By Angie Thompson, Senior Reporter
TIFTON — Tifton Mayor Jamie Cater said Friday that it is true that he voted only for a study to determine the feasibility of the city buying and operating an Internet, cable and telephone company when he served on the council in 1997 and that it was the newly elected council that took office Jan. 1, 1998 that passed the resolution to put the city in the business that would be called CityNet.
Cater said that the Rant “In the records” that appeared in the Nov. 15 edition of the Tifton Gazette caused him concern and he spent a Sunday afternoon looking through the council’s minutes from the time and found them to be what he remembered.
“The record shows I voted simply for the study,” Cater said.
Spud Bowen, who served on the Tifton City Council with Cater for a period of time, wrote a letter that was published in the Tifton Gazette Nov. 18. In the letter, Bowen stated that council members Paul Grisham, Joe Lewis, the late Frank Doles and Cater authorized the study to show the “feasibility for the possibility of entering into the telecommunications business.” Also, Bowen wrote, on June 11, 1998, Mayor Paul Johnson, Vice Mayor Joe Lewis and council members Dave Hetzel, Dick Chalfant and Roosevelt Russell voted “for the largest expenditure in the city’s history without voter approval.”
Copies of Tifton City Council minutes show that the council at its June 2, 1997 meeting did authorize the city manager to enter into an agreement with United Telesystems, Inc. for “the provision of a telecommunications study and provide for the allocation of funds for said study.” New council members sworn in Jan. 4, 1998 did not include Cater. According to the minutes, at 7 p.m. on April 6, 1998, the city held a public hearing on a proposed telecommunications system with some citizens supporting and others speaking up against the idea. During the regular city council meeting that same night, the council adopted a resolution “implementing the recommendations of United Telesystems, Inc. providing for a telecommunications system” and also adopted a resolution “to include planning and development costs in bond issue for telecommunications.”
Cater said he believed the need for fiber optic would be better filled here by private industry.
“I called Joe Lewis and Paul Grisham and recommended they take a closer look,” Cater said. “I felt like the fiber optics were here or would be here soon.”
Cater said that when he was elected as mayor, he began investigating the CityNet financial situation to see “if something could be done with it.”
“I realized pretty quickly that it needed to go,” Cater said.
Cater said he appreciated City Manager Mike Vollmer for “studying it and putting it in perspective for all of us.”
“We all agreed that it needed to be sold,” Cater said. “I thought it should be in the private sector to start with.”
Cater said that he “inherited CityNet,” and a tough economy and that he and others are doing everything they can to avoid mandating city employee layoffs.
“We’ve asked everyone to park their vehicles and that alone will save approximately $89,000,” Cater said. “Our hotel/motel tax, LOST and sales tax revenues are down and we have to work pro-actively instead of reactively. We need to carve out $600,000 and look at doing things in a different way.”
Cater said he is concerned about city employee moral and has visited with various shifts at the Tifton Police Dept.
“I told them to be honest with me,” Cater said. “They didn’t pass a lot of blame and said they wanted the city council to spend money the best way. We don’t have any layoffs or furlough planned right now.”
Cater said that he believed the current state of the economy will force governments to “get back to basics.”
“The mindset of some has always been bigger government is better,” Cater said. “Government was formed primarily to provide police protection, fire protection, sewage, garbage, the basic services. I believe this economy has taught us as governments and individuals that we need to get back to the basics. I think once we are out of this, we are going to be wiser.”
Cater said the city has held 33 positions vacant and doesn’t plan to fill them anytime soon.
To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.
