Local & State Headlines

City talks about SDBU

• The "mystery" of Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization office oversite is cleared up by the Albany City Commission.

Carlton Fletcher

ALBANY — The answer to Albany City Commissioner Tommie Postell’s long-standing question about which government entity “controls” the Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization office, as it turns out, came down to little more than an informal conversation between city and county leaders.

Postell asked City Manager Alfred Lott to place the issue on the agenda of the commission’s work session Tuesday morning in an effort to “get to the bottom” of the reason the SDBU office is a county department when the city actually pays 60 percent of the SDBU’s budget while the county is responsible for only 5 percent.

The department’s director, Pinky Modeste, explained Tuesday that the SDBU’s budget (the Dougherty County School System is responsible for 25 percent yearly, Albany Tomorrow Inc. and the Water, Gas & Light Commission 5 percent each) is based on the number of projects her office oversees for each entity in the consortium. But it was a letter from County Administrator Richard Crowdis to Lott that shed light on the conundrum.

“In the spring of 2000, as (then) City Manager Janice Allen Jackson, WG&L General Manager Lemuel Edwards and I were discussing the recruitment process for the new (SDBU) Director position,” Crowdis wrote, “the question of which government entity will the employees belong arose. I stated to Janice that the new department will always be more interactive with the City due to its number of services and offered her the first choice of ownership so to speak.

“Janice did not hesitate with her response of an adamant “No Thanks.” She stated as I best remember that the City is not hiring any more full-time employees or taking on any new departments.”

Postell, who has frequently expressed dissatisfaction with the amount of government-funded work being performed by minority contractors, was not completely satisfied with Lott’s explanation.”

“I don’t believe a verbal agreement like that is binding,” he said.

The commission then voted to have Lott write a letter to the heads of the other members of the consortium exploring the possibility of changing oversight responsibility of the department.

During an update from Code Enforcement Director Mike Tilson, during which he noted that the city had placed 108 substandard properties on its demolition list and had orders for the demolition of 15 pending, Commissioners Dorothy Hubbard and Bob Langstaff expressed concern over cleanup issues that often get short shrift in the community.

“We have to make cleanup a priority, make people understand how important it is to the community,” Hubbard said. “We’re not going to get businesses and industries here until we clean up the junk cars and tear down the abandoned houses.”

Langstaff agreed.

“People say we shouldn’t worry about something like litter when we’ve got serious problems like gangs and crime and things like that, but I think they go hand-in-hand,” he said. “That being said, we know what needs to be done, so when it gets to budget time we need to put our money where our mouth is.”

Commissioners gave tentative approval, pending a final vote at next Tuesday’s business meeting, for alcohol license transfers or applications at a number of businesses. They also approved a one-day license for the Downtown Merchants Association’s annual Mardi Gras celebration March 1.

The commission also tentatively approved expenditures for ERP software maintenance ($95,000 to Oracle USA), in-car video systems for 15 police vehicles ($145,765 to Motorola Inc.) and renovation and other work on restroom facilities at the Albany Civic Center ($411,587 to Quality Compliance Service Inc.).

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