The Development Authority of Clayton County (Invest Clayton) meets at the Lake City Community Center, 5471 Jonesboro Road, in Lake City. (agenda) You can listen in by conference call at (605) 472-5254; then AC number is 136500#.
Items of note include:
- election of a new board chair, replacing Regina Deloach, whose four-year term ended on May 22
- an update on a proposed “social event” between the DACC Board and the Clayton County Board of Commissioners, from C. Harrison Braddy, who was tasked with putting together the meeting. Braddy said at the last meeting that the event was to improve relations between the two boards. When fellow DACC board member Terry Baskin said the word “quorum,” attorney Michelle Youngblood hurriedly explained that this was to be a social event, not a business meting.
- Under the Georgia Open Meetings Act, as the Georgia First Amendment Foundations’ “Red Book” notes, “Whenever a quorum of the members of an agency—again, broadly defined—meets for the discussion or presentation of official business or policy or takes official action, the meeting must be open to the public. That means public officials may not exclude the public from workshops, fact-finding and purely deliberative sessions simply because no final action is taken or anticipated. Even meetings conducted by telephonic, electronic, wireless or other virtual means must be open.” Further, “Courts have held that committee meetings relating to policy or official business must be open to the public” and that “Any official action of any type take at a meting that is not open is invalid and may be set aside if an action is brought promptly.” The law “does not generally exempt agency decision-making sessions. It also does not exempt budget sessions, coroner inquests or meetings regarding business or industry relations, federal programs, financial data, gifts, trusts, honorary degrees, licensing, examinations, negotiations, collective bargaining of public employees, national or state security (subject top the law enforcement exception) or student discipline and other student-related matters not specifically related to education.”
- a title search related to an erosion control project at 5711 Jonesboro Road, the proposed site of the Roman United development
- a discussion of a letter regarding DACC and Hallmark, a Dallas-TX-based insurer which requested to withdraw from A.M. Best’s credit ratings last month. According to a press release from A.M. Best, “At the time of the withdrawal, all [Hallmark’s] Credit Ratings (ratings) were under review with negative implications.”
- Also up for discussion are restructuring for Low Temp Industries of Jonesboro and an expansion bond application and inducement resolution for Toto of Morrow.
