GDOT makes it hard to do business in Georgia
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Jamie Gardner
A magazine, Area Development, has named Georgia a top state to do business in the country for like 11 years in a row. Many state politicians have bragged about this designation. Apparently, that magazine has never dealt with Georgia’s Department of Transportation (GDOT). I’ve heard complaints for years from citizens who had to deal with the state public agency, but never thought that much about it until I had to deal directly with GDOT.
My son, Cole, and I have a small billboard company. Earlier this year, we were approached by a landowner about the possibility of leasing a parcel here in the community. The parcel had a billboard on it already, but the owners reported that they had not been paid by the company that had the billboard for several years. Cole and I agreed to take on the lease and began the process of getting the board either changed over to us, repairing that board, or constructing a new board.
The first step in this process was to file for a billboard permit through the GDOT. On May 1 of this year, we applied for the permit and paid the required $300.00 to the public agency. We submitted all required documentation including a design for the billboard (identical to the sign that was already there) and notified them that there was a sign already on the site with a permit and even gave them the permit number.
First, GDOT told us we couldn’t get a permit for our sign until the old company removed its billboard or transferred the permit over to us. We conveyed that information to the property owner and the owner had to get an attorney involved to get the company off the property. Finally, the company came and removed the board, leaving behind its poles they cut off at ground level for someone else to clean up. This process probably took over a month.
When the other company vacated, we immediately contacted GDOT again. They then told us they would send out a site inspector to look at the site, and we went and staked off the area exactly where the former sign was located. Not sure why the agency needed to do this since a sign had been at this location for a long time. We waited for an extended period for GDOT to respond with its findings and never heard anything. I then reached out to the public agency again for answers.
This time, the excuse was that we had to get residential consent forms filled out by four property owners next to the sign. This may be one of the most foolish things I’d ever heard from any state agency I’ve ever dealt with. I knew the sign had been there for at least 10-15 years. Why in the world would we have to go get permission from other property owners adjacent to the sign? Come to find out the original sign was constructed in 1984. Surely this was a joke, right? For a sign that had been at the location for 41 years, one would think that if other property owners had an issue with the sign being there, they would have already said something within the 41-year period.
Additionally, I asked twice and finally got an answer to a question I posed to the public agency. That question was, “What happens if one of these owners does not agree to the sign?” GDOT finally responded by saying we couldn’t have a permit. What if a property owner had a problem with the person making the request? What if the property owner didn’t want their information on a public document?
Next, I asked the public employee for copies of the former company’s residential consent forms. The public employee lied and said, “We cannot release other permit owners’ records.”
Wait a minute! This public agency is providing me with a public document to go get people to fill out and this information is not “public”? I knew that was a bold-faced lie, and another employee of GDOT later admitted that we could get this information if we made an open records request to the agency. I was making that request with or without clarification.
I also contacted my state legislators seeking assistance. Representative Steven Meeks responded and did do some digging into the issue. Senator Blake Tillery had a staff member reach out to me. Never got a response from Rep. Bill Werkhesier.
Come to find out there is an obscure law in Georgia that states a billboard owner must get permission from adjacent property owners within 300ft. of a billboard if the billboard is not in an incorporated area. There are no policies in Appling County that would prevent the construction of the billboard. There are really no land-use policies in Appling County. In other words, someone could put a hog pen on the property beside these neighbors and not have to get permission, but heaven forbid we put up a billboard and GDOT is involved. What a joke! I’d just about bet money this law was created by some politician who had a negative sign put up beside his or her house at some point. Did I mention we did apply for the permit long before the other sign was taken down and presented identical plans if the old sign to construct the same sign was taken down?
To date, my open records request seeking the former company’s residential consent forms and owner consent, submitted to GDOT on August 7, has yet to be answered. I did get a note from an employee from the public agency stating that it would take a few days (employee cited 10 days) to find the information, but no law was cited for the delay. In the state of Georgia, an agency has
