Residents of a neighborhood in south Hall County looking to have a traffic signal installed at the entrance to the subdivision will have to wait until at least after Spout Springs Road is widened.
The Hall County Commission voted Thursday to re-evaluate the intersection of Ivy Springs Drive and Spout Springs Road 10 to 12 months after the Georgia DOT completes their planned widening of the busy road. Several residents spoke at the meeting, saying they wanted a traffic signal installed before the widening took place.
"The new Cherokee Bluff High School and Spout Springs Elementary School are a left turn out of our subdivision. That in itself would be a reason for a traffic light to protect our student drivers and parents going to those schools," resident Nancy Duncan told the commission.
Duncan also said she was concerned about the amount of U-turns that drivers leaving the neighborhood would need to make with a widened Spout Springs Road, as well as the added time it could take emergency vehicles to get to the subdivision.
Hall County Public Works Director Ken Rearden told commissioners that since the Georgia DOT currently has possession of the road until the project is finished, the county would have to reclaim the road and put the widening project on standby, which he said could delay it by more than a year and cost the county more than $500,000.
Clark Pickett, the president of the Ivy Springs homeowner's association, told the commission that he felt the county could spend less money on the project by installing it before the widening occurred.
"We understand [Oak Ridge Drive] directly across the street from us is planning to be moved a little ways. It just seems to make good fiscal sense to move the road another 30 feet and have the two line up and put a light there that will slow the traffic, making it safer for everyone," Pickett said.
District One Commissioner Kathy Cooper made the motion to wait to re-evaluate until after the widening project. That motion was approved unanimously.
"We spent several months looking at this and you get the details of what you're at risk of by changing something right now, and I wasn't willing to take that risk," Cooper said. "I want it to be safe when it's finished, but we've got to get it finished first."
Pay raises for Hall deputies approved
The commission also gave final approval to pay raises for some Hall County Sheriff's Deputies. The raises, which were presented by Sheriff Gerald Couch at the commission's Monday work session, will be 2.5 percent for certified deputies in the department.
Couch said the raises are being given to encourage deputies and other employees to stay in the department after the sheriff's office lost more than 50 deputies in 2017 to other jurisdictions.
