Elbert County Still Waiting for Bobby Brown Park Takeover

By David Stephens, WSGC Radio, Elberton

Elbert County is still eagerly awaiting the green light to officially take over Bobby Brown Park.

Elbert County Administrator Bob Thomas said the county initially hoped to have the park under its control in March, but then that was pushed back until April, and now its been pushed back once again.

Thomas says the main hang up is the US Army Corps of Engineers getting the proper paperwork to the state of Georgia.

Then, once there, Thomas says it still has to be approved by the Georgia DNR Board.

“So, it’s got to be approved by them before we can actually take it over. I am hoping the paperwork makes it way to the state, and then they can start looking at it, and give their blessings on it, and then it will go to the DNR board and they can approve it”, he says.

Thomas says the county is ready whenever they get the go ahead to proceed.

“We’re sitting on go, we are ready. We have rules and regulations, and fees already set. So we are just waiting on them to tell us when we can get in there for maintenance and operation”, said Thomas.

The silver lining in all of this is that the state did open the campground on March 15th and completed a lot of cleaning up the county was going to have to initially do.

“They did a good job cleaning up. We have been down there a couple of times to see what they have done, and to see what still needs to be done”, said Thomas. “As far as the campgrounds themselves, they did a good job on that. Some of the buildings need a bit of repair that we feel we can do inexpensively. We’re just waiting until we can open up the whole facility down there that has been closed down.”

He says they are anxious to take over due to the large amount of local enthusiasm showed for the county taking on the park.

As it stands right now, the county is looking at a takeover date of May 1st.