Note: The following are Question and Answers provided by the Polk County Chamber of Commerce to questions that weren’t asked during the 2022 Candidate Forum, and have been made available to local news outlets like Polk Today for publication. You can find coverage of the Candidate Forum here.

These groups of question and answers come from candidate Glenn Robinson for the District 2 Commission seat which will be decided in the Tuesday, May 24, 2022 Primary.

Note that these are the only answers we received for Mr. Robinson out of the nine total questions provided to candidates.

Would you support creating a Land Bank Authority to help address blight and dilapidated properties around the county? Are you in favor of creating it? Would you be in favor of supporting it? Would you be in favor of supporting it financially and administratively?

Answer: Absolutely not: Creating an authority takes away the county’s ability to control what happens. This is the responsibility of the county and should remain that way. I do agree this is a problem that needs to be addressed and I fully agree it is an issue our citizens are concerned about, but creating an authority is not the way to go about it. We need to develop a plan; with community support and if approved I would support it, as commissioner, both financially and administratively.

Are you aware that city residents pay the same milage rates/property taxes as unincorporated Polk County? The County commission represents all Polk County, which includes the cities.

Answer: Yes, I am very aware that city residents pay both city and county taxes. That is why city residents get to vote for county commissioners, they are allowed to run for county officers, and are due the same privileges as county residents. I am also aware that there are intergovernmental agreements in place to support each other. One for instance is the division of SPLOST (Special Local Option Sales Tax) funds which are based on population I believe, that equally distributes these funds.

Where do you think the majority of sales tax is generated and economic growth occurs?

Answer: Obviously the majority of sales tax is generated in the cities and economic growth occurs around these areas of the county. Sixty four percent of our community residents have to travel to these areas to shop, have a meal, or conduct other business. This is very unfortunate because we need economic development to occur outside the city limits, as well as the cities.

This scenario puts the burden on property owners to pay for all the things needed to keep the county running (roads & bridge maintenance, public safety, employee salaries, etc). I am all about keeping and protecting our beautiful rural landscape, but we are going to have to have economic development in these areas. I think and it has been proven by cities like Louisville Kentucky that with advanced and proper planning both can occur.

The record number of homes being built in Polk County on one hand is a good thing, but for every dollar paid into taxes, the county has to spend, from my research, $1.25 or more to support those homes. Sooner or later our taxes are going to skyrocket unless we find ways other than tax payers to pay the bills if we are going to have the services we deserve.

Would you support going after grant money on a regular basis and creating a position at the county office to administer grants?

You bet! Why we haven’t done this is beyond comprehension. I have visited other counties while researching grants from the USDA. Bartow County, for example; has a full time grant writer. It is amazing what they have accomplished and money received that normally out of reach due to budget constraints. I would tie the job description to goals and if not met look at other avenues. There is money out there and a good grant writer will find then and the county will greatly benefit.

Should Polk County bring in more industry, tourism and housing developments or stay the way it is?

A lot of this was answered in question 7. We need industry, tourism, and housing development but not at the cost of destroying our way of life, traditions, and natural resources. Our cities and county need all of these to survive. My wife and I were on the Northwest Georgia Regional Commission 10 year planning committee in 2017 and when this question came up, the overwhelming answer was to keep our county’s natural beauty and rural atmosphere, but it was also agreed, we need to plan for development.

Ways were discussed on how to accomplish this and written into the plan. Unfortunately, at the five year assessment review very little that was planned has been accomplished in my opinion. I am not being critical but the plan has not being implemented properly. We have accomplished many things in the past 5 years, but they are things that came up and became an emergency because of lack of proper management and planning. We can have it both ways, but until we elect candidates with vision and passion we will remain in the current situation of uncontrolled growth, lack of transparency and mismanagement.