Politics & Government
Project Framework Agreements Before Oconee County Board Of Commissioners Cannot Be Easily Cancelled Or Altered
Agreements require immediate funding of engineering costs, require repayment if cancelled, and set time lines.
Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis has repeatedly said that the project framework agreements for the two Daniells Bridge Road projects on the agenda for approval Tuesday night are simply “place holders.”
An analysis of the legal agreements the county is being asked to sign with the Georgia Department of Transportation and a review of planning procedures for regional road projects indicate that the documents are much more than Davis has suggested.
The agreements require the county to pay $114,011 for project engineering costs as soon as the agreements are signed and stipulate that the county would have to repay the state for federal funds spent on the projects if the county decides to terminate the agreements at any point in the future.
The projects include $4.4 million in federal funding.
The agreements also commit the county to a time line for the projects that can only be altered if GDOT agrees.
If approved, the project framework agreements would require the Madison Athens-Clarke Oconee Regional Transportation Study (MACORTS), the federally-mandated regional transportation coordinating body, to modify documents it produced last September to bring them in line with the agreements.
For more on this story, go to Oconee County Observations.
Pictured: Daniells Bridge Road at Chestnut Hill Road.