BLUE RIDGE, GA – Fannin County Commission Chairman Stan Helton and Public Works Director Zach Ratcliff discussed the possibility of updating the county’s legislation.

Current county codes only allow for used county equipment to be sold through local resources. The equipment must be posted in a local newspaper for two weeks and then a bidding process is open to the public.

Helton and Ratcliff felt that an amendment of this legislation to include the wording “and/or….” with the option of putting the equipment on online auction websites would help the county to expedite sales and open up the process to more bidders.

Helton and Ratcliff propose amendment to bidding process.

Helton said, “The process we have now is pretty cumbersome.” He went on, “This is a chance to get us out of, for lack of a better term, the horse and buggy days of auction and get in on something that is more intune with what is happening in the U.S. marketplace.”

County Attorney Lynn Doss stated that much has changed since this legislation was written, and that people look to the internet for their needs. She felt this change did not take away anything from the legislation, but added more options for our county.

County Post Commissioner Earl Johnson showed reluctance as he said, “I have bad memories of going into local legislation. So, I would rather not go into it just to sell equipment or change one word. That’s my only reservation.”

Johnson and County Post Commissioner Larry Joe Sosebee were very thorough in their questions, wanting to make sure that this amendment would achieve what Helton and Ratcliff were proposing as well as be a long term solution.

Johnson proposed the term “competitive bid process,” as this would also give the county the option of live, real time auctions and not restrict the process to online.

Doss considered all the concerns and information that was given before drafting an amendment to the legislation. She also suggested that while they were adding this amendment that it might be a good time to look at another wording change that would allow for more flexibility in the passing of the county’s annual budget.

Commissioners debate admending county legislation.

The current legislation states that the commissioners must adopt the county budget at the first public meeting in December.

Doss recommended changing the wording to “adopting the budget by the first public meeting in December.” She said this would give the Commissioner’s the option of approving the budget in advance of the schedule.

Doss drafted both the amendment to the sale of county equipment as well as the change in wording to the budget legislation.

After much discussion, all three commissioners voted to pass these changes as they felt it would streamline county business as well as open up options previously unavailable.
These changes will be discussed and voted upon again at the next two public meetings.