County Commissioner's Office

County Talk
By
Lamar Paris - Commissioner

Q. When will the Farmer’s Market have more vegetables?  It looks more like a flea market right now.
A.  I do not agree that it looks like a flea market. In fact, it looks exactly like a farmer’s market.   The only craft items that can be sold at the farmer’s market are those hand made in Union County.  Vegetable producers have the first option of site location.  However, we are in the mountains and you have to give gardens and fields time to grow and produce vegetables.  We anticipate that by the time you read this, tomatoes, corn, okra and most other vegetables will be ready to harvest and anticipate people bringing them to the market. We hope to see you there.

Q. I heard the county was going to 4-lane the K-Road from the Wal-Mart site around to Pat Colwell Rd. Is that correct?
A. No.  At this point in time we have no idea how much of an impact Wal-Mart will have on this section of roadway.  We will be working with GDOT to plan for any needed future improvements to this road as we determine the final impact in a couple of years.

Q. We heard that the Wal-Mart construction project was on hold because of bald eagles on the site. Is that true?
A. No. Stories have a way of getting exaggerated.   There was a hawk’s nest located near the old home place and they could not cut that particular tree until the baby birds left the nest.  So that delayed grading in that particular area, however, it has not impacted the general progress of the grading.  According to the contractor, they are now complete with about 75% of the rough grading and expect to hand the site over in September to the building contractor.

Q.  I have followed your articles on cost of government services and understand the increases.  I think it is amazing that you have managed to keep our taxes so low even with these increased costs.  However, since the ambulance service is operated by the hospital, why does the county have to help pay for it?
A.  About five years ago the Hospital Authority came to me about the county supplementing or taking over their ambulance service.  The cost to the hospital had grown tremendously with the high number of medical calls and the lack of adequate reimbursement by Medicare.  Once the Authority made the decision to build the new hospital, they knew it would be difficult to pay the large hospital debt and the loss on the ambulance service, which for most counties our size, runs about $1.2 million dollars.

Q. What arrangement did the county finally make with the hospital?
A.  We negotiated for almost a year and came up with an agreement that was fair to both sides.  State law requires that a county must provide ambulance service to its citizens and can not make the hospital provide the service.  We finally agreed to a rolling scale that has helped the hospital and saved the county from the huge loss we would suffer each year on operating an ambulance service.  The final agreement allowed that the first year (2006) the county would supplement the service $250,000, the second year (2007) $300,000, third year (2008) $400,000 and the following years $500,000 and holding at that level until 2013 at which time the agreement will be re-negotiated.

While the cost to the county taxpayers could have been much higher, it was and is still a financial hit of $500,000 per year now when it was zero when I took office in 2001.  This is just another example of the tremendous cost of providing government services in a growing county.

Q. Isn’t the county required to set aside $100,000 for indigent care each year?
A. Yes, we are and the hospital has given that amount back to the county for many years saving the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.  They continue to do that today.

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