R U KIDDING ME? WE NEED MORE POLICE OFFICERS OVER A NEW CAR FOR THE NEW MAYOR!! I SEE WHERE THIS NEW MAYOR IS GOING.....LIKE ALL THE REST OF THE POLITICIANS, ALL FOR THEMSELVES!! HELL NO!!

County Chairman Tom Worthan did the same thing when he took office. He refused to ride in the same car Rita Rainwater used. So he spent about $25k for a new SUV. Maybe Mayor Mickey put to many "hard miles" on the old car and left french fries under the seat. Maybe the City of Douglasville is rolling in cash and they need to find ways to spend it. Thanks Mr. Warner for speaking out.

Obviously we can see how little the comments made by a citizen of Douglasville had at this meeting. They didn't even give a hint of consideration by tabling the decision to purchase a new car for the new mayor for a later date to reconsider. Immediately they decided to pass it. Guess we as citizens of Douglasville know where we stand now.

Get a new paint job and have the car steam cleaned; in other words, GET REAL.

You get who you voted for!

I'm glad that this post has gotten so much attention. The only way to make a system better is to pay attention, find the fat, and trim it. If our local government ran more like a business wasteful expenditures like this would not even be thought of. Keep asking questions, the government should be weary of its people and vise versa.

Not a good sign of things to come...

Part of the problem that Douglas County has is image and perception. Anyone with any business sense would know that 15 - 25k is really insignificant. If Douglas county wants to enhance perception and image you can't have Leadership in old vehicles. If the Mayor or Mr Worthan were demanding a new Lexus I would have a problem but they are not making that demand. Any normal company swaps out fleet vehicles every 3 to 5 years, there is no difference in the scenario today for the Mayor. I applaud the resident for standing up and questioning the process but this sounds like a personal attack rather than a true best interest of Douglas County concern.

While I would be looking at a 4 year old 48k mile vehicle as "new" rather than something to be traded in, and I feel that the City should have better things to do with the citizens money - getting in a huge twist over a this amount of money is somewhat silly. Lets look at spending millions on a road to nowhere (Bright Star "Connector") or on a unnecessary convention center.

Additionally, I can understand why the council members did not hold up the entire budget (nearly $20 million) over a line item that is 0.0013% of the whole.

I guess that Mr. Warner really wanted to be on the council.

The new car for Douglas County Chairman Tom Worthan cost almost $28,000. It is a sports model Ford SUV.

Whether you live in only the county or a city within the county, YOU HELPED PAY FOR IT!

The county car Worthan was driving was about 4 years old.

Now the new mayor, who was going to change things, wants a new car.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Thank you, Gary Warner for speaking common sense on the behalf of Douglasville residents. I cosign.

The beauty is that everyone can agree to disagree but the fact is that what is done is done, now move on because you can't change it regarless of how angry you get.

James, it sounds like you are pretty in touch with politicians and their behaviors why dont you run for office and try to change things? It's easy to have an opinion, what is hard is stepping up to the plate and doing the job.

I commend the men and women who place themselves in public positions, regardless of their motive. At least they are willing rise to the task. Most people are content in complaining rather than motivated to doing something about what they consider problems. There is no perfect Mayor nor Commisioner, they are all human and make mistakes but at least they are willing and confident enough to put themselves out there to try to make a difference.

Douglasville is a great place to live, it as all counties do, has its faults but its home and the only way to make things better is to stop bashing leadership and start getting involved. Unfortunately, a blog is not getting involved, it's an easy way to throw rocks at a target.

I encourage any and all who feel they can do better to step up to the plate and convince the voters of Douglas County that you are a better person for the job. Who knows, maybe you will or maybe you won't but at least the effort was made. Negative comments only make matters worse, come to the table with solutions rather than reporting problems.

In response to 4Douglas-anyone who resides in Douglasville has a right to post to this blog and air their opinion about things that affect them as residents of this county. They do NOT have to run for Mayor to express there viewpoint and to make such a suggestion to me seems like an asinine remark. What we want is a Mayor who has some fiscal conscience in the light of the harsh economic times. I am driving a Mazda 626 with over 150,000. My way of thinking is if it is still running well, why spend the money on a new one? When the time comes where I must replace it, I will purchase a used vehicle and I would not consider 48,000 miles to be excessive. Most cars get at least 100,000 if well taken care of and I'm sure the Mayor's car would be well kept up by the maintenance department that overseas county vehicles.

Let's allow all residents of Douglas County to air their grievances that is exactly what this blog is for. You shouldn't expect the tax paying residents to keep their opinions to themselves or else run for Mayor. As far as a solution, I would have suggested that they tabled the portion of the purchase of the new car until it was further reviewed instead of just passing it as soon as the speaker sat down. It looked like his concerns were not even taken under consideration by any of those seated in those nice comfy blue chairs.

Fran,
I am simply pointing out the obvious that a community should work together and present solutions. I think it is great for individuals to have an avenue to vent BUT if you read what people are posting it is clear that James has a vendetta against Tom or he would have never drug him into the Mayor car deal. Others have made comments about the new Mayor not being different than the old but in reality those that slander the rest, typically have no idea of the reasons why things happen. There are many reasons why things should happen such as car purchases, for example, for tax purposes. There are advantages and resons why that is sometimes necessary. There was a comment earlier that the money could be used for job creation, great concept but not rational, with salary and benefits, a new job creation is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars long term. We are talking ablout a one time $15K it just needs to be put into perspective.

"a new job creation is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars long term"

A basic $27K to $30K per year public sector job with a descent yearly benefit package costing $4000 per year i.e. PPO Medical, Dental, Life, Eye Glass would take six years to attain hundreds of thousands of dollars status technically. In that time, you would hope that the City employee earning these wages would be an asset to the function of government and the citizens of Douglasville.

I don’t see where a new car at this time of declining property tax revenues would be an asset to the function of government no matter if it were 10% or 0.000010% of the approved annual budget. It’s all a matter of perception I guess. A small business person trying to make it in Douglasville on a $200,000 per year budget compared to a government dealing with a $20,000,000 per year outlay would more than likely have a very different take on the purchase of a new vehicle for an elected official.

The disconnect between tax payer perception and tax payer employee perception i.e. mayor and council are most often worlds apart. Especially during these historic economic times of high unemployment and Douglas County’s home foreclosure rate that is ranked 4th in the state of Georgia.

Yes, $15,000 may be a drop in the bucket to many people, but in this situation, it’s a very telling story of how our local government will be run in the coming four years.

According to the front page article recently publilshed in the Douglas County Sentinel the $15,000 for the car is AFTER the trade-in of the 4-year-old Tahoe, which is supposed to be worth about $28,000.

So, $28,000 for the trade in and at least $15,000 in cash for the new Tahoe is almost $45,000. And that is the estimate by a Douglasville city employee.

This is on the front page of the Sentinel and probably still online.

The former mayor said the current Tahoe has 45,000 miles and runs perfectly. GM said the Tahoe should easily go 200,000 miles without a problem.

When the Neighbor Newspaper printed a story about the sheriff wanting to fill the new jail up with state and federal prisoners, Chairman Tom Worthan sent a letter signed "Board of Commissioners" to the paper's publishers asking that they "deal with this matter". The reporter had sources but was moved to reporting social events. Worthan attempted to get the reporter fired. I have the letter if anyone is interested. Thanks to the PATCH we can get the scoop on the gov't.

I am a lifelong resident of Douglas County and have to agree with the majority of bloggers about the need for a new car after only 4 yrs. & 48,000 miles. I don't expect the mayor to drive around in a clunker but come on if there is nothing wrong with the car then why spend the taxpayers $ for a new one. @ James, I had the same question about which government department 4Douglas works for. If they think this is chump change then maybe they should donate a new car to the mayor.

Here is the aforementioned Sentinel article:
http://www.douglascountysentinel.com/view/full_story/17201876/article-Council-approved-purchase-of-new-vehicle-for-mayor