Politics & Government

Cobb Commission Eyes More Revenue

The board will take up a proposal to raise bus fares and has a tenant for some of the county's vacant space.

The Cobb County Board of Commissioners will have the opportunity to add to the county’s revenue this morning without raising taxes.

Two weeks after —raising the millage rate—to address the problem of revenues falling tens of millions of dollars short of planned spending, the board is set to approve a new tenant for vacant county property and to raise fares for Cobb Community Transit.

The commissioners took the tougher step of last month despite repeated pleas to save the routes and the related paratransit service. The Cobb Department of Transportation is projecting a loss of nearly $400,000 in revenue from those service cuts in fiscal 2012, which starts Oct. 1.

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A proposal to raise local fares by 50 cents per trip to $2.50 and express fares by $1 per trip to $5 will produce $1.05 million in added revenue if the higher costs don’t lead to fewer people riding the buses.

After $50,000 in printing costs to update schedules with the new fares and the lost revenue from the eliminated routes, CCT will bring in a projected $606,000 in net additional revenue, according to the Cobb DOT proposal.

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The fare plan is the last action item before the commissioners today.

Another revenue producer is part of the consent agenda: a proposed 14-month lease with CapitalSouth to rent 9,130 square feet on the top floor of the county’s vacant building at 57 Waddell St. The lease includes two one-year options.

The building used to house the county’s property management operations, and Cobb tried to sell it and its neighbor at 47 Waddell St., where the Board of Elections and Registration used to live. Failing at that effort, the county decided May 24 to rent them out, and CapitalSouth made the only offer for any of the space, according to the agenda materials.

CapitalSouth would get the first two months’ rent free, then pay $68,000 a year for the space, plus janitorial services and up to $2.50 per square foot for utilities. The rent would increase 3 percent per year if CapitalSouth stayed.

If approved, the lease will go into effect Wednesday.

The board also will hold two public hearings this morning, neither of which is likely to run for hours as the millage hearings did two weeks ago. The first regards hiring a consultant for capital improvements Cobb County Airport-McCollum Field. The other concerns hiring a consultant to manage the 2011 transportation improvements program for the county.

The full agenda is attached.

The meeting starts at 9 a.m. at the county government building at 100 Cherokee St. by Marietta Square. Patch will cover the meeting live, and it also will be shown on cable Channel 23.


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