The Liberty County Development Authority, which last met in August, decided Monday to hold a spate of meetings next month, three hearings required by state law because the authority cannot rollback its tax rate.

When the authority was written into the state constitution in 1958 two mills of revenue were set to fund the authority and no provision was made to change that amount. So the LCDA gets two mills, automatically. The tax now produces about $2.5 million in revenue.

State laws aimed at improving taxpayer rights and transparency now require that jurisdictions that don’t change their millage rates but would get more revenue from the increasing value of property call that a tax increase. And tax increases require legal advertising and public hearings before adoption.

The LCDA scheduled one public hearing for noon on Nov. 6 and two more on Nov. 14, one at noon and one at 6 p.m. The regular monthly authority meeting is set for Nov. 27.

In other business Monday the authority voted to write a letter to local developer Dennis Waters reiterating its request that Waters pay for damage caused at the authority’s Tradeport East Business Center by a fire that started on his property. Waters owns land adjacent to Tradeport and a fire on his property got out of control and burned an estimated 40 acres of LCDA land.

Valuable pine trees were destroyed by the fire and the authority is asking Waters to pay $6,869 for them. Authority representatives had been unsuccessful in trying to meet with Waters.

The authority approved construction phases for its plan to improve Sunbury Road Phase 3. Sunbury Road gives access to sites in the authority’s Tradeport East Business Park and links to the unpaved historic road leading to Sunbury.