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Hartwell city manager Jon Herschell and Hart County Water and Sewer Authority Director Pat Goran looking over a service delivery map.
The evening of June 18 saw an unconventional meeting—a called meeting between the City of Hartwell and Hart County to discuss a mistake in service delivery maps that was recently realized.
The Hart County Board of Commissioners, Hartwell City Council, Hartwell city manager Jon Herschell, attorneys for both the city and county, and other entities such as the Hart County Water and Sewer Authority (HCWSA) were all present to attempt to iron out the issue.
“We’ve got errors on the map, and we just want to put this to bed,” BOC Chairman Marshall Sayer said.
The issue stemmed from a March 2023 agreement between the county and city, in which both agreed to the service delivery plan maps, illustrating who is responsible for which services in different areas. BOC Chairman Marshall Sayer and Mayor Brandon Johnson both signed off on the maps in July 2023. However, the maps were incorrect due to mistakes made by an individual at Georgia Mountains Regional Commission. Therefore, when GMRC submitted the maps to DCA (Department of Community Affairs), DCA rejected it.
At that time (fall 2023), HCWSA was trying to get grant money for a large project; however, grants cannot be received if the service delivery plan has been rejected. In February 2024, GMRC submitted the plan to DCA again so that HCWSA could proceed with trying to acquire the grant; however, the county and city were not consulted and there were errors on the maps.
Hartwell city manager Jon Herschell discovered there was an issue in the documentation in April and notified Adam Hazel, GMRC planning director, that the maps were wrong. Online, the maps say February 2024, but they were signed in July 2023.
At Tuesday’s meeting, the city and county both recognized the discrepancies in the water map that benefits the city.
“I think the maps on DCA’s website and the maps we agreed to are different…There’s issues with water territory. It shows the city showing having areas that we don’t have…There’s also the issue of previously in service delivery areas, there were large swaths of unincorporated county that were unclaimed sewer territory that now show as Hart County sewer area. Those were things that were not on the maps that we agreed to,” said Herschell.
Discussion of the problem at hand only led to more debate about the amount of sewer territory the county has, or whether it is “unclaimed.”
“You can’t say it’s unclaimed, because you can’t get to it without interfering with county right-of-way,” County attorney Kim Higginbotham said.
“I don’t think that’s the issue…in service delivery, you state the areas that you claim. You’re talking about a service that, as far as I understand, you don’t have any infrastructure to provide in the county. You do provide it through other providers in some areas. It’s not our desire to impede your ability to provide sewer out of those areas beyond what we might reasonably be interested in providing at some point through annexation or other services,” City of Hartwell attorney Rob Leverett said.
County officials maintained that the areas the city said was unclaimed was automatically county property.
“We agreed to have that an open area,” Councilman Tray Hicks said, and added that the city never agreed to that territory being HCWSA’s.
“You do have sewer territory. You’ve got boundaries. What gives you the right to come across those boundaries to take other’s?” Chairman Marshall Sayer asked.
City officials maintained that they weren’t “taking”; Herschell said “we want the ability that in the event of an annexation, we won’t have to go through this bureaucratic process to provide sewer where it makes sense for the city…We just want the ability to add customers where it makes economic sense for us and for anybody that wants it. It’s been that way for years.”
Hartwell mayor Brandon Johnson echoed this point: “I think what we’re saying is, if somebody comes to the city, whether they want to build a hotel, a hospital, or a housing development, and we annex it into the city, we want to have the rights to run the sewer to them. We don’t want the county laying in the road, making a problem over it,” said Mayor Brandon Johnson.
“You’re asking for the automatic right once it’s annexed and I don’t agree with that,” Commissioner Joey Dorsey said. “What happens to the city happens to the county as well.”
Commissioner Dorsey said that he believed this should be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Ultimately, after much debate, the two bodies decided that without the GMRC planning director, they could not come to a concrete decision on how to proceed that night. Hartwell City Council unanimously voted in favor to agree on the maps that were previously signed, with the exception to “correct the errors that DCA has brought out.” Mayor Brandon Johnson said the council stood by that decision and would give the county time to discuss.
“I know we’re in uncharted territory, but I guarantee you that grant money doesn’t need to be turned off,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said.
Mayor Johnson ended the meeting by stating the city’s support for TSPLOST potentially being on the ballot in November.
Another meeting will be held, at a later date to be announced, to discuss the issues in the service delivery plan maps once again and resolve the problems.