Milledgeville council authorizes start of bond process to fund Lamar Hamm water plant upgrades

The Milledgeville City Council on July 22 authorized staff to begin the formal bond process through the Milledgeville Public Facilities Authority to finance upgrades to the Lamar Hamm water treatment plant and other water and sewer infrastructure.

City Manager Griffin and Tom Owens, managing director for Georgia Public Finance at Raymond James, told the council the vote authorizes staff and the PFA to prepare for a public bond offering, including a court validation, rating agency review and an offering prospectus. “This is just the first step in that process,” Owens said, describing validation, rating and marketing as the stages that will follow the council’s authorization.

Griffin described what the work will include and why the financing is necessary. He said design and engineering work should be completed in late August or early September, after which staff will issue a bid package for construction. “We are about to be done with the design and the engineering piece,” Griffin said, and staff will return with final terms once bids are received and financing details are set.

The staff presentation said Phase 1 includes a pilot using a ceramic membrane filtering medium in a single filter basin; if the pilot succeeds, the medium would be installed in the remaining basins as part of the plant renovation. Griffin said the city anticipates the plant would be the first municipal water treatment facility in the Southeast to operate with that filter medium. He added the pilot would allow the plant to reuse filtered water for filter wash processes and ultimately produce potable water.

Officials were careful to distinguish regulatory context: Griffin said the city does not currently have a PFAS/PFOS contamination problem, but that the ceramic membrane technology is expected to help meet future regulatory requirements should limits be adopted. He told the council the capital program would also fund hydrant and distribution improvements after flow testing identified hydrants needing maintenance or replacement.

Owens and staff emphasized this authorization is not the bond sale itself but the start of a process that will return to council with final bond terms. Owens said the PFA will adopt companion documents, bonds will be validated in court, rated by an agency and then marketed to investors; final sale results and interest rates will be presented to the council once available.

Next steps: staff will complete final design, prepare bid documents, work with the PFA on necessary companion authorizations and return to the council with proposed bond terms before any sale.

Provenance: topic introduced by Griffin at the city manager’s report and expanded by Tom Owens and Griffin (see segments beginning around SEG 689–SEG 923).