Paulding Commissioners Approve Water System Administration Building Purchase

In their first August session, Paulding’s Board of Commissioners approved the purchase of a new water system administration building.
Paulding commissioners approved the $1.7 million purchase of the former SunTrust Bank building at 3844 Atlanta Hwy. in Dallas for a new Paulding County Water System administration building.
The vote was 4-1 with Commissioner Collett voting in opposition. Collett had been opposed to the use of the parcel for the water department, which he said he felt would be of better use to the county in some other way.
“I didn’t vote for this originally and I will stand by that; I don’t think it’s a good idea; I don’t’ think we should ever take prime commercial property off the tax digest. We just went through a budget process -- very tedious at best -- every dime we can make we need to keep -- and it does all add up,” Collett said.
The purchase, which includes its 2.4-acre site, will house the water system’s administrative offices, engineering department, customer service functions and other operations, said Paulding Water System Director Laurie Ashmore, who spoke to Paulding commissioners prior to last week’s vote. Funding comes from ratepayers because the water system is a self-supporting entity.

2nd BOC AUGUST SESSION
Paulding Commissioners reconvene this week for their final August session and will hear an update from Kelly Comstock, Brown and Caldwell consultant, on the Richland Creek Reservoir project. Bids and contracts for the RCR’s two sections of the Finished Water pipeline have been in the works recently, with the longest first section approved recently.
The RCR is being located on approximately 700-acres of county-owned land in northern Paulding County, in Post 4 Commissioner Tony Crowe’s district. The RCR will be on Richland Creek, but will fill with water from the Etowah River.
Construction of the Finished Water pipeline and Booster Pump Station is expected to complete by March of 2019, with project completion expected around 2021.
Deidre Holden, supervisor, Elections & Registration will give an update on changes to various polling locations throughout the county. The changes involve some fine-tuning of precincts that will close some previous locations and open-up others. The county elections board recently voted to reduce the number of single-day voting precincts from 14 down to 12, affecting up to 20,000 registered voters who will be placed in new voting precincts, Ms. Holden said.
The board is also ending use of P.B. Ritch Middle School as a voting precinct and plans to split its assigned voters between the Hiram High School and new West Ridge Church precincts. A majority of Paulding voters have tended to use early voting rather than waiting till Election Day for the past several years, Holden said. Early voting is typically offered during the three weeks before Election Day.
The elections office wants to discontinue use of Mt. Tabor, Poplar Springs, and Burnt Hickory as early voting locations and find three new replacements, which are spread out geographically, she said. New early voting locations include West Ridge Church on Hiram- Acworth Highway and the Paulding County Airport Authority also recently voted to allow use of the Silver Comet Field terminal building as an early voting location in May and October of 2018 and 2020.
The Events Place on Hiram-Douglasville Highway will replace Poplar Springs Church as the early voting site serving Hiram and southeast Paulding, and additional sites are being sought along Cedarcrest Road to serve northeast Paulding, and in the New Georgia community to serve southern Paulding, Holden said.
And commissioners this week will again reconsider an appointment of Dan Nolan to the Paulding County Industrial Building Authority with a term ending December 31, 2019. Tabled at the July 25 and the August 8, Board of Commissioners meetings.