Mayor Gary Jones of Grovetown and District 4 Commissioner Alison Couch hosted a join town hall meeting, Thursday evening, in the Grovetown City Hall council chambers.
County Manager Scott Johnson, District 4 School Board Member Lee Ann Meyer, Adam Searcy, deputy chief appraiser with the county tax assessor’s office, and city administrator Elaine Matthews, alongside Jones and Couch, were among the panel of the public forum, offering updates on several Columbia County projects before opening the floor for citizens with questions.
Jones opened the meeting by underscoring changes the city undertook during his nine-year tenure as mayor, the first four years of which he referred to as “uprighting the ship,” and entailed addressing a class action lawsuit against the city and “rebuilding the city’s reputation and status.”
The following four years, Jones noted, concentrated on retaining employees and recruitment, partly through pay raises and evaluations, as well as projects geared toward improvements and enhancing the town’s appearance. The mayor observed that daily operations of the city of Grovetown costs more than $1 million per month, and that its budget has a year worth of funds in reserve.
“We’re continuing to work on safety improvements, but we’re going to concentrate more in the areas of effectiveness and efficiency to make sure we’re doing things that better save the city money and earn a reward for what we’re doing,” said Jones, noting that city’s recent lowering of its millage rate, the first time it had done so since 2020. “Our financial status is better now in the city than it has ever been.”
Meyer mentioned that the Columbia County School District had also recently voted to lower its millage rate down to 17.10 mills. This is the district’s fourth yearly millage rate decrease in a row.
She then went on to underscore the district’s building program, launched in 2021, which is a countywide sweep of upgrades to school facilities, including new auditoriums and athletic spaces for the high schools. The program also entails the construction of two new elementary schools and a new building for Westmont Elementary School.
Westmont, construction of which began in 2022 after the former building was demolished, is scheduled to reopen this school year.
“We’ve got to get Westmont to a point where we can get a temporary [certificate of occupancy] on it, I feel very confident we’ll do that,” said Meyer, as the school’s gym is still under construction. “We want to go ahead and get the students and the teachers in that school as soon as possible.”
Couch highlighted the county’s transportation projects, including work begun on a connector road linking Horizon South Parkway to Chamberlain Road, is expected to include roundabouts and a bridge over wetland areas. That project, Couch said, is expected to take 18 to 20 months to complete. The overall Horizon South Parkway widening project is 57% complete.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
