Lyle Lansdell with the Sandersville School Building Authority will discuss a request for funding to help with the restoration of the Sandersville School Building at the Thursday, June 14 Washington County Board of Commissioners’ meeting.
The Sandersville School Building is applying for a $500,000 One Georgia Grant; this will require a 10 percent match in funding, totaling $50,000. In order to meet that obligation, the SSBA is requesting approximately $17,000 from the City of Sandersville and $17,000 from Washington County. The remaining $17,000 will come from the Sandersville School Building Authority.
At the Tuesday, June 12 workshop, Chairman Horace Daniel and County Administrator Dustin Peebles referenced a resolution from December of 2014. This resolution was approved by Commissioners when several members of the community sought local legislation to form an independent authority to receive, restore, and manage the former Sandersville Elementary School property.
County Administrator Peebles read from that resolution during the workshop; it states: those citizens have assured the County Commissioners that neither the creation of nor the operation of said authority will in any way require local tax dollars or financial support from the County Commission.
“The thing about it is, there’s more than one school in this County,” said Chairman Daniel. “If you’re going to keep any of them up, you’d have to keep them all up.”
Commissioners will consider the request from the Sandersville School Building Authority at the June 14 meeting.
Amber Veal is scheduled to speak at the June 14 meeting to request to make local elections nonpartisan. A petition circulated on Facebook about this issue following the May 22 election. Ron May was present at the June 12 workshop, and explained that he spoke with State Representative Mack Jackson about this request; May stated that Representative Jackson told him that he will introduce legislation if the Commissioners are in agreement on this issue.
Washington County Commissioners will hold their regular meeting on Thursday, June 14 at 9 a.m.