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Published Sunday, September 07, 2008 in Local

Coweta will help shape RDC merger

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Times-Herald

Last week Coweta County Board of Commissioners decided Coweta will not join the Atlanta Regional Commission and will instead help shape the merger of the Chattahoochee-Flint Regional Development Center with the McIntosh Trail Regional Development Center.

The two regional development centers, which each represent five counties, will merge into one new regional commission on July 1, 2009.

The merger is required by House Bill 1216, which was passed by the Georgia General Assembly during the 2008 session.

The new regional commission will have a board of directors comprised of two representatives from each county, three citizen members appointed by the governor, one member appointed by the lieutenant governor, and one member appointed by the speaker of the House.

That board representation is similar to what Coweta County would have had in the ARC. One representative is the chairman of the county commission, or his designee. The other is an elected official from one of the municipalities in Coweta.

Under the Chattahoochee-Flint RDC, Coweta has a much greater stake on the board. Current board members are Commissioner Tim Lassetter, Newnan Councilman Clayton Hicks, and the mayors of Senoia, Grantville, Turin, Haralson, Moreland and Sharpsburg, as well as one "non-public" member, former Moreland mayor Ed Bledsoe. The other counties in the region, Heard, Carroll, Troup and Meriwether, have similar representation.

The McIntosh Trail RDC serves Spalding, Pike, Lamar, Butts and Upson counties.

At Tuesday's Coweta commission meeting, Commissioner Randolph Collins, the swing vote on the ARC issue, said he had looked into the pros and cons of the switch, and "the way I'm leaning is to stay where we are and help shape the new merger."

HB 1216 was recommended by the Service Delivery Task Force of the Commission for a New Georgia, said Jim Finch, deputy commission for external affairs with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, which oversees the RDCs.

The regional commissions exactly match the state's service delivery regions, said Finch, and "one of the founding principles behind the reorganization of the RDCs was to enhance state service delivery."

The boards of the existing RDCs have to ratify the new regions, Finch said. So far, all have except the North Georgia RDC, based in Dalton. If that RDC doesn't ratify the new regions, it won't be eligible for state funds distributed to the other regional commissions.

The main funding for each commission is membership dues, which can be as little as 25 cents per capita, but the state recommends $1 per person, and RCs that don't charge the dollar can miss out on state funds.

Plans are for a good bit of state funds to flow to the RCs, though that money will have to be appropriated by the Georgia General Assembly in the DCA budget.

"The hope is that, through additional state funding, the quality of service provided by these new RCs throughout the state will be fairly equal," Finch said.

Right now, "about a third of them have difficulty" in having enough funds to maintain adequate staffing levels and provide a quality product, Finch said.

"We're hoping through the implementation of HB 1216 that the quality would be the same no matter where a local government might be located in the state," Finch said. Additionally, hopes are that "some of the products that, today, local governments have to pay for could be provided for free from the RC."

Regional commissions, and regional development centers, provide services to members in four basic areas: comprehensive planning, transportation planning, environmental planning, and historic preservation planning, Finch said.

One of the arguments for moving to the ARC was that ARC already does Coweta's transportation planning. That's because Coweta, as part of the metro-Atlanta area, is part of the metro-Atlanta "metropolitan planning organization." And that organization is the ARC.

Finch was asked if some of the new RCs might also function as MPOs.

Federal Department of Transportation rules affect MPOs, Finch said. He said that the Georgia DOT is "looking closely at the RCs."

But right now, "I can't answer that question."

Other state agencies are "in general discussions about how they might use the new RCs to help them deliver their services," as well, Finch said.

If, in the future, the commissioners decided they did want Coweta to move to the ARC, the process is fairly simple.

A county that borders another regional commission can petition the DCA board of directors to move.

"Our board is authorized in current law to set the boundaries of the RDCs and approve any changes, and that language is contained in the new law," Flint said.

DCA policy says that if a county wants to move, there must be a joint resolution signed by the county commission and by the governing authority of municipalities representing at least half of the municipal population. In Coweta, that means the city of Newnan.

Historically, the board has "approved most of the requests we've gotten for a move," Flint said.

As for the ARC, Chairman Sam Olens said the ARC's position on Coweta has been "that it is really their decision alone."

Olens, who is also chairman of the Cobb County Board of Commissioners, said that "the ARC has not sought additional members. The ARC is simply willing to do whatever Coweta feels is best.

"We work with Coweta County very well now on air quality and transportation issues," Olens said.

"If they chose to come to the ARC we would, of course, have been excited to have them join," he said.

"The decision to stay where they are is perfectly acceptable and we'll continue to work very well with them."