From STAFF REPORTS
THOMASVILLE –Governor Sonny Perdue and members of the OneGeorgia Authority Board met this past week at Southwest Georgia Technical College and approved grants and loans from the OneGeorgia Authority’s portfolio of financing programs.
Among the recipients are City of Cordele which will use the money for road improvements and City of Vienna who will be making sewer improvements.
In Cordele, equity loan funds totaling $500,000 will be used to assist with road widening improvements along Frontage Road and Kelly Road to State Route 300 in order to open up the area to commercial development opportunities and encourage tourism to the area by accommodating the heavy traffic from I-75 and SR 300.
Proposed road improvements are expected to increase the number of customers willing and/or able to access businesses along Frontage Road. Businesses to benefit from the road widening improvements are McDonald’s, Flash Foods, Papa’s Southern Meats and Eats, Back Woods Outdoors and Shelby’s Market Place.
These companies and the developer have provided a firm letter of commitment that assures the creation of 68 jobs and the provision of $7,960,648 in private investment.
In Vienna, the $500,000 in grant funds will be used for sewer infrastructure improvements to benefit the Tyson Poultry Plant.
Tyson Foods, the city’s largest employer, processes chickens and has the contract for the Wendy’s food chain in the Southeast. Due to the large amount of waste material associated with chicken processing, the wastewater conveyance system often gets backed up and spills into the environment which has resulted in a Consent Order from the Georgia Environmental Protection Division.
If the backups last more than a day, plant production ceases. This could jeopardize Tyson’s contract with Wendy’s which could mean the direct loss of 600 jobs for the region.
In addition, closure of the plant would affect hatchery employees, poultry farmers, poultry wranglers, feed processors, truck drivers and employees of other related industries in the area.
The OneGeorgia Authority was created utilizing 1/3 of the state’s tobacco settlement to assist the state’s most economically challenged areas.
The OneGeorgia Authority is expected to receive about $1.6 billion over the 25-year term of the settlement. From the Authority’s inception to-date, OneGeorgia has made 458 awards totaling $251 million leveraged against a total project investment of $5 billion, a return on investment of 20:1.
These grants have impacted 132 economically-depressed counties, and either created or retained more than 45,000 jobs.
