Three-way road swap to make Nathaniel Drive part of state highway

Nathaniel Drive, the five-lane thoroughfare built for a once bustling but now mostly empty industrial district in East Dublin, will become the new start of Ga. 199 under a three-way road swap between the city, state and Laurens County.

The County Commission approved request Tuesday by the city and the Georgia Department of Transportation to take over a portion of the current Ga. 199 once the deal is done.

The swap will make Nathaniel Drive into the second new starting point for Ga. 199 in the last decade. The highway was relocated and reconfigured in 2014 to eliminate a dangerous intersection with Ga. 29. The shift to Nathaniel Drive will move it more than mile and half into town, near the river bridge toward Dublin.

“A lot of truckers are already using it to get to the interstate,” County Administrator Bryan Rogers said.

East Dublin essentially will swap Nathaniel Drive, which it annexed years ago, for most of the 2.1 miles of Ga. 199 that will no longer be a state highway. However, about a half-mile will be outside the city limits, which the commission agreed to take on.

The 3.5-mile Nathaniel Drive was widened to five lanes in 2005 – a $4 million state project – to handle the quitting time traffic from the Forstmann woolen mill and the Mohawk carpet plant, where a combined 2,300 workers once worked.

Two years later, Forstmann, once the county’s largest employer, shut down. Mohawk closed in 2011. 

With the swap, the state will take over maintenance of the five-lane road. 

“This is a very industrial area. It would be easier for them to do that than anyone else,” Rogers said.

Ga. 199 runs from East Dublin to Mount Vernon, about 27 miles, through parts of Laurens, Treutlen and Montgomery counties. 

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the commission approved the purchase of 20 new AXON body cameras and six new car cameras for the sheriff’s office. The purchase will replace “out-of-date” equipment that has been used by courthouse deputies and school resource officers after new AXON cameras were bought for other deputies a couple of years ago.

“We tried to take the equipment that was still good from the old system as a cost-savings,” said sheriff’s Capt. Justin Shirley.

Data from the outdated cameras are stored on an older in-house server. “We’re kind of concerned about losing video data,” Shirley said.

AXON cameras uses cloud storage. Shirley also noted the newer in-car cameras led a sheriff’s deputy to arrest a double-murder suspect from Florida who was passing through Laurens County.

“It’s really a good system, a lot better than the other system,” Shirley told the board.

The commission approved the purchase at a cost of $60,000 for each of the next three years.

“For all it’s doing, it’s really reasonable,” said Commissioner Jeff Davis, who owns an information technology company.

The commission also approved the $16,015 purchase of a new panic alarm system for the Laurens County Courthouse. The current 12-year-old system is no longer compatible with the portable radios used by deputies.

When activated, the panic system in courthouse offices and in the courthouse annex is designed to notify both the deputies in the courthouse and the 911 center.

In other business, the commission purchased 10 acres off Ga. 117, between Cadwell and Rentz, for use as a county dirt pit for construction and maintenance projects in the area.

“We’ve been having to haul dirt all the way for the airport area,” said Rogers. “This will be a huge cost-savings for us.”

Because Tuesday’s meeting had been postponed a week due to the election, the county commission voted to not meet again this month on Nov. 19, as scheduled. Instead it will meet next on Dec. 3.