Board begins project search

With more than $320 million in projects on the table, and as long as 10 years to pay for them, the 21-member citizens special purpose local option sales tax committee has its work cut out for it, committee member and Co-chairman Monty Osteen said after the panel's meeting Wednesday.

The citizens review committee for Phase V special purpose local option sales tax meets at 3 p.m. Wednesdays in the eighth-floor Augusta Commission chamber of the municipal building, 530 Greene St. For more information, call 821-1821.

The afternoon meeting marked the first of many presentations planned for the citizens review board, which is working toward a proposal for spending Phase V special purpose local option sales tax revenue beginning in 2006.

"Everything we're looking at now is long term," Mr. Osteen said.

Projects are being planned even further in advance than they were three years ago, the last time Mr. Osteen and several other board members served on the sales tax review committee.

To plan for several major building projects already on the drawing board - including several new jail pods, a downtown judicial center and a new regional library branch - leaders are getting a jump start on the next tax effort.

The 1-cent tax, which voters must approve through a referendum, is charged on every dollar of most purchases made in Richmond County and has been used since 1996 to pay for various city improvements - from building Diamond Lakes Regional Park in south Augusta to repairing potholes and improving drainage citywide. In the past, city leaders have asked voters to renew the sales tax every five years.

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With several large-scale projects being proposed, including a performing arts center and a regional sports arena, and with a shortage of money to pay for those projects, a 10-year sales tax issue is being considered, making the job of the citizens review committee that much harder.

"That's a large curveball the last committee didn't have," Mr. Osteen said.

On Wednesday, the citizens panel heard two of 11 scheduled funding request presentations.

The first request, which came from the Richmond County Sheriff's Office, asked for upward of $13.5 million to pay for at least two new jail pods at the Phinizy Road Detention Center, new construction that Chief Jailer Charles Toole Sr. said is badly needed to relieve severe overcrowding at the city's jails.

Ultimately, Mr. Toole said, more than $18 million might be needed to move the Fourth Street jail to the south Augusta detention center so that the deteriorating downtown facility can be closed completely.

"The more pods you can build now, the better off you are," he told the committee.

The second request that went before the panel came from the city's Parks and Recreation Department and itemized 57 building and expansion projects costing more than $55 million.

"Each one of these projects is just as important as the other in their own way," said department Director Tom Beck, adding that the sales tax is his department's lifeblood.

Both the jail and the parks department were asked to return to the panel in two weeks with additional information about possible operational savings or potential costs.

"It's really preliminary to say what we're going to wind up doing," committee member James B. Powell said. "These are things that have got to be evaluated."

PANEL MEMBERS

The following people make up the citizens review committee for Phase V special purpose local option sales tax projects: