
county’s registered voters
must sign a petition calling for
the election. In Houston
County there are presently
complex appears “to have been the straw that
broke the camel’s back’’ as it has focalized efforts
to draw up a legal suit by Perryans to have all
county offices returned to Perry. As a result, a
petition was begun in Warner Robins to set up a
referendum to vote to move the county seat to the
“International City”.
22,970 registered voters, so
approximately 9,100
signatures are required on the
petition.
In the actual referendum,
two-thirds (66 2 / 3 percent) of
the voters voting in the
election must vote for moving
the county seat for the motion
to win. If that was done, the
Houston County legislative
delegation then would have to
introduce a bill in the next
session of the Georgia General
Assembly calling for the
moving of the county seat.
Houston Home Journal
editor Bobby Branch, in an
editorial opinion in last week’s
HHJ, called for the vote. He
said “Politicians and others in
Warner Robins have long held
the threat of moving the
County Seat over the heads of
us in the Perry and southern
other property from paying higher taxes.
This idea is probably sound. County budgets are
set up and totaled without regard to tax digests.
Then a millage rate is set up of a sufficient nature
to cover the county budgeted figures. So a million
dollars added to the tax digest does save other
property owners in tax bites.
Several days ago the County Commissioners
made the City of Warner Robins their “sales
agents” to try to locate prospective purchasers
The properties had been advertised in the Houston
Home Journal, the Warner Robins Sun, the Macon
lelegraph, the Atlanta Constitution, and the Wall
Street Journal in attempts to sell it. But. in the
final analysis, it sold to Warner Robins resident?®
The Commission and City of Warner Robins had
several offers for one or more of the four tracts of
land, but preferred to sell them all at one time
Charles Carter, speaking for his fellow com
mission, said, “We didn’t want to get into the real
estate business. That’s why we sold it like we did
all at one time.” ’
portion of Houston County.
They have dangled this like a
carrot in front of a mule and
reminded us constantly that if
we did not do as we are told we
might lose the courthouse.”
Branch said that one
“glaring item not pointed out
to the people of
Robins is the cost to all of us
taxpayers in Houston County
if the County Seat ois
designated to be in some
location other than Perry.
Would it be $lO million?
Perhaps sls million or maybe
even more? Could the County
finance that project without a
very substantial increase in
ad valorem taxes?...”
Branch’s editorial was
reported as a news story in the
Thursday, May 30, 1974,
edition of a Warner Robins
newspaper.