Union County School Property Is One Step Closer to Becoming A Part of the City

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Union County Commissioner Lamar Paris approved the City of Blairsville’s request to annex county property around the Union County School System totaling 86.12 acres. Commissioner Paris states, “The school system has its own police force. The city is the authorizing agency and has requested that we allow them to annex property from the county to the city for the city maintaining property and potential road extension to city limits to and including all the Union County School system property. Other than the actual school property that is located within the county, the only property owned by the county is being included in this annex sanction and will allow the school officers to patrol county facilities. This is the property where the health department is currently located and we will eventually be building the double gymnasium on that property. So that will be included in property across the highway in the annex will be a part of city limits.”

Several months ago, the Union County School System created their own police force and ended their contract with the Union County Sherriff’s Office. When the Union County School System created their own police department, the City of Blairsville accepted the Police Department under their jurisdiction. To do that, the City of Blairsville had to annex the Union County School property. The order of annexation was approved by County Commissioner and now the annexation will be reviewed by the City of Blairsville once more before being accepted or denied.

Commissioner Paris addressed the community’s concern for raised property taxes. Paris states, “I actually had a couple people that said that we got a reasonable tax rate, being the second lowest in the state, and we feel like the county is justified in having the raise the taxes some. So, we were looking at raising them 14.8% and we ended up cutting that in half at about 7.4%. We’ve had a real issue with our budget this year and we’re continuing to have a real issue with our budget. Last year was the first time since I’ve been in office where we felt like we had to really struggle a little bit and that’s why we felt like we had to raise taxes. I probably should have left them where I originally said I was going to at 14.8% because that’s really what we needed. But I also decided in the end that we should really have to work hard at it to make sure we try to keep our taxes as low as we can and still provide those services that are necessary. If something happens and we can’t bring it back up, and I have to come back to the public next year then we’ll raise them up that little bit.”

Commissioner Paris discussed the propane contract between Union County and Freeman Gas for $1.19 from September to August of next year.

There are two new agreements as well. A lease agreement has been established between the 9th District Opportunity and Union County for the use of office space located on 185 Welborn street, Suite 8 in the Pat for $2760.00 for the term of the lease from October 2018-September 2019.

A second agreement is between Union County and the Department of Transportation in the amount of $31,734.00 for two local community busses to transport full-time residents from July 2018-June 2019.

Three new business owners have been approved for their licenses: Raytan, LLC located at 44 Miller Cove Rd., Stephen Murphy Rental located at 92 Bob Hensley Drive, and Blue-Sky Cabin Rentals, LLC located at 332 Cavenger Ridge Road.

Four Proclamations were added by Commissioner Paris. First, Constitution Week from September 17th-23rd 2018 with Sunday, September 17th being Constitution Day. Second, National Friend of Libraries Week, October 21st-27th 2018. Third, Suicide Prevention Month September 2018. Lastly, National Recovery Month, September 2018.

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