The Lowndes County Board of Supervisors took no action on a request from Columbus Interim City Planning and Community Development Director George Irby to help the city combat blight.
On Feb. 15 Irby asked the city council to give him as much as $1 million from the city’s $5 million American Rescue Act Plan allocation to fund a blight remediation program. If funded, the city could use the money to buy blighted properties directly from their owners. The city would then sell the lot to a developer or a private individual, who would build new housing on it. The council approved the request 4-3, with Mayor Keith Gaskin breaking the tie.
Monday morning Irby and Gaskin asked the supervisors for their support.
“I was in Mobile yesterday and a lady was there at the wedding I went to, and she told me she was from Columbus,” Irby said. “I asked her where she lived and she said it was out in the county. When people in the county say where they’re from, it’s Columbus.”
Columbus doesn’t have the money to take on the whole project by itself, Irby said.
“We can do it, but we can’t do the job that needs to be done without your help,” Irby said. “I’m requesting anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million.”
The supervisors seemed at least somewhat receptive to the idea.
District 1 Supervisor Harry Sanders wanted to know what would happen to the money the city made selling the property it acquired.
“If you turn around and sell the lot and somebody builds a house there, are you planning on reimbursing the county for their percentage they put in or is the city going to keep all that money?” Sanders asked.
Irby said proceeds will go “back in the kitty” for buying additional lots.
“The money will not go back into the (city) general fund,” Irby said.
District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks said he supports the idea behind the program. He noted that the police department had said vacant housing created a safe haven for drug activity and other crimes.
“In riding throughout the community, it’s terrible,” Brooks said. “… I would be in support of something, I don’t know how much, but something because I think we could clean the city up and create a sense of pride.”
Brooks likened the city and the county working together to countries around the world rallying to help Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
“They aren’t going over there to fight in the war, but they’re doing what they can to come to the aid of a friend,” Brooks said. “That’s my analogy with the city. We can’t resolve the city’s problems, because we’ve got our own. But we need to have a dialogue about what we can do.”
District 4 Supervisor Jeff Smith said he also supports the idea.
“We need collaboration between the city and the county,” Smith said. “We’ve gone too long without interaction. The city won’t function without the county, and vice-versa.”
Sanders said he didn’t oppose the idea.
“I don’t know that the county should match dollar for dollar,” he said. “It might be 30 percent or something.”
Brooks, during the discussion, said that he would like to see the supervisors and members of the city council hold a joint meeting to talk about working together on ARPA projects. He asked Gaskin to get with County Administrator Jay Fisher and set up a meeting sometime next week.
ARPA is designated to local governments for COVID-19 relief, with the county allotted roughly $11.4 million and the city $5.6 million.
Blight removal is an allowed purpose for spending ARPA funds.
Brooks questions need for consultant
Fisher asked the supervisors to approve a contract with the Horne Group, which will be the supervisors’ ARPA consultant. The Horne Group’s fee is 3.5 percent of the county’s allocation, which comes to about $398,349.
Brooks wondered if the county still needed a consultant. He said the “ambiguity” in the ARPA rules has largely disappeared, and he thought the county could handle spending and documentation internally.
“Now that we’ve got the final rule that allows us to spend up to $10 million as we would with county money, do we really need a consultant with a percentage fee?” he asked. “It may be cheaper to get a person on staff to keep up with all of it.”
“I think it’s worth every dollar we spend,” said Fisher.
Hairston also said he thought it was worth it to have someone documenting exactly how the money was spent, given the likely level of scrutiny, and Smith said he thought deciding one way or another was premature before the county decided how it was going to spend its funds.
“Until we determine what it is we’re going to earmark, we may not need their services,” he said. “We’re putting the cart before the horse.”
He also wondered if the nearly $400,000 could be redirected to a project instead of going to a consultant.
After more discussion, the board decided to delay the decision until it could hold a workshop and narrow down its potential projects and see if a consultant was needed.
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