The Demorest City Council will meet tomorrow, Mar. 23, at 6:00 pm for a special called meeting to hear and discuss the proposal for the possible merger between Habersham County and the City of Demorest fire services.
The county commission previously announced at their Mar. 15 work session that commissioners Bruce Palmer and Dustin Mealor met with two members of the Demorest City Council, as well as Demorest City Manager Kim Simonds and Habersham Emergency Services director Chad Black.
“A couple of benefits that come to mind right away are that we believe that we could reduce Demorest’s fire service budget by more than half,” County Manager Phil Sutton said. According to the county’s research, the merger would bring Demorest’s fire services budget down from $552,128 to $266,545.
Another one of the benefits Sutton mentioned is Demorest’s allocated SPLOST dollars for a new firetruck. “The benefits on the Habersham County side is the additional fire apparatus and equipment that Demorest already has, and there’s the SPLOST program– they’ve identified a SPLOST fire truck purchase,” Sutton said. “I think that the purchase of a fire truck is necessary to provide proper coverage for that area in the future. So, we hope that they would go forward with that.”
The City of Demorest has tabled making a decision on the purchase of a new firetruck with its SPLOST dollars until they hear the county’s proposal. At the last Demorest City Council meeting, Mayor Rick Austin said he believed purchasing a firetruck with the city’s SPLOST dollars when they may merge with the county would be “the way we lose [SPLOST] money.”
READ HERE: Demorest and Habersham Fire Service Merger Discussion Points
Austin told citizens and council at the city’s Mar. 2 meeting that a third party from the Georgia Public Safety Training Center (GPSTC) would review the county’s proposal and the city’s options.
The public meeting will be held at the Demorest Municipal Building at 125 Ivy St. and will be livestreamed by Now Habersham via our Facebook page.
