City Adds $134,000 for Ellijay Street Paving as County Pushes Toward a 7.8% Tax Increase

The Ellijay City Council voted Monday to put another $134,000 into resurfacing city streets, adding money to this year's paving work inside the city limits just as Gilmer County moves toward a property tax rate that would cost the owner of a $425,000 homestead about $74 more.

The two decisions come from separate governments, but they land on the same tax bill and the same set of roads people drive every day. City paving is city money. The millage rate now in front of the Board of Commissioners is county money, and county property owners still have three chances to say something about it before the vote.

The city has not released a street list tied to the new $134,000, and no start date for the additional work has been announced.

What the county is proposing

Gilmer County's Notice of Property Tax Increase, dated Aug. 3, says commissioners have tentatively adopted a maintenance and operation rate of 6.079 mills. That is 0.440 mills above the computed rollback rate of 5.639 mills, which the county puts at a 7.80 percent increase in property taxes.

The notice spells out what that means in dollars. For a homestead property with a fair market value of $425,000, the proposed increase is roughly $73.92. For a non-homestead property valued at $200,000, it is about $35.20.

Georgia law requires the hearings because the tentative rate exceeds the rollback rate. Commissioners held the first public comment meeting on the proposed rates at 5 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 13, at the Gilmer County Community Center, 824 Industrial Boulevard, followed by a 5:30 p.m. hearing on a proposed Public River Outfitting Ordinance and the board's 6 p.m. regular meeting.

The remaining dates

All three are at the Community Center on Industrial Boulevard. That 10 a.m. slot on Aug. 31 is the one to circle. It is the meeting where the rate is expected to be set, one hour after the last hearing where residents can weigh in.

Also on the county calendar

The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meets Aug. 19 at 8 a.m. at the Park and Recreation office, 1561 South Main Street. Planning and Development and the Board of Land Use Appeals hold a public hearing Aug. 20 at 5 p.m. in the Jury Assembly Room at 1 Broad Street.

The Public River Outfitting Ordinance is the other item worth watching for anyone who lives along the Coosawattee or the Ellijay and Cartecay rivers, or who has spent a summer Saturday behind a shuttle van full of tubes. The county has not published a final version of what it will adopt.

How to be heard

Public comment meetings are the formal record. Showing up at one of the two remaining millage meetings, Aug. 19 in the evening or Aug. 31 in the morning, is the way a property owner gets an objection or a question into that record before the rate is locked in. Anyone who needs an accommodation to attend is asked to call the county at 706-635-4361 ahead of time so arrangements can be made.

Agendas for each meeting are posted on the county's events calendar, and the full tax increase notice is on the finance and accounting page. Dates on the county calendar do occasionally shift, so it is worth a look the day before.

Still unanswered on the city side: which streets the $134,000 buys, and whether the work happens before or after the fall traffic season, when apple houses and leaf color put a heavy load on the same pavement. Neither has been announced.

For more from Ellijay and Gilmer County, visit Ellijay Georgia Community Website, and tell us which streets on your side of town need the attention when you join the conversation in our Community Forum. You can read more government and politics stories and keep up with local news as the Aug. 31 vote approaches.

Header photo: Thomsonmg2000 / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)