Support unclear on GDOT bill

Charles Oliver

By Charles Oliver

charlesoliver@daltoncitizen.com

Gov. Sony Perdue’s plan to overhaul state transportation planning barely made it out of the Senate, and some local members of the House of Representatives say it may not make it out of that chamber.

“There’s mixed emotions among my colleagues I have talked to. I haven’t heard anyone come out strongly in favor of it,” said Rep. Roger Williams, R-Dalton.

Senate Bill 200 would strip the Georgia Department of Transportation board and State Transportation Board of much of their authority and place it in a new board that would be selected by the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the house.

Perdue and other supporters say the move is needed to clean up a dysfunctional department that has a been plagued with red ink and long delays in projects.

The current board has a member from each of the state’s congressional districts, and each of those members is selected by the members of the General Assembly from his district. Transportation board members select the transportation commissioner who heads GDOT.

SB 200 passed the Senate 30-25, just one more vote than the minimum 29 votes it needed.

“I personally don’t think we need to create another authority. It will just be another layer of bureaucracy. I feel that the problems at the DOT can be solved,” Williams said. “I hate to see all this taken away from the DOT.”

“It would basically strip the board of all its power,” he added. “We depend on our board member, who is closest to us, to get things done. If all the power goes to this new authority, I don’t know what we would do.”

Under SB 200, GDOT would remain responsible only for maintaining existing roads and bridges.

“Creating plans and authorizing projects would be done by the new board,” Williams said. “It would give the governor a lot more power.”

Rep. John Meadows, R-Calhoun, says he also has doubts about the bill.

“I’m not a big fan of it. We’ve got to do some more work on that thing,” he said.

Meadows said he fears the members of the proposed board, unlike the State Transportation Board, might represent just a handful of areas.

“Those appointments need to come from across the state,” he said. “They are going to have to work a lot harder to get me to come on board.”

Members of both the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners and the Dalton City Council have criticized the plan, saying it would centralize transportation decisions. They have also expressed concern about a part of the bill that would end current state law requiring 80 percent of all federal transportation dollars to be divided equally among each of the state’s congressional districts. They say that could lead to the metro Atlanta area sucking up all of that money.

“That’s the type of sentiment I’ve heard pretty much all over the 9th Congressional District from city and county officials,” said Dalton attorney Steve Farrow, the 9th District representative to the State Transportation Board.

The 9th District, which includes Whitfield and Murray counties, stretches from Dade County to White County and as far south as Forsyth County.

“The only people I’ve heard who are really in favor of (of the plan) would primarily be Republican members of the state Senate,” said Farrow.

Farrow said the transportation board has moved to clean up problems in the department and prioritize projects

Meadows said he isn’t opposed to changes in GDOT or the transportation board, just the particular changes that have been proposed.

“It seems like we are just jumping into this. I’d like to see a lot more study of what we can do,” he said.