Talks could get heated at today's Chatham County Commission meeting, as commissioners consider two contentious issues: a miscalculation by the county tax assessors office in the 2002 tax digest; and the proposed site for Chatham Area Transit's bus-transfer complex.

Commissioner Jeff Rayno has asked Chief Appraiser Gary Udinsky and Board of Assessors Chairman Joseph Vestal to attend to explain a mistake that led to the school board banking on $25,000 more in tax revenue than it will actually get. School board members had to adjust their budget -- passed Monday morning -- after learning that afternoon that numbers they were provided on Friday were wrong.

Udinsky, already under fire for the way his office assigns value to county properties, has said the error -- tied to calculation of the Stephens-Day homestead exemptions for school taxing purposes -- resulted when staff ran the wrong version of a computer program.

"We're going to request a full report," Rayno said. "It's inexcusable. You don't let product go out without checking it first."

Commissioner Frank Murray said he wanted to "discuss" Chatham Area Transit's plan to build a bus-transfer complex on a county-owned parking lot at the edge of Savannah's historic downtown.

The federal agency in charge of administering $10 million for the $13 million project in May ordered station plans halted while officials take a second look at the project's impact on the Historic District.

Murray would not say what, if any, action he would call for at the meeting. He did say : "I feel like we need to address (the site) again . I think we need to sell that property and move on."

Murray was one of three commissioners casting dissenting votes when the CAT Board -- made up of the nine commissioners and three others -- last year gave its approval to the site, on Oglethorpe Avenue between Montgomery Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Opponents argue the two-building complex -- designed to include retail space, CAT offices, and a 180-space parking garage in addition to an indoor central transfer point for bus riders -- would cause traffic tie-ups in an already congested area and infringe on efforts to rehabilitate parts of Savannah's historic town plan, most notably nearby Elbert Square.

Savannah Morning News

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2002