Questions are mounting over the Habersham County Board of Commissioners’ recent approval of a $3.4 million loan to the county airport. Habersham County Airport Commission members claim airport manager Will Regan misled county officials when he presented the proposal to them on November 21 asking for the loan.
Airport commissioners Dee Higgins and Andy Anderson both sent letters to county commissioners disputing Regan’s claims that the airport commission was aware of and in agreement with his plan to request $3,438,798 from the county to build 24 new hangars at the airport in Baldwin. Higgins and Anderson say they never saw the bids for the project, disputing what Regain told county commissioners.
Habersham County Chairman Bruce Palmer addressed the matter at the Airport Commission’s December 5 meeting.
“I’m sure there’s been some false statements that’s been made, and I won’t point fingers at who makes them, but there are things that happen and as Commissioners, we have to research our way through those things,” he said.
Palmer says he was at the Airport Commission meeting on September 12 when the airport commission voted to approve a hangar expansion project at a cost of up to $5.2 million.
“I know right before that, there was some talk about a called meeting to discuss those savings, but from the Board of Commissioners standpoint, whenever you all voted unanimously to approve going forward, that’s what we did, is we went forward,” he said.
At the November 21 meeting,...
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