Lavonia Mayor Responds to Statements Made by City Council Candidate Harbin

Lavonia Mayor Courtney Umbehant says former city councilman Harold Harbin has put out some misinformation regarding the current millage rate and the raising of property taxes.

At the Lavonia City Council meeting last week, the Mayor took time to counter some of the statements made in an interview Harbin did with WLHR News in August when he announced he was again running for City Council.

Harbin said the reason he decided to run again for City Council mainly had to do with the City raising taxes, which he said were up some 17%.

The City of Lavonia adopted a 2023 millage rate of 8.75mils,  down 0.291 from the original advertised rate of 9.041mils.

The 9.041 mils advertised before the vote was the same millage rate in Lavonia since 2020 and slightly lower than in 2019 when it was 9.070 mils and lower than in 2018 when it was 9.20 mils.

Umbehant said the 8.75 mils is the lowest millage rate adopted in Lavonia in decades.

Harbin pointed out the city is in great financial shape noting Lavonia currently has $1.6 million in its unrestricted balance fund so he believes there was no need to raise property taxes.

The Mayor said, though, that that money is earmarked to help get the city through until property tax revenue comes in.

Harbin also criticized the Mayor for using city parks improvement as a reason to raise property taxes saying a plan to improve the parks had been in the works for years.

This year, the City Council adopted an overall parks improvement plan to address improvements at all of the parks including Springview Heights and the Old City Park.

Mayor Umbehant questioned why, then, if there had been a parks improvement plan already, it had never been acted upon.

Harbin also questioned why the City of Lavonia has not applied for more grant funding stating that the Georgia Municipal Association could help with that.

Umbehant said that is not the case.

Mayor Umbehant’s complete response to comments made by former councilman Harold Harbin who is running for the Post 3 City Council seat, can be heard this Sunday at 12:03 on Community Forum.