Franklin BOC Approves Transfer of County Roads to City of Lavonia

Franklin County Commissioners have begun the process of transferring certain roads to the City of Lavonia.

At their meeting Monday, commissioners voted to accept a resolution to abandon the roads with a view to offering them to the City.

The roads in question are near retail and commercial areas in Lavonia that are experiencing ongoing or new growth.

Last month, the Lavonia City Council also approved a resolution to request the annexation of those roads after hearing from City Mayor Courtney Umbehant.

Umbehant and City Manager Charles Cawthon then came before the County Commission in July to request they transfer the roads to the City.

At their meeting, Monday, County attorney Bubba Samuels explained the process of transferring those roads to Lavonia requires a number of steps that must be gone through.

“The process for removing a county road from the county road system is called road abandonment. It requires a public hearing and a resolution from this Board after notice in the paper,” Samuels explained. “And once that resolution is adopted the road is removed from the County’s road system and at that point the statute authorizes us to first offer it to the City the road runs through and convey by a quit claim deed to the city, which is a long way to get to the relief the City is asking for but it’s a process that is state law and in my legal opinion is required in order to remove the road from the County road system.”

After hearing from Samuels, Commissioners voted unanimously to abandon the roads.