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Lee votes for new Westover connection

• The Lee County Commission votes to keep the county property tax millage rate at 12.766.

Susan McCord

LEESBURG — Lee County officials on Tuesday threw their support behind a proposed Westover Boulevard underpass expected to ease traffic congestion on Albany’s Nottingham Way.

The Lee County Board of Commissioners voted 3-0 to join the city of Albany in a joint resolution supporting the extension of Westover, under Liberty Expressway just west of the Albany Mall, up to a new intersection at Ledo Road, which divides Lee and Dougherty counties.

The new intersection would fall in between the Toyota dealership and a skating rink on Ledo, Lee Director of Planning and Engineering Bob Alexander told commissioners Dennis Roland, Ed Duffy and Morris Leverett.

The resolution, to accompany an application for project funding from the Georgia Department of Transportation, does not obligate Lee County financially to the project, Alexander said.

Duffy stated the extension will adjoin 16 acres that Lee purchased for the purpose of commercial development.

The commission, with members Wally Roberts absent and Jo Ealum away at Marine Corps officer training school, also voted to set the county’s annual budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 and to set its millage rate at 12.766 mills, the same as it has been since 2005.

The budget did not include a fee for fire and emergency medical services, which the commission proposed then rejected in recent weeks.

Roland said he’d vote to approve the budget, though the fees could have funded emergency service improvements in the Smithville-Chokee District he represents, where presently there are none.

“This whole row would like to know” why the district is denied services, said a woman toward the back of the commission meeting room.

Duffy offered a motion to approve the budget if construction was started on an emergency facility in the district. It passed 3-0.

County Administrator Alan Ours said funding for the equipment was available from county sales tax funds.

The millage rate, which the county expects to adopt July 22, is unchanged from 2007, but will require the county to hold a series of public hearings because the rate will generate approximately $500,000 more revenue than last year because of property tax revaluations and additions to the county’s tax digest.

The commission also voted to renew a contract with the Albany Humane Society for a year’s custodial care of up to 1,300 animals for $74,847, with a quarterly fee of $9,712 to euthanize them.

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