Only three Habersham County residents showed up for a recent town hall meeting on public safety. Although poorly attended, the meeting was full of information about the challenges and plans facing county law enforcement and emergency services.
Habersham County Commissioner Bruce Palmer hosted the Wednesday, June 28, gathering at the Ruby Fulbright Aquatic Center in Clarkesville. It was the latest in a series of quarterly town halls he has held since taking office.
Animal Care and Control
During the nearly hour-long meeting, public safety department heads took turns delivering presentations and answering questions. Habersham County Animal Care and Control Director Madi Nix joined them, although the county does not officially recognize her department as a unit of public safety. (Animal control officers respond to assist at crime scenes, wrecks, and fires and deal with other potential hazards but are not afforded the same benefits as other public safety officials in Habersham.)
Nix began by expressing her appreciation for being included in the town hall, then presented sobering statistics about the animal shelter.
“We are really struggling over there right now. We have seen a massive boost not only in our calls but in our intakes in our department,” she said.
Habersham County Animal Care and Control (HCACC) is fielding over 2,000 calls a month and averaging over 150 animals a month, almost double the number since last year.
Nix attributes part of the sudden influx of intakes to growth.
Many people are moving into Habersham County. Once they find an apartment, they discover the complex is not pet friendly, said Nix. Those renters then surrender their pets to the animal shelter.
As of June 29, 2023, the shelter housed 64 dogs and 104 cats.
Nix said her staff looks forward to the new animal shelter voters approved in the latest SPLOST. The new facility will allow HCACC enough space to provide the community with low-cost vaccinations and other services they currently can not offer due to a lack of space.
She ended her presentation by stating that she is a big advocate of “The more we give back (to the community), the more we get back (from the community).”
Sheriff’s Office
Major Les Hendrix said one of the biggest issues the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office faces right now is the retention of patrol officers. He explained that one contributing factor is the ongoing “wage wars” with neighboring counties recruiting officers from Habersham County.
He said Habersham’s county manager and human resources director were working hard to improve employee benefits.
Hendrix updated the staffing numbers at the sheriff’s office. He said the department needs one more investigator to fill that division, and they still lack about eight positions on patrol.
The jail is fully staffed, and administrators have decided to overhire for that division and send some of the more seasoned jail officers to the academy to promote to the patrol division.
He states that the biggest need for the county is the need for a new jail.
County resident Harold Tolbert asked Major Hendrix if the school resource officers were helping. Hendrix said they help by serving papers and doing transports when they weren’t in training.
“Have you assumed the duties of the Chief Deputy?” Tolbert asked. Hendrix replied, “It’s just a rank and a title. It’s essentially the same thing.”
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Emergency Services
Emergency Management Agency and E-911 Director Lynn Smith delivered a joint presentation with Fire Chief/Emergency Medical Services Director Jeff Adams. They spoke together since their departments work so closely together.
Following the county commission’s recent approval of nine new firefighting positions, Adams said they are moving forward with the hiring process. They interviewed about seven people in the last three days, he said.
Adams said his department is running a lot of calls and is busy. While first responders have been looking forward to Northeast Georgia Medical Center taking over operations at the county hospital, he said there is some apprehension about how smooth the transition will be.
“On paper, everything looks good. Talking about it, everything looks good. So we will just see what happens Friday night at midnight,” he said. (Habersham Medical Center officially became Northeast Georgia Medical Center Habersham on July 1.)
Adams said his staff averages about 15 fire responses a day. They average roughly about 20 EMS responses a day. On those EMS calls, the staff is transporting about 15 of them, with 2-3 transfers daily to Gainesville. Occasionally, Adams said, they will transfer a patient to Scottish Rite.
Chief Adams expressed his excitement about moving forward with plans for a new building that will house Fire and EMS and the E-911 Center. He explained that the new building they are planning will be good for “down the road. We are planning for that growth.”
It was discussed that the county may have secured property for the new facility north of Demorest-Mt Airy Highway, and they are currently in discussions with the property owner to determine where their boundary line ends and what belongs to the Department of Transportation.
EMA/911
Demorest Council member Shawn Allen was in the audience and asked, “Has there been any plans to do anything with the property that was originally purchased?” Palmer replied, “Possibly sell it back to the Board of Education.”
Allen asked, “When are we getting radios?” EMA/E-911 Director Lynn Smith replied, “We are working on those. Our timeline is 2025. It has taken us a little bit of time on land acquisitions; unfortunately, more than what we wanted it to take, but we have already started on some of the sites.”
Smith explained that they have several things ordered and should see work begin on four sites in the next couple of months.
She also explained to the audience that her department is responsible for all 911 calls and dispatching for all seven cities in Habersham and the county. She stated that they had over 400,000 emergency and non-emergency calls and that call volume for the size of the call center they have is “extremely busy.”
Director Smith says her department is short-staffed, and they are diligently trying to fill the open positions but are not receiving many applications.
Morale boost
Like Adams, Smith too, expressed excitement about the pending Fire/EMS/911 Center. Currently, EMA/911 is housed in an underground bunker off Chase Road in Cornelia. The aged facility has no windows. Smith says the new building is desperately needed to improve staff morale.
“I think it will be a big boost for everybody when we can get into the new building,” she said.
Smith announced that they had started a couple of promotions on social media and the county website, informing residents about two relatively new programs.
The first is Logan’s List, a program residents can sign up for to notify emergency responders if someone in the home has special needs.
The other is the Code Red emergency alert system. The notification system alerts residents to bad weather and situations they need to be informed about.
Residents can sign up online from a desktop or cellphone.
Audience member’s request
Audience member Barbara Allen thanked the public safety directors for all they do and for responding to her numerous calls about various things. She asked if the county could place better signage on State Route 17 in the Amy’s Creek area.
Habersham County Manager Alicia Vaughn replied that they would get her contact information and put her in touch with the Public Works Director to see what Georgia DOT could do about signs in the area.
