Colt Anderson, owner of Cottongim Heating and Cooling, addressed the Tift County Board of Commissioners Tuesday, saying that unlicensed businesses are preying on people in the county.

During the commission’s January workshop meeting, Anderson said that he has met many victims in his line of work and brought some of them with him to the meeting. He said some businesses in the county are performing work for which they are not licensed, and he asked the county to take steps to stop them.

The business owner said the unlicensed companies install plumbing, air conditioners or other amenities, but the work is so bad that other companies such as his own must come behind them and do the work correctly.

“These people are being taken advantage of,” he said.

He said many of the victims live on limited budgets and cannot afford the financing set up by the unlicensed companies and cannot pay to have the repairs made by legitimate companies.

“The problem lies with our community,” said Anderson. “We don’t have any ordinances against this activity.”

The board passed an ordinance in 2004 requiring businesses that were not licensed by the state to be licensed by the county. However, many of the tasks the businesses perform, such as air conditioning installation, are regulated by a state licensing board. Anderson also said the companies may use legitimate, licensed businesses as fronts for their unlicensed endeavors.

Anderson said he has contacted licensing agencies and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation trying to find what recourse the victims have to protect themselves. He said that he was told that the state has little enforcement power in the issue short of revoking licenses.

“The GBI said what we need to do is have some ordinance or law on our books so they can be punished for this,” Anderson said.

He said that the businesses are using aggressive tactics to trick their victims into purchasing their unregulated services, such as sending salesmen door to door, particularly on the south side of Tifton, looking for potential customers.

“They use any tactic they can to get inside the door, sell these units and install them poorly,” he said.

County attorney Anthony Rowell said that he would be glad to sit down with Anderson to work up a plan to deal with the problem. Larry Riner, assistant to the city manager for the City of Tifton, said that the city would also be willing to help with the problem.

Also during the meeting, the board discussed several items which will be on the agenda for the regular session meeting scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Monday.

One of the items may spell the end of the prolonged discussions over the former Brookfield Volunteer Fire Station. The board will vote Monday to sign a lease agreement with the Brookfield Community Club to rent the former fire station on Chula-Brookfield Road in Brookfield. The rent will be $200 per month, and the club will be responsible for all utilities. The lease would allow the club to make improvements to the site only with permission from the commission.

Hester told Rowell, who drafted the lease, that he would hate to see the club members invest a great deal of money in the building only to have them lose it somewhere down the line.

“Is there any way that we could put in an option to buy?” the commissioner asked the attorney.

Rowell said that such an option would not be prudent at the beginning of the relationship between the club and the commission. He said that nothing in the lease prevents the two entities from re-evaluating the relationship in the future.

“I think the lease as written best serves the county, but I believe there’s a degree of fairness in it also,” he said.

In early September 2006, the long journey of the fate of the old Brookfield Fire Station began when then-commissioner Moody Huggins suggested the abandoned building be declared surplus property and put up for bids. Moody said the county no longer needed the facility since the new Brookfield Fire Station had opened. Buddy Coarsey spoke at the regular board meeting in mid-September, telling the commissioners that his mother had donated the land and building to Tift County where the old fire station is located. He requested that the property be sold at public auction, rather than by sealed bid.

In October, the county commissioners agreed to get sealed bids on the property, rather than sell it at auction as Coarsey had suggested. The deadline for the sealed bids was set for Nov. 3, 2006.

In November, Chris Goodman placed the highest sealed bid of $30,000. At the commission’s workshop session, board members agreed to accept the bid from Goodman and moved the item to the consent agenda to be voted on and approved at the regular session. Subsequently, Coarsey led a petition drive of Brookfield residents who asked that the facility not be sold so that in the future it could house emergency medical technicians.

At the regular session, Commissioner Frankie Mathis made a motion to remove the fire station sale from the consent agenda. The commissioners agreed to discuss the issue in closed executive session after the regular meeting. After the executive session, commissioners said that further action on the sale would be delayed until the December meeting.

In early December 2006, Brookfield residents formed the Brookfield Community Club and wanted to use the building as their clubhouse. Coarsey had been scheduled to speak to the board again, but did not, having been assured by Huggins, Chairman Grady Thompson and Commissioner Buck Rigdon that the facility would not be sold and could be used as a community clubhouse. Coarsey, Brookfield residents and the commissioners appeared satisfied with the “clubhouse solution,” and the Brookfield Fire Station was to make its final appearance on the commission agenda at the last regular session in December. At that meeting, a motion to repeal the bids was made and carried.

Other items on the agenda for Monday’s meeting include naming Hester vice-chairman of the board and a workforce services agreement with the Airport Authority. The agreement may be tabled as the county is still waiting on some information about it. Commissioners hope that the agreement will lead to the county’s use of the Hasty Building, currently owned by the authority, as a driver’s license examining office.

After the workshop session, Thompson addressed the other board members about a growing litter problem in the county.

“I’ve never seen so many people throw so much trash out,” he said. “That’s one of the things I’d like to see our community do this year, is clean this litter off our roadsides.

“That’s my idea. 2007 should be a clean-up year.”

A motion to name Roger Dill as interim county manager was listed on an early copy of the meeting’s agenda. Although that measure was removed prior to Tuesday’s workshop session, Dill was in attendance and addressed Thompson’s idea about cleaning up the community. He said that the county needed one person in charge of clean-up crews made of prisoners or community service workers, because civic groups that help with the litter problem do not have the manpower to fight the problem alone.

Former Commissioner Charlotte Bedell was also in attendance and spoke during the public comments section of the meeting. She agreed that something needs to be done about the county’s litter.

“The problem arises from those who are throwing it out,” she said. “The time has come for us to enforce our litter ordinance.”

Prior to the meeting, the recently elected members of the county commission were sworn into office. Re-elected Commissioner Donnie Hester and new members Sherry Miley, Mike Jones and Robert Setters took their oaths from Probate Court Judge Suzanne Carter-Johnson.