The group that owns Oaky Woods, a massive tract of prime woodland in Houston County, has hired a lobbyist in another push to sell the land as a permanent nature preserve.

The group, which includes several Houston County businessmen, hired Brad Alexander — Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle’s chief of staff until last year — when he left to form a new lobbying and consulting group, Georgia 360 LLC.

Oaky Woods has been a major source of controversy for Gov. Sonny Perdue, who owns land nearby. Perdue said the state couldn’t afford to help purchase the popular hunting area and black bear habitat back in 2004, when the Weyerhauser timber company put it on the market.

Investors bought it for $32.1 million and, though they continue to lease the area to the state as wildlife management and hunting area, the group also announced plans to build more than 30,000 new homes on the land.

That development proposal has been unpopular in Houston County, as well as with hunters and conservationists. Warner Robins Mayor Donald Walker recently called the massive building plans “a dead issue.” Faced with roadblocks to developing the land and with an interest in seeing the area preserved, the owners have been through several rounds of negotiations with the state about selling the land.

But by 2007, the price had gone up significantly — from the $1,600 an acre the group paid for it to about $14,000 an acre. Talks fell apart, with co-owner Charles Ayer saying the state and the ownership group couldn’t agree on a fair price for land in fast-growing Houston County.

Alexander, the lobbyist, said this week that he couldn’t lay out a current per-acre asking price for the land. But he acknowledged that the state’s current budget problems make a sale more difficult. Perdue has suggested more than $2 billion in cuts to this year’s budget, including massive cuts to the land conservation grant program.

Alexander said he’s working with several entities in the hopes that funding for the deal can be split up. John Trussel, who founded Save Oaky Woods, said money could be “stitched together” from public and private sources. That could include a penny sales tax in Houston County, he said.

Trussel said he talked to Ayer recently about the plan and that Ayer said the ownership group won’t raise the price it charges the state to lease the land as a wildlife management area next year.

“As a sign of goodwill,” Trussel said.

Ayer and other owners did not return telephone messages seeking comment.

Alexander said development is “not off the table” for the area, but the ownership group wants to “put the land in some kind of permanent conservation status ... if they can work out a deal that’s fair.” Trussel called recent developments “encouraging.”

To sell the land, though, Walker noted the owners are going to “have to get right on the price.”

www.macon.com/741/story/596735.html

Gov. Sonny Perdue faces a personal financial challenge this winter that rivals state government’s budget crisis: repaying a $21 million loan that comes due March 1.

Perdue and his two agricultural businesses borrowed the money last September, just as tight credit markets escalated the nation’s economic downturn. Perdue won’t say in detail why he took out the loan, or how he plans to pay it off.

“He’s a small businessman,” said Bert Brantley, Perdue’s spokesman. “As small businesses and small business owners around the state know, sometimes you have to personally sign for loans for your business.”

Nevertheless, public records and interviews suggest the governor got the loan under remarkable circumstances.

The lender — a farm credit bank based in Perry — allowed Perdue to put up collateral worth less than 20 percent of the loan’s value, according to a security deed filed in Houston County Superior Court. Commercial lenders typically insist on a far greater level of collateral, and the federal agency that regulates farm banks requires strict underwriting standards to guarantee loan repayment.

The bank, AgGeorgia Farm Credit, focuses on real estate lending and carries just $55 million in business loans on its books, according to its latest quarterly report. Now a large proportion of that portfolio is devoted to the governor, who is a familiar figure to AgGeorgia’s leaders: Eight of the bank’s 23 directors contributed to Perdue’s re-election campaign in 2006.

The bank’s chief executive declined to comment.

The loan highlights the degree to which Perdue has departed from the way previous governors handled their personal finances.

The three most recent former governors — Roy Barnes, Zell Miller and Joe Frank Harris — placed their financial interests in blind trusts, managed by independent surrogates. During Barnes’ time in office, from 1999 to 2003, his net worth dropped by 25 percent.

Perdue, however, has kept command of his business affairs while running state government, a job that pays $137,310 a year. He has bought and sold real estate and has overseen his grain elevator and fertilizer businesses long-distance from Atlanta. In 2006, when Perdue last released a detailed statement of his finances, his holdings had increased by more than one-third in four years.

In that 2006 financial disclosure, Perdue reported a net worth of almost $6.1 million, with debts totaling less than $60,000.

Now, as he deals with an unprecedented deficit in the state budget, Perdue also must contend with the biggest personal debt of his life — an amount more than three times the value of his assets.

But, because term limits prevent him from running again, the governor doesn’t have to disclose details of the loan or its influence on his financial standing.

“He’s within the law to not disclose it,” said Bill Bozarth, executive director of the public interest group Common Cause of Georgia. “But it begs for further explanation he should be willing to give. Why does he need $21 million?”

Increasing debt

Approaching Sonny Perdue’s hometown from the south, on the road from Perry, two rusted metal grain elevators dominate the horizon of tiny Bonaire. It’s the headquarters of Perdue’s main business enterprises: Houston Fertilizer & Grain Co. and AGrowStar LLC.

Perdue got into the grain elevator business in 1976 and built one of the largest grain dealers in the state. His companies, which buy grain from farmers and resell it to food processors, operate elevators in six Georgia towns.

These businesses would have suffered if he had put his finances in a blind trust, Perdue said in 2006.

“I don’t have investments,” Perdue said then. “I have operating businesses. Operating businesses do not do well in blind trusts.”

Through his first term as governor, Perdue operated with little debt. On his 2006 financial disclosure form, he said Houston Fertilizer owed AgGeorgia $877,985 on a loan dating to 1996. He owed nothing on his home or other property.

But in 2007, shortly after his re-election, Perdue took on substantially more debt, public records filed in Houston County show.

First, in March 2007, Perdue borrowed $10 million from AgGeorgia. A few weeks later, he paid off the 1996 loan. In December 2007, Perdue took out another loan from AgGeorgia, this one for $3 million.

Then, last Sept. 26, he borrowed the $21 million and repaid the two loans from 2007. The $21 million was due five months later.

Little collateral

AgGeorgia operates out of a gleaming modern office building set amid the shopping centers, gas stations and fast-food restaurants of Perry’s booming outskirts. But the bank is a vestige of the federal government’s intervention in an early 20th-century credit crisis.

Congress established federal land banks in 1916 to give farmers a source of affordable credit. During the Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Farm Credit Administration to regulate the land banks and their growing network of associated institutions.

Today, AgGeorgia is one of 97 farm credit banks across the country (and one of two in Georgia). Chartered to operate in 79 counties, AgGeorgia has assets of slightly more than $1 billion.

A board of 23 farmers and agribusiness owners govern the bank. Perdue’s 2006 campaign collected $6,770 in donations from eight board members, their close relatives or companies they control, records show.

Last fall, AgGeorgia lent to Perdue even though his collateral covered just 19 percent of the loan value. The deed that secured the loan shows Perdue put up 13 pieces of real estate — including his home in Bonaire — worth about $1.6 million. He also pledged his businesses and all their assets — another $2.3 million, according to his 2006 financial disclosure.

The Farm Credit Administration requires the institutions it regulates to make borrowers provide enough collateral to ensure loans are sound. The agency doesn’t specify how much collateral is enough.

But in the Perdue loan, “there does seem to be quite a bit of variance,” said Don Sullivan, a senior portfolio risk manager at the agency. “Bottom line is, that type of loan would have to show repayment capacity.”

Most commercial lenders require collateral worth at least 50 percent of a loan’s value and many insist on guarantees of 80 percent to 90 percent of the amount borrowed, said Wendell Brock, a McKinney, Texas, banking consultant who has worked with Georgia banks. As credit markets have contracted, Brock said, collateral standards tightened, especially for large loans and especially among smaller institutions such as AgGeorgia.

“But I don’t care if you’re Citibank,” he said, “$21 million is a big loan.”

AgGeorgia’s chief executive, William Newberry Jr., declined to comment on Perdue’s loan. Speaking in general about collateral ratios, he said: “That can vary a great deal depending on what kinds of loans we make. We handle the whole spectrum.”

Perdue has said little in public about his personal finances since 2006, when he described the toll that being governor was taking on his business enterprises.

“Most people,” he said, “don’t appreciate that this is a full-time job and your personal affairs suffer.”

www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2009/01/18/perdue_loan.html

Developers who own the Oaky Woods Wildlife Management Area in Houston County are requiring that the state pay 24 percent more this year for the privilege of managing wildlife and public hunting on the land.

The wildlife management lease between the owners and the state Department of Natural Resources is renegotiated every year. But this was the first revision since one of the owners, about to receive a hunting citation for holding an illegal dove hunt on his land, threatened retaliation through the Oaky Woods lease, according to DNR documents.

Charles Ayer, one of the owners of Oaky Woods and spokesman for the group, was cited for unlawful enticement of game after a large group of hunters was caught hunting doves in September over a field baited with wheat. He informed DNR law enforcement agent Sgt. Tony Fox that a second Oaky Woods owner, Scott Free, was part of the hunting party on Ayer's Peach County property.

According to a DNR incident report, Ayer, who also owns The Sports Center in Perry, told Fox that federal regulations allow this type of dove hunting. The report said that when Fox offered to consult a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services special agent, Ayer "responded by telling (Fox) that ... the Department's ability to lease the WMA in the future was dependent upon how officers elected to pursue prosecution - he plainly stated that federal involvement would adversely impact the lease."

Contacted by The Telegraph, Ayer said he disagreed with this description of what happened but declined to comment further about the incident. He also declined to comment about the reason for the increase in the cost of the lease.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife officials were not contacted about the incident, but that's normal, said Col. Terry West, chief of DNR law enforcement. He said unless federal agents are already on the scene, DNR agents usually write a citation, which is heard in state or local probate court rather than federal court. The exception is in counties where the court system has a history of failing to support DNR law enforcement, he said.

"At the time, that wasn't the case down there," he said. But because the case still has not been heard, he said, "this will probably lead to a change in that. ... I would have expected that a case made last September would have been adjudicated by this time."

In Peach County, hunting violations are usually heard in probate court. However, someone, probably the defendant, was granted a request for the case to be transferred to Superior Court, said Michelle Riley, probate court traffic clerk.

Sandy Jones, office administrator for the district attorney's office in Peach County, which tries Superior Court cases, said the lag in trying the case is not unusual because the court has a backlog of misdemeanor cases.

"We hope to get to the misdemeanors by August," she said.

OAKY WOODS LEASE

The state has had a wildlife management lease on Oaky Woods, a popular Middle Georgia hunting spot, for more than three decades. During most of that time, the land was owned by various timber companies, most recently Weyerhaeuser. A group of Houston County businessmen purchased Oaky Woods in 2004, and the owners have announced plans to develop it into a community that would rival the size of nearby cities. Owners have continued the DNR lease in the meantime.

When the lease was renegotiated in April for the hunting year that starts this August, the rate was increased from $8.25 to $10.25 per acre, said Kevin Kramer, DNR regional supervisor of game management. The total cost for leasing the roughly 16,200 acres is now about $165,960.

Of all the state's 92 wildlife management areas, Oaky Woods now has the most expensive lease per acre. The average lease rate in the state is $5.76 an acre, said Melissa Cummings, public affairs coordinator for the DNR Wildlife Resources Division. Cummings said there is no set limit on the amount the state will pay for the lease in future years.

THE HUNTING CITATIONS

Fox, the initial responding officer, stopped at Ayer's property on U.S. 341 outside Fort Valley for a routine compliance check when he heard gunshots. His report describes a group of hunters shooting doves over a baited field.

In accordance with federal guidelines, only Ayer was charged for this because the other hunters might not have realized the field was baited, said the DNR's West. The citation, unlawful enticement of game, carries a potential penalty of $540 to $1,000 in Peach County, where the incident occurred.

The DNR Web site indicates that illegal hunting of doves over bait is a significant problem in Georgia, with hunters and landowners often being confused about what constitutes baiting.

According to the incident report, Ayer disputed the charge, saying the field was a feed lot for his elk. The wheat was not growing but had been scattered across a field of Bermuda grass, photos taken at the scene show. DNR officers informed Ayer that this was not a reasonable feed lot under Georgia regulations.

The incident report says Ayer called DNR Commissioner Noel Holcomb. West said Ayer told Holcomb to get the DNR officers off his property. Holcomb then spoke with one of the DNR rangers.

"Holcomb told them to do their job," West said. "He backed us wholly. There was never any question about us doing the right thing." Officers with the Macon law enforcement office, which handled the incident, verified that Holcomb did not try to interfere.

Later, when Ayer continued to contact the commissioner to argue that he had done nothing wrong, West and DNR game chief Mark Whitney visited Ayer at his property, West said.

"We did not want to upset the cart because Oaky Woods is a very valuable piece of property to us," West said. "It is so important to the black bear population, and it has been one of our most popular management areas for well over 20 years. I'm sure all that played into the decision to send the two chiefs down there."

However, after listening to Ayer and also consulting the state agronomist about normal agricultural practices, they concluded that their officers had made the right decision, West said.

"In my time as chief we've never reversed a decision our officers have made," he added.

According to the incident report, a number of prominent men were in the hunting party on Ayer's land. Among them was Houston County Sheriff Cullen Talton, who "directed a great deal of profanity towards (the responding officer) upon his request to inspect Talton's birds," according to the report.

Talton did not return phone calls last week.

Talton's son Neal Talton, vice chairman of the Houston County Development Authority, was ticketed during the same incident for having shot more doves than the 12 permitted to one hunter in a single day. According to the DNR incident report, he ran away before being apprehended with 61 doves.

To contact writer S. Heather Duncan, call 744-4225.

www.macon.com/198/story/68480.html