County also to talk about SPLOST election complications

A request from Coweta County officials regarding Lake McIntosh will be considered by the Fayette County Board of Commissioners at its regular meeting Thursday night.

Coweta wants Fayette to prepare individual elevation certificates for each parcel of land in Coweta that abuts the future Lake McIntosh reservoir. The lake will be fed by Line Creek, which also separates the two counties south of Ga. Highway 54.

Coweta officials have said the certificates should help their property owners avoid or greatly reduce their need for flood insurance. Currently none of those property owners have land in the floodplain and thus are not required to have any flood insurance, Coweta officials have said.

Although part of the lake’s land is located in Coweta County, Fayette County has owned the land since the 1970s when it first attempted to move forward with the reservoir.

The commission is also slated to have more discussion on the countywide Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax election in November, which will require some city voters to go to two different precincts to vote on the SPLOST and also in their municipal election. While other precincts will have both ballots under the same roof, voters will still have to vote on separate machines, according to a ruling by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.

There are also lingering questions about whether the county should use a postcard mailing to notify voters about the dual precinct issue. Commissioner Eric Maxwell said recently that he worried that might be considered as spending county funds to promote a SPLOST, which is a big no-no under state law.

Georgia law requires that local governments cannot promote such a SPLOST although they can provide factual information to citizens about the proposals.

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