Barrow Journal

The future of a transfer station in Statham rests in the hands of Judge David Motes.
Attorneys for Statham Industrial and the City of Statham argued for nearly two and a half hours Monday about the city’s denial of a permit to the company for grading purposes.
Statham Industrial, a company formed by Roll-Off Systems and owned by the Simon Garret family, sued the city in superior court over its denial of an administrative appeal.
City council held a hearing of more than four hours in March about the denial of a grading permit to the company. Randy Gordon, the city’s zoning administrator and building inspector, denied the permit after a three-month, back-and-forth argument with the company.
Thomas Mitchell represented the city, and Douglas Dillard, attorney with Pursley Friese Torgrimson, an Atlanta firm, represented the company. Both attorneys argued their side for nearly an hour. Before Motes heard those arguments, John Stell, representing property owners in the Statham Industrial Park, location of the proposed transfer station, contended his clients should be allowed to intervene in the case. Motes denied his motion for “permissive intervention.”
At the end of the hearing, the judge asked each attorney to provide an order as though his side won the case. He said they could get those orders to him within 15 days.
“It’ll take a while to go through this,” Motes said.
He referred several times to the size of the filings in the case. It was more than 1,600 pages, he said. The transcript of the hearing is 194 pages. Motes said his law clerk went “through the first 900 pages” and then learned a video of the administrative hearing existed.
See the full story in the Aug. 16 issue of the Barrow News-Journal.