Though postponed by inclement weather early last week, Eatonton City Council held a scheduled meeting late Thursday afternoon.
The council heard from Putnam County Chief Appraiser Chuck Anglin and County Tax Commissioner Terrell Abernathy, who both explained several nuances of Georgia House Bill 581, which all counties, cities, and boards of education in the state have only until March 1 to decide whether to opt in or not.
HB 581 deals primarily with homestead exemptions, which Anglin described as “if you own and occupy your property, you are allowed a small exemption by the state off your taxes.”
“The basics of it is that $2,000 off your assessed value translates to about $35 to $40. But we have local options here, and it makes it even better. Many counties don’t have that, but we’re lucky to have our local homestead exemptions,” Anglin said. “But HB 581, it does all kinds of other stuff. It removes the estimated taxes from the assessment notice that you get every year. It removes that and puts in an estimated millage rate instead, which is totally going to make people understand even better. So that’s great. And it also removes our one-year sales lock when someone buys the property.”
As the councilors debated whether to advertise and hold three public hearings before making a binding decision by the end of February to either opt in or out of HB 581, City Administrator Gary Sanders explained each hearing had to be advertised at least a week in advance with various stipulations on times and even specific language that had to be used in the ads.
“You need to decide if you meet next week if you’re going to advertise for the public hearing because you’re not doing that tonight. But to give yourself that option, the intent if you meet next week is to direct staff whether to advertise for public hearings or not,” Sanders said. “That’s the only decision that’s before the council at the meeting next week, is whether or not to advertise it. If it’s not to advertise, you’re opted in. If you advertise, you have to have the three public hearings, and then you can still, as a body, make a decision one way or the other. Either send it in by March 1st or hold the meeting, don’t make the resolution, and be opted in.”
Early in the meeting, Councilmember Janie Reid suggested that the council approve a $2,500 sponsorship of “The Color Purple,” a play currently in rehearsal at The Plaza Arts Center under first-time director Rawshad Ford. It was unanimously approved, contingent on the sponsorship being a season-long deal and not only for the duration of the play through late February.
To close out the meeting, Sanders told the council that the city’s Streets, Buildings, and Grounds Committee (SBGC) had recently met to discuss Fiscal Year ’25 Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant (LMIG) applications from the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT).
He said the Eatonton SBGC had “identified a project on MLK (Drive), from Oconee Street to Concord Lanes, about a mile length, that will need milling and resurfacing this summer.
“The water authority will be making multiple cuts to tie the old service lines over to a new main, and it recommends that we use this funding to resurface MLK between Oconee Street and Concord Lane. Your formula amount for the fiscal year 2025 is $118,000 plus a 30-percent match,” Sanders added before suggesting a vote for Mayor John Reid to sign a resolution for a grant from the Department of Transportation.
A vote was taken with unanimous approval.
The next Eatonton City Council meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Feb. 4 at the County Commission building (117 Putnam Dr., Room 203, Eatonton).