Coweta County officials made it clear this week that the county is not for sale, in a manner of speaking.

County administrator Theron Gay told the commissioners that the county tax office now has the technology to make the county's tax records available on disk.

For a fee of $50, which would just cover expenses, residents and other interested parties would be able to purchase a computer disk with all the county's residents' tax holdings on the disk.

The disk would contain such items as the property owner's name and number of acres owned, but it would not have the assessed value of the property.

The information is public information and is currently available to anybody who wants it, but Gay said officials in the tax office said the sale of the disk would cut down on their research time for customers.

Commission chairman Vernon “Mutt” Hunter said he could not go along with the plan.

“I don't have a problem with the price. It's just that I don't feel we need to sell this information to everybody,” he said.

Commissioner Jim McGuffey agreed with Hunter and said it's not the government's job to sell that kind of information.

The commissioners reiterated the information is public record and readily available, but they want people to come in and get it, instead of having the information widely circulated.

But Commissioner Robert Wood disagreed with his colleagues and said the procedure would be the same as if a customer wanted a copy of a document.

Hunter listened to Wood's argument but was not swayed.

“I'm just not going to vote for it,” he said.

The commission voted against selling the information 4-1, with Wood casting the lone dissenting vote.

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