Baldwin County Commission Regular - Regular Meeting

Good morning and welcome to our work session today, September 15th work session. I'm going to get a commissioner Underwood to lead us in the invocation followed by commissioner McKenzie with the pledge of allegiance. If you don't mind, please stand.

Thank you. If you would bow your heads with me, please. Dear heavenly father, we thank you for this day, Lord. We thank you for all you do for us here in this wonderful place. We call home in Baldwin County. And Lord, we just ask you to be with us today as we conduct the business of the Baldwin County Commission. Lord, give us the strength, wisdom, and courage to make the best and right decisions for the people of Baldwin County. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Amen. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. All right. Again, welcome this morning to our work session. The way we do this is the first part of this work session, we will set our consent agenda for our meeting that we have at 10 o'clock following this meeting. So commissioners, if we would go over to our administrative items, we have four administrative items. You're good with everybody good with item CA one through CA four. Yes. Okay. Uh, we have, um, one animal control item. I'm good. We have our archives and history item. If y'all have any questions on that, miss Felicia's on our television today. We're good with that. Okay. Yep. All right, we have budget and purchasing, nine items. Ms. Wanda is joining us through Baymanette as well if you need to ask her any questions.

I'm good.

Yeah, I'm good.

All right. You just, um, if you don't mind, I'd like to have a Beth go ahead since the budget is underneath the section to go ahead and kind of give the recap of the budget before we get it.

So if you don't, if you don't mind, no, I think that's perfect. Okay.

Good morning, chairman.

Good morning.

Finance chair commission. I appreciate the opportunity to come to present to you all your 2027, um, annual budget. And before I get started, I want to say just a few thank yous. First of all, I want to say thank you to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I can do nothing apart from him. And I've always had a prayer that said, thank you, Lord, for the trials that build me strong. But somewhere during the difficulty of this budget process, I seem to lose sight of that. And I want to stop and tell Roger, thank you for reminding me that we grow doing adversity. And I want to thank him for his guidance and leadership in this budget process. I also want to thank you, Frank, for your valuable input and assistance. Commissioner Gruber, I want to thank you for leading the budget process. Commission, I want to thank you all for providing guidance, but also want to thank you all for your patience as we undertook a massive overhaul of the budget process midstream. Lindsey, I want to thank you for all that you do. You're not just a right arm, you're a right hand and you're a right thumb, and I cannot do this without you, so I thank you very much. I also want to give a big thank you to our department heads and elected officials for remaining positive during these changes and helping us get to a better budget process. So with all that out of the way, we'll get started. So our budget priorities are our commission directives, and that is the goals that you all give us to drive the budget and where we need to go. And the biggest one that we came down to, there were several mentions, but the one came down to a singular focus and that is employee investment. And what we're able to do during this budget process is provide a 5% column. With range adjustments to our bone County commission and our bone County sheriff's office employees for a, an amount of $8.7 million. Why did y'all want this? Employee retention is one of the biggest focuses and factors that was spoken. Employee retention offers the ability to minimize service disruptions and also avoid the high cost of turnover. One other element of this budget that was excellent was absolute minimal headcount increases. There was only five increased on the commission side, a net five positions for 697,000. nine positions were added for the sheriff's office. He reduced that request from 17 just to be able to get us into the budget that we needed. And that was for 647,000. And while we'll speak to the details of headcount and personnel costs later, what I want to say about this minimal increase is that this is the lowest that we've had since 2020. And The last thing that we'll talk about is we were able to maintain benefit cost at the levels that they were in last year. So for the commission, there was a zero experience to, um, benefit increases and also to the employees as well. But there's a great note that we want to talk about, and that is the employees for eight years have not had to experience a benefit increase. And that is to y'all's commitment to the employees. And thank y'all while our next thing is a priority, it wasn't necessarily something that was mentioned during the budget, but it's always a priority and that is our public safety. So for public safety, we're able to offer vehicles and equipment to the sheriff's office and $2.2 million was spent for 38 new or replacement vehicles, $868,000 for equipment to outfit them. Um, $650 was out $50,000 was allocated to the, um, LSS building for upgrades. and 60,000 for protective equipment upgrades. Our next slide, we'll talk about the budget overview. So on here, we've got, your priorities was what was mentioned on the last slide, but a lot of stuff went into the background, the working of staff, department head, and elected officials, to do some things that I don't even think you all knew were taking place. So we'll address those. So our budget this year is $276.7 million. Again, we're continuing to grow. It's our largest budget ever. And that is 6.6% increase over last year. Built into this budget is the strategic use of fund balance, which is the savings from prior year that we're able to bring forward to this year and use for one-time purchases and capital. And that was $17 million. Debt service minimums, we increased our debt service minimums to $13 million. And what that is, is as our debt falls off, we continue to set that payment aside so we can position ourselves favorably for future financing. So this year we're able to establish $13 million. Our debt service payments are only 9.4%. So that $3.6 million is set aside to capital funds to be able to pay stuff. So we're holding ourselves to a higher level. And this is the third year that we've been able to do that. And Roger challenged me because he said $12 million first, then he come back and said push it to 13. And I have to do what the ball says, but that was pretty tough. So the next element was just a... Significant sign to working together of our departments and that is the centralization of services We started this back in 2025 with fleet management given DJ in the highway department Ability to help other departments to be able to shift cars and be able to manage the fleet as a whole And so that was a light start to it. So this year we added computer support services facilities management and even landscaping. And what we did is we transferred the charge of these activities to the departments who had the expertise. So no longer do our department heads who, maybe I'll pick on Wes, runs an animal shelter, does he have to worry about his fleet, how to pick out a vehicle, how to put in the purchase orders and stuff. We give that to the experts, to Brian, to Jess, to Caleb, to DJ. And not only do we convey the physical responsibility, we also convey the budget responsibility. And I want to stop and say a super big thank you to Lana and Katrina in the CIS department, because even though it looks like it's all set together on the front end, they had to do a lot of work. And I really appreciate them. They always just deliver just a great product. Next was the long range project planning. And what this is, is building your current year budget process to accomplish a multi-year goal. This preparation aligns projects to be on deck should local funding, agency partnerships, or state and federal grant opportunities arise. It also prepares us for assuming debt by having construction ready projects to go. The next is allocation of utilities and insurances to corresponding departments and buildings. This provides a more accurate cost of operations for both buildings and the departments that are housed within. And what I'll plug here is, Our building health index that Jess is doing, that is not mentioned on this slide just because it was funded last year. But this goes hand in hand with that. You cannot get a true cost of a building and its operations if you do not have all the costs associated with it. So what we did is moved all the costs over there. That was not a small undertaking, and I want to thank Dana Lambert in finance for doing the allocation of the utilities. That was a huge task, and I appreciate that. So what I want to ask is what do all these have in common? Creating debt service minimums, establishing centralized services, developing a long-range project plan, allocating utilities, and performing health, a building health index. So together, each one of these efforts denotes a strong shift from a reactive to responsive budgeting. And we're moving away from the whack-a-mole game that we used to play where we hit the first thing that rises up. And we're transitioning to big county mentality. And in that transition, decisions are made and plans are constructed in consideration of the current needs, but with future smart growth in mind. And to sum it all up, excellent team effort. Excellent team effort. I can't thank everybody enough. Again, for their patients, for their positivity through this transition. So now we'll get to a little bit more boring stuff. All right. So what we'll do is, like we did during our mid-year budget presentation, we're going to step back. Instead of looking at a narrow window of five years, we'll look at the past decade. In 2018, our budget started at $129 million, and today it is $276 million for a 114% increase. Our population started in 2018 at 218,000 residents and is projected to be 275,000 residents at the end of the year for a 26% increase. Next we'll look at our revenues by funding source. While our budget is $276.7 million, 53 million of that is related to transfers within the funds. So that leaves us $223 million in revenues, and we'll look at the breakdown of where those come from. As you'll see, ad valorem is our greatest one, and our revenues increased 6.5% overall for the year, with ad valorem being our greatest one at an 8.5% increase. The fees and charges, which is a derivative of ad valorem, increased by 9.5%. And our sales tax, even though we made a conservative estimate, still has an increase of 5.6%, so it is still trucking strong. Our expenses by government, again, $223 billion related to actual expenses, 53 related to transfers, and both general government and public safety make up the vast majority of our revenue expenditures, and both of those incurred a 13% increase for the year. Next we'll take that $223 million in expenses and we'll look at that by actual types. So we have other, which is very minimal. We have debt service, which is 3.9% of our budget. We have capital, which is 6.8% of our budget. Operational is 26.9% of our budget at 60 million. And there was an 11.8%. Oh, I'm sorry. That's projects. Sorry about that. That is 10.3% and operational is 26.9% of our budget at $60 million. There was an 11.8% increase in operations this year, and a lot of that had to do with the new buildings coming on with insurances and utilities, so that was a major factor in that. And the last is our largest category, which is personnel, and it is 52% of the budget at $116 million, and again, it had a 10.5% increase in it. Next, we'll go to our salary and headcount and look at the differences between the Bowman County Sheriff's Office and the commission employees because they're two separate payrolls. And first, our commission budget. And we experienced a 10.3% from last year. And there was a 10.9% increase for the sheriff's budget. The commission headcount is 732. Again, we only added five, which was a 0.7% change from last year. And the sheriff's office added nine employees, taking them to 489 and 1.6% over last year's headcount. Lastly, we will look at the general fund breakdown. Our general fund total for this year is 143 million. of the commission department responsibility. I'm sorry, that is a 6.9% increase over 26. And the commission responsible call centers and things in departments received, actually experienced a negative 0.2% decrease whereas the elected officials experienced a 13.25% increase and that is a little skewed and I want to say that because of the building insurance and allocations of insurance and utilities 2.5 million dollars that was normally under the commission care and not with the actual elected officials was conveyed to them this year so I don't want that charge to be against them that was just transition of money and responsibility so Um, had things stayed the same, the commission would have experienced a 3.6% increase and the elected officials would have been a 9.6. And that is the end. Anybody have any questions?

You've done an excellent job.

I don't have any questions. Y'all want to make a comment while you're here?

Yeah, I'd like to say thank you. You, Roger, and your staff for doing and making it easy for us and taking what the body wanted. Just look after the employees. So thank you for all your hard work.

Ms. Underwood.

I just want to say how far that this commission has come and the staff are the ones who have made that happen, and I wanna thank the people, the commissioners that I have worked with over the past eight years for getting out of the way and allowing the people who knew what to do in these departments do the job and remove a lot of the politics out of this process so that we can do what's the best thing for the people. You said a while ago, let Wesley run the animal shelter and not worry about the cars, and that was one of the things that's like, you know, When I first came in, that was an arduous process, and you were like on trial. It was almost like, and the things that were put in the budget, sometimes it was almost insulting because it was almost like you're going to put some weird stuff in here just because you only want, like don't tell me you need 50 cars when you only wanted 25 and we're going to negotiate that down. Tell me what you need. And I think that is what you guys accomplished this year. And I think that we have come so far and that the commissioners that has made this happen, along with the staff, you, Roger, all the department heads, Frank, I'll stop calling people's names because I'll leave somebody out. I know, but you just don't know how much this I know everybody ain't gonna like it and they don't like it, but you know what? I think this is a come together, sound, good governance for the people. Thank you.

Thank you so very much. Are you going to go before me or are you the chairman on this? Nope. That's okay. Go ahead.

Go ahead, Mr. Chairman. I just want to thank you for putting everything together on this. You know, it all started really last year's budget. when we put together last year's, it was the start of this year's budget. You know, there's a lot of things we geared into and we just carried it forward and made it better. So, well, thank you for that. And I know the employees are gonna be grateful. And, you know, we still got a decent budget. We still gonna be able to do things. So, I mean, you know, it's not like we had to, Forget everything we have, you know, we still got a lot of stuff that we're gonna be moving forward on So just thank you so very much for what y'all done in this one and it's been a pleasure Working with y'all on this year. Thank you.

Thank you Beth. Thank you Roger And all the department heads and and the collaboration to get this to where it needed to be I mean You know, when we have our budget deliberations, I think really it should be two meetings, one meeting to discuss what's happening and one meeting to finalize it because, uh, we challenged y'all to come to us with a balanced budget. There's no reason for us to have to cut things. There's no reason for us to have to nitpick and choose. You bring a balanced budget to commission. If we like it, we pass it. And that's what y'all did. And it was, I think, um, just reflecting over the past eight years. But what a great comment to put on there that for the past eight years, no increase to the employees on health benefits when it's been an increase to this company for the last eight years. Yes, sir. And that is amazing that the employees, so, you know, there's been some times we haven't done great raises, but not passing along health care costs is a raise in turn, if you think about it like that. It sure is. Anyway, my reflection is this is probably one of the greatest budgets I've ever been a part of. Like Commissioner Underwood says, some people don't like it. Maybe the general public's not going to like it. That doesn't matter. We run one of the greatest counties in the state. A $276 million budget sounds like a lot, but you've seen the growth here. The sheriff sent me a message this morning. He's Um, and, and, and the training session, uh, at the jail and would love to have been here, but he expressed his gratitude and thanks, uh, towards, uh, the process and, and, and how we got together and everything. And I see everybody here represent him. Uh, it's, it's just was a collaborative effort between the commission and the sheriff's office and. I think we both sides gave to be able to get what they wanted for their people. And that's what we all started out. You remember when you asked me, you always go around saying, hey, what would you like to see in the budget? And I said, nothing but increases for the employees. I don't care about anything else. And I know we need to care about other things, but I wanted to take care of the employees. One good time, especially on our way out of here, three of us on this body's gone. and a couple of meetings and it was important to have this budget passed. So, um, I appreciate all y'all's help and effort on, on making this happen. And, uh, it's been a pleasure, uh, serving with you guys and, and, and this process, and I'm glad I don't have to go through it again.

So I say one more, can I say one more thing, please? Mr. Chairman. Yeah. I love the graphics. I love the gears. Did you do that or did Lindsay do that?

I thought they were going to start moving. That's what I was waiting on. I love it. I love it.

I love the way it all, you know, even older people like us, like sometimes I love to see things more than just bar graphs and spreadsheets and things like that. So like it, even it's all here. It looks good. Whoever did that. Lindsay, Lindsay did that. Lindsay.

And I thank you.

Who did that?

Lindsay done that. It's all here. Oh, who did the gears? You do that.

Thank you commissioner Gruber for your leadership on, on your last, uh, budget deliberation process. Um, it went real smooth. I appreciate your leadership as well. So thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah. The reason we did that and Roger, thank you for pulling that up because I mean, this is consent agenda. That's a huge item just to pass with one motion without having a little background on what went on because there's so much that went on. We're going to pass that thing in one second. And there's so much that went on in that that it can't go unrecognized. All right, so we're down to our CIS item. I just always approve these because I trust Brian. something we need so are y'all good with that we have a couple of elective officials items one you know it's cut and dry it looks like and then the other one we're gonna need to have some discussion I'll see I have two is what that is I guess this is revenue Commission compensation I will tell you that after speaking with Beth, the initial ask request is preloaded into this budget that we just are going to approve. So commissioners, I mean, I'm OK with the initial ask from our reverend commissioner. If we wanted to put that number in this item,

Yes, I'm good with it.

Yeah.

Sounds good. Okay.

So, so, um, when we pass this agenda item, do I, do we just, do we say the amount or how do you want to do that?

Go with the requested amount. All right.

So then we're good on both of these?

Yes. All right.

Next on CK1. I'm good.

All right.

Sounds good. That program has been around for quite a while, and it makes it so much easier when we've got the state behind us helping on these projects. That's all right.

Alright, looks like our grants, we've got a lot. Man, I love seeing this. I mean, look at how our grants department is working. 18 items. This is just another way that we can show people and the public that we're always looking for money other than taxpayers' dollars to do things with. These CBDGR grants are, if you go in and look into these files you'll see how much they're helping our local municipalities that are in need of some of these things and and some of the some of the grants and stuff it just it just showed a breakdown of where all this um money was going so i want to thank brian and his staff for for for all of this and hopefully we'll we'll be wrapping this up pretty soon and getting getting these projects underway so um

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a comment about the CDBGDR grants. That was something that was a result from the hurricanes that happened almost six years ago, but you've got to understand that that is federal monies flowing through ADECA, flowing to us, and unfortunately on the the ones that are disaster relief that have the DR behind them, Congress gets in the way of giving us the rules. And so it has been one of those arduous processes, and I know that the average person would think that's ridiculous that it takes that long, but you can thank DC for that, not us.

I'd just like to say thank you, Katrina, too.

Yeah, Katrina.

For all your hard work.

Oh, yes.

I said, Brian and his staff. I didn't, I forget all who works over there. I didn't, I didn't want to call out names. I didn't know. So, um, we've got a large, large staff. If we, if we just, if my numbers are calculated correctly based on what Beth presents, 1,221 people. So between the commission and share. So, so I don't know every one of them. That's my fault. Um, but, uh, yeah. Y'all good with these? Yes. All right. Highway items. I'm good with those.

I am. Yeah, I'm good.

Personnel?

Yes, I'm good with that as well. I wish we could do this. P&Z cases that fast.

It's okay. We may.

We have all day.

No, we do not. Have all day. I'm the chairman. And I've never said that before, but we don't have all day.

Well, you ain't on the ballot, though. You can say it.

Maybe again. All right. So let's go to our public comments. I'm going to need some help with hollering out who's here to speak since I have no more computer. Come on up, sir, to the podium. You can just state your name and what department you're with and what you're going to be talking about.

Tony Dickey, I'm with the Alabama Association of Search and Rescue, South Alabama representative. We're here to simply thank the Baldwin County Commission for your support on helping get the DECA notifications put before the board of commissions here. And we'd like to thank your staff who has worked with us continually, as well as EMA director Tom Tyler and those guys. Without the support of the commission, The search and rescue organizations here in Baldwin County would not have the assets that they have now without the support y'all have given us. And for that, we thank y'all so much. Thank you for what you do.

Tony, before you leave, Mr. Chairman, do you mind if I say something? Tony, I've known you for a long time. You're a reserve state trooper, and I worked with you. And I wanted to say this in front of everybody. You've done an excellent job over the years as a volunteer, chaplain, and help in Baldwin County and Mobile County and the whole state. everywhere because you go a lot of places and I just want to recognize that for you but what you contribute to the people of Baldwin County in the state and everywhere and I really appreciate what you do and there's a lot of it's a volunteer so thank you yeah thank you so much sir and I was very happy to represent Alabama at the

25th Memorial in New York this past week. It was a very hard working, very difficult task.

You don't get recognized and people don't know what you really do. So I just want to say the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you, Tony. Who's next? Leslie Goff.

Leslie Goff.

Good morning.

How are y'all? Good. This is about the animals at the Baldwin County, the dogs at the Baldwin County Animal Shelter. I'm just going to read you something, if you don't mind. The dogs at the Baldwin County Animal Shelter are beautiful souls who deserve loving homes. However, the current volunteer management program is deeply flawed. When I began volunteering, zero training or safety guidance was provided. Instead, I was placed into high-stress situations. Furthermore, staff members would lurk and watch for mistakes rather than providing guidance. Then, when issues arose, I experienced unprofessional conduct and ultimately unjust termination. When I attempted to finally tell my side of the story to the manager over the phone, he was apathetic, rude, and dismissive. He then falsely claimed that I cursed at the dogs. That is completely untrue. Any exclamations from me were strictly out of pure excitement, and I never cursed at them. If this community wants to truly help these animals, we cannot tolerate a toxic environment where personal phone use and gossip take priority over the actual care, enrichment, and exercise of the dogs. Therefore, I ask that you intervene immediately to ensure the facility meets acceptable standards of humane care, safety, and operational efficiency. Okay, I got a couple more concerns. I don't have it written down, but also those dogs, they don't have a doggy day out program. Most large animal shelters have that. It is so important for their mental health well-being. It gives them hope. It gets them out. They spend 24-7 in that cage, literally. And they get a day out, and it's like everything to them. It gives them hope. It's good for their mental well-being, you know. So I just implore y'all to, like, reconsider that. I'm sure there's reasons why you don't, you know. I'm sure there are reasons, but I just implore you to reconsider that. And I don't know if y'all deal with the Daphnes. Animal shelter? The city? You don't? Okay, I don't know. Who would I talk to about that?

Daphne. Talk to Daphne.

Okay, because there is no sign. You need to talk to Daphne. There is no sign up there. Like the walk-ins and the foot traffic. Just say there's an animal shelter right there. You know, if it saves one life, it's worth it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, anybody who's next?

Ryan Hamby.

Good morning, y'all. Good morning. That budget was beautiful. I have served in government and various affairs since I was 18 years old and I've been all over the world and I've been, I've seen function and dysfunction to the point of civil war. And I'm going to tell you right now, if you don't feel blessed to be in Baldwin County, Alabama, you ought to talk to some psychiatrists and get some help because we are so blessed here. And to be back home after all this wasted time around the world, I'm just so blessed. And thank you for everybody's work. I just like, man, people don't have any idea. Some people just don't realize how blessed we are. Anyway, I'm here. Oh, I've got some information sheets. I don't know if I can get them to y'all. Can I?

Yes, sir. You just pass them on down the line there.

So anyway, I was in happy bliss until a couple of events happened here. And you know, I mean, we do have, we all always have work in life. The thing is, is that my first warning was, we live out on 48 and 33. We got a nice little house, horse property down yonder. And the, You know, we had crappy cell service and, and, and we've talked about, we joke about it at church, you know, Baldwin County, I don't know what it is with the service providers on cell phones, but you know, anyway I was at 48 and 33 and really weird. There was a domestic violence kind of thing. It was just an argument between a man and a woman. And but having my background, I knew that it wasn't good. And I went to call 911 and nothing. So I, With my background, I would have liked to just stay there and observed or maybe intervened if I had to, but I couldn't. I had to drive down the road, get 911, report it, and then go back, and they were gone. So I don't know what happened, but I was able to drive back down and cancel the responding officer so we didn't waste their time because they were gone. Anyway, that's been a few weeks ago, and I just let it go. And I started talking to my neighbors, and I found out that AT&T had better cell service in our area. And so I switched to them. And then my sister-in-law came out to business, and she's one of those remote workers that, you know, she travels all over, and she's got her computer, and she needs to work. Anyway, our Internet was so slow that she couldn't really do her work. from our place. So I looked into it and I did a bunch of research and I found out what's going on is that the cellular companies don't care and AT&T's got a monopoly in a lot of the District 2 area and all over Baldwin County. And so you don't have the connectivity to actually run a home-based business. For me, it doesn't matter, but it does from a community point of view. And the thing is, is when I started doing the research, I found out that the double crisis is this, while private telecom providers actively lay fiber optic lines through brand new lucrative subdivisions, existing homeowners in our longstanding established neighborhoods are systematically passed over, leaving us stranded on outdated failing DSL and coaxial connections. Second, just as critical is the unacceptable number of cellular coverage dead zones that we have in District 2 and in all of Baldwin County. I've talked to everybody that I've talked to have complaints about this. It's a critical public safety lifeline like I experienced myself. And, you know, real-time emergency communications, we are in a tornado, hurricane zone. We've had a couple of them hit, you know. Might want to have better cell coverage. High-speed reliable connectivity is no longer an optional luxury. It's essential public infrastructure required to support remote work, enable local businesses to growth, protect property values, guarantee the safety of our residents during emergencies. We cannot attract or keep families in District 2 In the traditional areas, we don't have any really big problems in the new high-density development areas, but in the traditional areas, we're kind of overlooked, which is another thing that's interesting in the conversations I've had with people. There's a little friction here in Baldwin County between the people that have been here and these developments. We're all welcoming people and whatnot, but when there's a sense that that you're not cared about, but some of the new developments are cared about, it causes a little bit of a friction. And what I'd like to say is that I think this commission could leverage considerable local authority in this area. Specifically, we request first leverage right away permitting and franchise agreements to require providers to complete last mile, last half mile, and there's language on the state level about this, residential drops to existing homes rather than just connecting main corridors like we are. I mean, literally, if I get up on my roof and I look over through the trees, I can see a development that's less than half a mile away and they got fiber optic and I don't.

Could I interrupt you for a second? There is a lot of information that I would love to share with you, but I think it would require us having a one-on-one meeting with some of our staff members of how the county commission actually works with this and there's been no intentions to leave out people who live here because I'm one of those people but you know there's opportunity cost and where you live and so I'll be happy to give you my card and let's have a one-on-one conversation about this and then maybe look for a path forward.

Yeah and I didn't mean to

You know, I didn't mean to say, you know, I believe there's a lot to learn. And one of my favorite sayings, and I know everybody gets tired of hearing me saying this is people don't know what they don't know and they don't know what they think they know. And I'm one of those sometimes, but I strive to find out. So yeah, I would really, uh, because we're very limited in what we do because the service providers are provided by for-profit companies and you yourself would not run one line way out. But when everybody transitioned from having a regular home telephone and they all went to cell phones, that was their personal choice as well. And so we need to have a conversation so that we can understand the concern better. Sure, sure.

I just wanted to pop out these last points if you don't mind.

Well, that's up to the chairman. You've got this.

I'll let you go. Okay.

Okay.

in about 10 minutes, so we got to go. Oh, no way. I'm so sorry. It's okay. No, no big deal. I'm, I'm, I'm a, I'm a gracious person right now because I understand it, but, uh, we, we are going to have to take a little break before our next meeting. So, um, if you want to, um, wrap it up and then as commissioner, I was going to, yeah, we can, we can help you out.

Thank you. And also, and also I was going to say is, is that, you know, we we've got, uh, the department of economics and community affairs and the broadband accessibility fund, which is probably what you're talking towards. And the other thing is, is that you can do, well, we can do, we can also have the small cell permitting and co-location agreements. And, you know, if we had like a connectivity task force and we could co-cooperate with and show the demand for these, like the AT&T that has a monopoly and show them that if they had would run it down, we could actually show that it would be viable for them because my neighbors would all like to have it. So thank you.

Thank you, sir. And if you will, the two guys right there, right behind you, Frank Lundy and the guy raising his hand, if you will give your contact information to them, those will be, and plus Brian is our CIS, those right there behind you are going to be the staff members that we're going to need to engage so that you can understand where we are with this. Okay? Thank you. Thank you.

Robert Eccles.

Good morning, all. Good morning. Good morning. So I'll try to stay under three minutes, which is hard for a recovering lawyer. But I'll do my best. I've had the honor of being in Baldwin County for about two and a half years. Thank God for Baldwin County. And I echo all the sentiments of those who have praised its virtues to the hilt. Commissioners, we have one deficiency, which I'd like to bring to your attention. Namely, we truly need an emergency veterinary clinic here in Baldwin County. if after hours you need to find emergency care for your pet that normally requires a laborious drive either to Mobile, and I'll share my story in a second, truncated, I promise you, or to Pensacola. I had a mini poodle who unfortunately died over a year ago, but she became very ill on a Saturday. I went down. My vets are not open on a Saturday. In fact, almost any, no vets are open on a Saturday. So you go down the list of vets. There are a couple that are open on Saturday from 9 to 10, 9 to 12. All of their websites say invariably, we do not treat emergencies from new patients. So I had the task of driving my poor dog all the way over the causeway to Mobile. She worsened on the way. Finally, we got there and learned that she had a ruptured spleen and was bleeding internally. Commissioners, my thought at that time was, my God, If those routes from Fairhope to Mobile were backed up as they always are, then I would have sat there in traffic watching this poor girl die in front of me, unable to do anything about it. So I see that I have a little bit of time left. Let me please urge you all to consider the need, I think it's an overriding need in our county, for an emergency veterinary clinic and to do all in your power to find whatever inducements it may take to get one of the corporations that operates those types of facilities, be it land, utilities, taxes, what have you. I think we certainly have with our increased population As you all know, an increased population brings an increase in pets. So the situation that I've recounted for you is going to happen again and again and again. I truly think we owe it to newcomers, to those who are relocating, to find ways to treat their beloved animals and not say, well, I'm sorry, but it's Mobile or Pensacola. There must be a better way. and I urge you all to find whatever means are necessary to get a facility here. Not bad in under three minutes. Thank you, and may God bless you all. Thank you, sir.

All right.

Okay. Yeah, come on up.

Good morning. I'd like to ask Ms. Deanne Servos and Jack and Jean of Boucher Cigars, downtown Fairhope, to come up as well. Is that all right? Absolutely. Again, my name is Lee Worsham. I've been a resident here since 2015 in Fairhope, District 2. I really wanted to thank the commission for this opportunity to recognize Prodisee Pantry and these two gentlemen, three gentlemen. We have one missing, Mr. Alan Beck of Fairhope as well. for their enormous contributions to the county through Prodisee Pantry. I want to commend the commission because the donation of land to Prodisee Pantry recently has kind of initiated a catalyst for me to want to recognize these gentlemen for their enormous contributions financially for the fundraising that they do for Prodisee Pantry. I reached out to Commissioner McKenzie and asked him to if there's some type of recognition we can get for these gentlemen and I'm gracious for you to do that. And if you'd allow me to read really quickly the letter of commendation and I would ask real quickly, let Ms. Deanne and maybe Mr. Jean speak on behalf. For Boosh's Premium Cigars, Mr. Jean Booshillion, Jack Milstead. Jean and Jack, I want to extend my heartfelt appreciation for your extraordinary commitment to our community and for the tremendous success of Boosh's Balls and Butts Golf Tournament benefiting Prodisee Pantry. From the first tournament in 2018, raising $18,000 to the impressive over $33,000 in 2019, through the remarkable return in 2022 of over $58,000, your dedication has been unwavering. This year's tournament, raising an astounding $111,647, stands as the largest fundraiser in Prodisee Pantry's 23-year history. That achievement is a testament not only to your hard work, but to the spirit of the community you inspire. Your partnership with Prodigy Pantry reflects the mission found in Matthew 25, verse 35. I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me. The Boosh's Balls and Butts Tournament is not just a vital part of Prodigy Pantry's annual budget. It represents the generosity, unity, and heart of our residents who come together and ensure family goes without hope or nourishment. Thank you, Gene and Jack. For your vision, your compassion and your steadfast dedication to serve in Baldwin County and the community is better because of you with deep appreciation, Matt McKenzie, Baldwin County commissioner district two. Um, again, I want to recognize Mr. Allen Beck for all his hard work as well with these two gentlemen. And if I could just give a few minutes to Ms. Deanne.

Thank you. Um, commission, thank you for doing this for these gentlemen, because Just this year, what they raised has fed 2,500 families with a whole shopping cart full of healthy food. That's incredible. We count them as partners and part of our pantry family. So without their support, we wouldn't be filling shopping carts with healthy food and filling hearts with hope because it's a big part, and they have done tenfold since 2018. So 2,500 just this year. I can't even go backwards and do the math. So thank you, gentlemen. And their support garners more support because of the publicity and the support that others give because of the golf tournament. So thank you, gentlemen, for this ongoing support.

I thank the commission for this recognition. It should go to a very generous community who have contributed to our golf tournament I, uh, in 2018, we went to DN and ask her if we could do a golf tournament for policy pantry. DN said, I've always wanted a golf tournament. So we did $18,000 this year. Our gift was $111,000. I think it's our responsibility of citizens in Baldwin county when we believe strongly. in something in our county, it is our privilege to give back to Baldwin County. We are promised biblically there will always be poor among us, and that's true in our county. It surprises a lot of people. Thanks for the land donation for our future site. in North Baldwin County. I'm grateful for that. I'll share one last thing for Deanne's benefit. When you make a gift to Prodisee Pantry, your return on your gift or your return on your investment is 5X. What that means is if you buy a T sign through our tournament for $150, that put $750 of groceries into our county. So through seven tournaments with many people supporting us, we have gifted over $460,000 to Prodisee Pantry. That is $2,300,000 of groceries to Baldwin County. So thank you. We especially appreciate Deanne, her administrative team, and all the volunteers who support Policy Pantry. Our phone number for your gift for our 2027 tournament is 251-517-9526. Thank you all very much. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you, Deanne.

Thank you.

Thank you. I love the commercial, didn't y'all? That's why these guys support us and raise so much money.

Hey, y'all don't leave because during between the work session and the work session, the meeting, Angelo wants to take a picture of all of y'all. If you don't mind not leaving.

All right. We are going to break until 10 o'clock. Our work session is over. 10 o'clock commission meeting, Tuesday, September the 15th. Today we have with us Pastor Brent Shaw with First Baptist Church of Fairhope to deliver our invocation. And I will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance afterwards. Thank you.

Please pray with me. Father, thank you so much for this beautiful day you've allowed us to have today. Lord, just to be alive today is a blessing, and it's such a blessing to live here in Baldwin County. Father, we thank you for all the good things that are happening across our county, the growth we're experiencing. Lord, we know that also brings challenges. And so, Father, we pray today for our commissioners as they do the work of our county to serve us. Lord, that you would give them wisdom, give them insight, or give them the ability to make good decisions for us. And Lord, help us to be good citizens. Lord, help us as we speak today, those of us that do speak, to speak in an orderly manner, Lord, to do so with our speech seasoned with salt and grace. Lord, always realizing that all of us fall short of your glory. So, Lord, today we just turn this day over to you, ask again that you would bless everyone present, meet all the needs that are present here among us today. And may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. And I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, All right, commissioners, we got, before we get started today, a few cleanup matters that we need to take care of from the work session. If y'all will look, we have three addenda items that can be easily moved over to our consent agenda if you so wish.

Yeah, I'm okay with it.

All right. So we have moved our addenda GA1 through GA3 to our consent agenda. We will have a presentation by our highway department in a little while as well as what did we decide to do, Frank, with that senior staff report?

Yes, sir.

Do you want to do the highway item before all these public hearings?

Yeah, we'll do that. item one, which is the fiscal year 2027 Alabama Transportation Rehabilitation and Improvement Program 2 project, referred to as the A-Trip 2. So just need, if that item is before you, and so we've had a couple of submittals, and we have a request that's come before us in writing from the director of Blakely State Park, Mike Bunn. He had asked if the commission could help or assist with basically sponsor a project at the entrance of Blakely State Park, which would improve Highway 225 and enhance the entrance and put some safety components in there. That is not a county road. The state park's not county, but the state park also cannot apply for these funds. It can only be applied through the county commission. So there's a couple of options. If the commission's will is to to honor Mr. Bunn's request to sponsor this project as the fiscal year 27 grant application for this program. then that's a choice the commission could make. If that's the will to do so, we would need to enter into a special agreement with that organization to handle any cost overruns and kind of work out those details, but that would come later. The other option for this year's project, we have a site that's been a problematic area for quite some time at State Route 181 and Kennedy Road 32 near the Barnwell area. Both of these projects would meet the eligibility of the grant program, but we can only apply for one project per year, one site per year. So what's before you is for the body to decide which project they would like to go with for this year's application. The application is due in early November, and so we just need some guidance in order to be able to put the grant application together and get it submitted in time.

Mr. Chairman, if you don't mind, I'd like to mention, I'd like to, me personally, it's 32 and 181. The last two or three years, we haven't issued there with all the traffic that's moving there. And we've asked Aldot, Frank has or Mark, I can't remember which one, has asked Aldot to put a turn lane there to help the traffic in the mornings and in the afternoons. And I think that would be a good project for the county to push forward, just in my opinion. So I just want to let you be aware of that.

I would also like to say that I think that that intersection trumps the other request, and as much as I appreciate everything Mike Bond does for Blakely, and I think Blakely's a worthwhile cause, and I think that that's an opportunity, but I think that when I talked to Mike, I told him that I would rely on the data and the facts, and I think the data and the facts, because ATRIP is for a safety improvement project, and we rarely get one of those grants anyways, and I think that it needs to be the one that, Um, is, is for a, a, a more, um, right. Where's you safety factor included in that? And, uh, I mean the chances of getting it, I don't know, but you can't have not, if you ask not. Right. So, okay.

I concur. We've done a lot at Blakely, um, to help them out. And, uh, this is a chance to help out all citizens of Baldwin county at this intersection that travel through there, uh, is definitely a safety. Issued and would be a great great a qualifier and and I think Asked to for this a trip fund to go to that project.

I don't know what Commissioner Gruber feels like Yeah, I think that the 32 is a good good project and It's, it's narrow. I mean, you know, it's, it really needs something. You got all that school traffic and plus you got all the other traffic that that's commuting up and down 32 and 181 there. So, you know, I think it would be a, I think it'd be a good project. So it's going to be a costly project, you know, because it's going, I don't know what y'all thinking, uh, a roundabout or something. I don't know what you, what the, what they would allow. Because it is a state road, so they're going to have some input into it as well.

Absolutely. And under this program, the state has substantial input, and it's got to be of substantial benefit to the state road. So we'll work those details out. The exact solution, we have some ideas, obviously. So we've chosen our project. Yes, sir. I appreciate the guidance, and we will move forward with that.

And one more quick thing is that, you know, there are future plans to four-lane that all the way down, but that's taking, like... Forever. Okay.

That's correct.

Mark, I don't know what that meant, Mark.

All right. Thank you, Frank, for that. And I will bring back up your item before we get into public hearing. So don't just stand, stay tuned. All right. So commissioners, we need to, and I missed all of this stuff. Did you have a county attorney report? that's always good no no executive sessions neither okay we didn't do commissioner requests but we allowed matt to steal the spotlight with his presentation so uh but we'll we'll do commissioner comments later on all right sorry about that uh i've noticed that we didn't have any time to take a break before the meeting so um anyway uh so commissioner gruber i'm gonna leave it up to you to adopt the minutes

Okay. Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion that we adopt the September 1st, 2026 regular meeting. Yes.

I'll second it.

Motion and a second to adopt the meeting minutes from September 1st. I'm just thinking about why I chose Skip. For eight years, Skip has always adopted the minutes, so we keep it going. So we got a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All right, we got our committee reports.

Pay the bills.

Yes, sir.

All right. Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion that we pay the bills, and in this invoice, there's 648 invoices, and the distributed totaling of $18,075,797.35. Y'all have heard the motion? I'll second it.

And a motion and a second to pay the bills. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye. Mr. Chairman, also make a motion that we ratify of interim payments as allowed by policy 8.1, which includes 69 invoices and a distribution totaling $3,572,494.53.

second that motion motion in a second to ratify payments as described in policy 8.1 any further discussion all in favor say aye all right next up is our consent agenda please note whoever makes the motion that we've included The three addenda items, GA1 through GA3, as well as our revenue commissioner's salary will need to be stated for the record.

Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion that we adopt our consent agenda, including the addenda items GA1, 2, and 3, and setting the revenue commissioner's salary at the requested amount.

I'll second. We have a motion and a second to adopt our consent agenda with the... attachments that we added. Is that okay? Did we do that right? Any further discussion? Just for the people that did not see our work session portion of the meeting and for the people that are watching this live, we did approve and adopt our budget in that swift motion right there that we're fixing to do. And I Again, we can't state enough how much work goes into preparing a budget for a county this size and to be able to vote on it in like two seconds is crazy to me to even think about the amount of man hours that went into that and the amount of partnerships that went in that to get to where we got. So I just wanted to state that as we are fixing to adopt this consent agenda. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion on that? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. All right. Frank, do you want to come up and just go ahead and do your item? Or sit there, you don't have to come up. We're going to delegate this one to Mark, and he's got a great presentation. All right, come on up, Mr. Ackerman. I'm going to try to get through this real quick.

So two years ago, you guys created the award-winning 30 Q program as a way to streamline the funding process between the County commission and the various municipalities in this County to circumvent all of the red tape that exists when you go through state and federal programs to really implement some, some life-changing transportation projects in a timely manner. This program was created by our County administrator and our County engineer. And what it does, we, we were going to put up $30 million. The County commission put up $30 million to be matched voluntarily by each municipality. If they wanted to choose a project that qualified with their one-to-one match to 30 million with their 30 million match by 2030 was the 30 Q program. This was a pilot program and we had till 2030. Well, we, we met our 30 million and 30 million goal match in one year. So. You recognize that this was a great program and still there were still municipalities that did not have an opportunity to participate, they just weren't quite ready yet. So y'all elected and chose to move forward with a permanent program and that is the C3 program, Connecting Communities Collectively. And our first C3 project is before you for your consideration this morning and that is improvements to the Twin Beach Roadway close to US 98 with the City of Fairhope. Last night, the city of Fairhope adopted the agreement on their half, and today, we could have the opportunity to adopt y'all's agreement. Now, this project consists of three improvements along Twin Beach in three different locations. The first one is a roundabout, and this is, for those watching at home or watching on the screen, this is about half a mile East of us 98 at their park. And all this kind of interconnects multiple neighborhoods. There's a dollar general at this location, and this will help improve a intersection that currently only has a flashing caution light. And you know how well those typically work. The second phase are turn lanes and other improvements, pedestrian improvements in and around pirate drive. So this is going to really help the safety of the students in the morning and afternoons for Farrop high school, as well as the residents are in this area. And then further east of the roundabout, there's another section of turn lanes and pedestrian improvements that will also improve some other safety issues where they've had some accidents at some of these larger subdivisions, all on Twin Beach Road, which is connected to a county road. And the beauty of this project, are these three elements of one large project is they're all are multimodal. So they had not only have the transportation improvements, but they also have pedestrian safety improvements as well. So it's a very comprehensive project. We look forward to working with the city of Fairhope and their team. The city council was very appreciative of this opportunity. And so are we to have the opportunity to work with their team. And if y'all have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them. But the actual project total is $5 million. This would be a $2.5 million match from the county, as well as a 2.5 million match from the city of Fairhope.

Thank you, Mark.

Yeah, thank you, Mark. So do you need action right now today on that?

Yes, we need to approve the agreement and we'll get our half sign and then we'll get this project rolling. I'll make that motion.

I'll second it. Second. Any discussion? Great project, guys. I'm so glad to see we haven't even got a new program started yet and already got a project going. And this is something that is being part of this commission and going out of this commission in a couple of months. It's very enlightening to see a program in place, like you said, Mark, award-winning from the 30 Cube to probably the new award-winning C3 program that's unlike it. Anything in this entire state, probably in the country, where we're providing services for municipalities to be able to have a chance to form infrastructure projects without going through red tape and bureaucracy. So this has turned out to be a great thing. I always appreciate all the people, Roger and everybody that's involved in racking their brains together. Something I would have never thought of.

And, Commissioners, may I just add that there's opportunity on the table for others, for those that may be listening. That's right.

It might be a good little Facebook commercial or something. C3. Other municipalities. Future award winning, yeah. Only municipalities, not homeowners. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All right. That item F01 is taken care of. Thank you, guys. All right. There are no presentations today that I'm aware of. All right. And so we do have some public hearings today. We've got a few. And I just wanted to give some guidance and wisdom as we go through these public hearings. This is something that the commission is always tasked with and to hear these. And we want to sit up here and do the best job that we can to hear everybody's case. we're going to be strict on time today. Uh, so if people are signed up to speak, it's going to be three minutes. And when the timer goes off, uh, it's going to be over with. Um, and, and if you're speaking on behalf of a group, it's going to be five minutes. And when I say speak on behalf of a group, um, that's what you're doing. So let's just say for instance, um, there's a case on here that there's a lot of people against. And, um, the, the main themes on people against the project is these things. Um, Rotter runoff, traffic concerns, no schools, and that kind of stuff. If 15 people say those things over and over again, we understand that those are the problems. So if one person speaks and covers all of your problems in their time up here, if you have something that you would like to add differently, you could do that, but we discourage multiple people speaking out against it. Uh, and saying the same thing over and over again, because we, we, we get it. I mean, this is the, like I said, the toughest part of our job is these public hearings when it comes to rezoning cases. So, um, they're piling, piling them on top of us before we leave office. Um, and it's just one of those things that, that we've had fell in our lap day with 12 of them. Uh, and, uh, these, these take a while if, if, if I let it. And so we're going, we're going to stay crisp on time today. If you are going to speak on behalf of something that's in your heart to be against something, please do it in a decor and manner that is representative of this building and what we do here without screaming and yelling and cursing and that kind of stuff. We won't allow that. And please, if there's anybody in the audience that feels different from what somebody's up here saying at the podium, please don't scream out and shout from your chair. Uh, towards the person that's speaking, um, on the behalf of what they feel like is important because everybody's entitled to say something. Um, and we have a sign up process, uh, to be able to speak at that microphone. Um, so, uh, with that being said, um, Selena's coming up to the podium. We're going to have our first public hearing. This is case number Z 25 slash five three. This is the good rich property rezoning request.

all right this is the uh good wrench uh property rezoning um they are requesting to go from ra to rsf1 the subject property is located west of jimmy faulkner and north of busby road in planning district 10. it is currently ra which is rural agricultural and the request is rsf1 which is single family the total acreage is 417 acres Um, we did receive some agency comments. We also, um, received one from the city of Spanish fort, which I forward you, um, this morning. Um, here is the county map show in the area. Um, you can see the subject property is adjacent to the city of Spanish fort. Here's the locator map, um, to the west is some RA and RSF two to the south of the subject property is some RSF three. and to the east is the City of Spanish Fort. Here's a picture of the subject property along with the adjacent properties. Um, a resigning request has been submitted to change the designation to RSF one to allow for a single family subdivision. Uh, the surrounding area includes a mix of residential and vacant land uses, uh, adjacent properties are zoned are a RSF two and RSF three. The majority of these parcels are at least RSF two size, which is 15,000 square foot or greater. Uh, the parcels to the east that are in the city of Spanish Ford are zoned residential single family or one. Um, the county's flu map identifies this area as having a conservation development, potential conservation development, potential and monitoring and moderate development density. Um, the moderate development density allows for the RSF one and RSF two size lots. Uh, here's the flu map. All right, and staff has determined that the requested zoning map is somewhat consistent with the factors in the Baldwin County zoning ordinance. It's partially consistent with the FLUME, and the Smart Growth Card strongly supports this request.

Thank you. Selina, any questions for Selina? Selina.

Yes.

in your statement you said that the majority of it's going to be rsf2 is that what did you say that or did i misunderstand no they're asking for rsf1 yeah there's one there's some adjacent rsf2 lots adjacent to it yes okay can you put that map back up one more time please there's some rsf2 to the west and then there's rsf3 to the south okay All right, thank you.

All right, no more questions for Celina. I'm gonna open the public hearing. Is there anybody signed up to speak on behalf of this project? Mayor Bass.

Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. Just want to come in this morning and thank you, number one, for all that you guys do. The central concern for the city of Spanish Fort is not whether this property can ever be developed residentially. It's whether the 417 and a half acres should be rezoned for substantial residential development before the transportation, access, drainage, environmental, and infrastructure impacts are understood. This was first brought to you guys, I think, last fall. There were questions that were not answered. It was brought back in June and was asked to be tabled. Um, for us as a city, uh, some of the comments we sent to Selena, um, you know, we asked to work with the applicant to annex this property, um, and go through our sub regulations, uh, subdivision regulations throughout the city. Uh, the County staff report concludes that the rezoning should have no impact to the health, safety, and welfare of the surrounding properties. The County is being asked to establish the development entitlement first and answer the consequential transportation, drainage, environmental, and infrastructure questions later. Uh, Jimmy Faulkner is important thoroughfare for the city of Spanish Fort. Um, in addition to being neighbor on all sides, pretty much by the city of Spanish Fort, we have Spanish Fort high school, Spanish Fort middle school, Rockwell elementary school that are all on this road. Um, the additional 417 acres, if you look at, you know, roads, um, any environmental things that are gonna have to be looked at with this development of the property, we anticipate about 300 homes being added to the subdivision. With those 300 homes, you're talking an additional six to 700 cars with only a single access, um, onto Jimmy Faulkner right now, there's no current access. Um, they are, uh, tangled up in litigation with the property owners association of a neighborhood next to this property. So there's currently no way to access. And if that access is granted, um, all of this traffic will be flowing through a current city of Spanish fort neighborhood. So we'd ask you guys obviously to push this to the city. Next year after legislative session, we will actually be looking at annex property all around this area, including this area. So we'd much rather have our fingerprints on this and be able to have some say with our subdivision regulations and also any required zoning that goes along with this property. So I'd be glad to answer any questions if you guys have those.

I do have a question. That was my number one question was, Um, what conversations has the city had with the applicant? So can you tell me, have you had direct conversations with the applicant from your leadership?

Uh, we have both myself and our planning and zoning department met with the applicant, uh, I guess around a month ago. Um, and it was our understanding he was gonna come back with, uh, you know, maybe some changes to his original plan unit development that he brought to us. Um, next thing we knew, we heard from Selena, I think Friday, uh, that he was coming back to you guys to go this route. Um, you know, For us, our subdivision regulations require two ingress and egress. Right now, really the only way to do that would be...

I understand that. I just wanted to know if there was a conversation about annexation because you are contiguous on two sides of this property, and when it's that close to a city, that is what it should happen, in my opinion. But I've talked to the applicant, and he said that he is willing to annex in But he's also reduced this down to an RSF1, which is, I don't know what you guys would bring him in as. I think that your minimum R1, how it comes in, would be 20,000 square feet, and this would be actually a larger footprint. So I'm happy if you guys want to bring it in, but I think that you've also got the weight on the legislature to act, and that could not even happen particularly unless you've got some really good strings.

Well, also it is a single landowner, so we could annex the property without legislation for the referendum legislation we're gonna be looking at. So we could annex this property if the landowner.

Then are you willing to do that right away?

We are willing to do that if it's a route that the applicant would like to go. Well, he's here. I understand.

Have you talked to him this morning?

I have not talked to him this morning, but we have conversations.

You guys have been in the same room all morning and you've not even talked about this.

Commissioner Underwood. We have a lot of conversations. This applicant, um, he is currently working on another project for the city of Spanish fort. So communication is ongoing on almost a daily basis. So communication is not an issue here.

Okay. Thank you.

One thing I would say that the county's scorecard tool back in June, it was a six, it has now jumped to a 22. And that was solely based off of the change in density. If you look at everything else that's on there, there's really no basis for a move of 16 points. I get maybe moving in a few points, but a 16 point jump from June to September with only the density change does not make a whole lot of sense. None of the other main questions or problems that were proposed by the commission have been answered or addressed. The property is currently completely water bound on every side from a wetland standpoint. There's no delineation that's been done. The major issues and problems have not been answered at this point.

Well, this is just an actual request for change of use. I completely understand. And all those things would be addressed if that 400 and something acres were to be asked to be subdivided. But all we're doing is changing the use of 400 and something acres.

And again, like I opened with, we're not naive enough to think this is never going to be residential property. Okay, thank you. We would like it to be residential property annexed to the city of Spanish Fort. And then we could go through our subdivision regulations to make sure it's done the right way compared to all the other neighborhoods that are around this potential neighborhood.

Appreciate you.

Yep. Thank you, guys.

Mr. Chairman, thank you all very much for hearing us today. I'm going to try and just address some similar issues but go a different route. Again, to reiterate, there's no question at some point in time that this property will be suitable for a residential development. The question is whether or not it is ready for that at this moment. And access to the property, I think, is a huge issue. Even in the report, it says there's no access to the property. Now, I've heard this morning that there may be some things that are in the works to address that, but I think clearly you ought to know whether or not this property has access to a public right-of-way before you do something that would increase the density on the site for development purposes. Under your subdivision regulations, you require a 60 foot minimum access point to a public right of way for every lot. They have none unless there's been something that's been recorded or something that you can be shown. If there is nothing and they cannot agree with the neighboring property owner, there is a right under Alabama law to have a public or private condemnation, but you're only entitled to get a 30 foot right of way which would not meet your subdivision regulations unless they came to an agreement or there was something else out there. I think that's a question that needs to be answered for everybody as to whether or not they have access across the property. In addition, for the number of lots that you could do by right in an RSF1, I believe under your regulations, and I know under ours, that if you reach a certain point, I think that number's 50, you have to have a second access right of way in order to deal and provide emergency access and management. And they don't have one as we stand here today. Tanninger itself has one access point that comes in and it almost I think may reach those 50 lots as it as it sits So for any further development would require a second access point which will require some coordination not necessarily the city But the neighboring property owners who we don't control the fire code I think is an issue the transportation access should be resolved and I also understand you understand to the smart growth chart is an analysis tool Which I think explains why such you have such a huge swing from 6 to 22 It appears on its face to be an objective standard, and I understand you have to do something, but it can be very subjective. The numbering system, how you add it in, can be very subjective. To have that kind of swing with the only change being an RSF2 request to an RSF1, which does lower the density with nothing else, does bring into question how could it go so far in one change. And I think that in reality, without having access at all to a public right-of-way scoring that high even in the transportation section raises some questions about how you look at it. Again, this is a project that ultimately is likely going to be a residential area. The question is whether or not with the information that you have, the access issue that they have, should you go through a rezoning process today or should the property owner come back when they can actually prove they have access? And if they can, fine, show it to you. But, uh, those are, those are issues that I think are viable. They are real and they need to be addressed. Not only this access, but the second access and the impact on the existing subdivision. Thank you.

Anybody else? Okay. Anybody else?

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for the opportunity to hear what we have to say. I feel fortunate to be here. I found out last night that this was coming on. I didn't see any notices on the road or anything for this meeting, but nonetheless, we are here. I have the good fortune of 25 years ago being a Yankee transplant discovering God's country, and I have been blessed. Thank you very much. And one of the things that I hope I have learned is that you don't necessarily transport what you have been used to, but you transport what you have learned. So I am thrilled to have this committee be in a position where they are balancing what the landowner wants and what the community benefits from. That being said, I think our purpose here is known. It's the general purpose of deciding whether or not the it is agricultural or whether it is some form of residential. Later on, the zoning board will assess more specific details. But things like traffic and police and fire and schools are all germane at this level. I think if you look at the 417-acre property, probably eliminate about 25% as being unbillable, which is pretty typical for most construction areas, leaves you with 312 acres of buildable. If you take 0.7 acres, which was the size for the lots in question, that gives you 445 homes. 445 homes at an average of 2.1 cars per home, and that's a conservative number, adds up to 934 vehicles. Now, each vehicle, picture a husband and wife commuting or something, you go, you come back, you go, you come back. That's four trips. That's with no school, no going to the grocery store, et cetera. That is 934 cars with four trips. You have 3,756 more vehicles on the road in the course of the day, on Jimmy Faulkner largely, potentially with Busby if something goes in that direction. But Jimmy Faulkner, aka One Horse Road, was not really ready for this. If we look to Stonebridge, we can see very clearly what has happened on Route 31 when you have overbuilding. And in fact, not only do people in there complain readily about all that traffic, but there are 166 homes as of yesterday for sale in Stonebridge of people trying to get out of there. We are simply suggesting that This is why the zoning board exists. And if you want to be responsible for pure chaos, this seems like a surefire recipe. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Thank you. It's good seeing you guys on that side of the table. But anyway, I wanted to come and not to belabor the points that have been discussed already. Obviously, you know, we've talked about water runoff. We've talked about traffic and so on. A lot of those things, that's up next to my neighborhood and also my district. And I will tell you, those people don't want it. Now, we have had conversations that this property will be developed. someday it was always meant to be developed it will be developed there are challenges getting up and over wetland areas and those things need to be addressed so i want to slow down and kind of tap the brakes on the zoning request but to piggyback on brad and and our city attorney david connor's point we're dealing with a lot of traffic on there i want to take you back to just a couple of short years ago where one of the proposed ingress, egress points, we were water evac'ing people out of Tanager. Those people were in my district, they had water up to the bottom of their windows in their cars. I stood out there as they tried to find fences that had flown away, that had floated away, and trying to get cars started. We don't need to add more, we can start figuring out what's going on out there and what we need to do. The other thing I would like to bring up with regards to the traffic side is we've been talking about all of the cars that this subdivision will inevitably add to Jimmy Faulkner. Jimmy Faulkner does need to be widened. There's no question it will add more traffic there, especially as the Highlands Group develops farther north. However, we've got that development going on right now. One thing that hasn't been discussed is just up by the middle school on Dole Leaf Road, you've already approved a subdivision up there called Darby Ridge, which DSLD is now developing that, which is already going to be adding traffic to the roads that back up in the morning when you're trying to take your kids to school. It is not uncommon to see your traffic backed up for a mile. It also was backed up, not only up Jimmy Faulkner, it backs up to 181, which is creating a situation there. It is definitely something that needs to be addressed. It's something that needs to be looked at from a safety standpoint. But I said, let's tap the brakes. Let's look at the water. Let's look at the situation and go at it a smarter way. So thank you very much for your time. And I'm going to give back 45 seconds. Thank you. All right. Thank you.

Um, this, uh, how many, how many more, two more, or before, before we get any further with this case, um, and for all cases that are being talked about rezoning today, a lot of people are jumping the gun on what a rezoning case is. We're this commission is tasked with changing the use of the land. We do not build subdivisions. We do not approve subdivisions. This county commission has nothing to do with the subdivision process. That's up to our planning and zoning board that does it on first Thursday nights of the month. So if we approve a rezoning request, that don't mean any houses are going to be built there. That doesn't mean a subdivision is coming there. It's just changing the landowner's use of property for future endeavors, which may never go anywhere. So for people to say that we're building subdivisions and we're approving subdivisions in these meetings, it's just wrong. We're approving a rezoning request or denying a rezoning request. It has nothing to do with building a house. It's speculative to say that there's going to be all these houses and cars there if we don't know what's going to happen. So land use is the topic today. So who's next? Josh Hamilton.

I've never done anything like this before.

So thanks for speaking on behalf of neighbor, uh, against it.

Okay. Um, I just, I've come to these the last time I've got the notices. And the only thing I'll add, I agree with all these people. Um, is that one of y'all up here said that in 1990, the population of Baldwin County was 89,000. and it's currently about 270,000. That's true. I believe that was you then. It was. I grew up here.

I didn't say it today, though.

It was probably even more than that. They said it during our budget process. It was November 18th. It doesn't matter. I love the idea of this being agricultural land, conservation. I'm saying nothing else about subdivisions. I teach seventh grade civics. I want to use my First Amendment and speak out against it. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning, and I appreciate your comments you took a lot of what I had to say out in that I while changing the land use to r1 which is actually a lower density than what spanish fort's baseline zoning is it really doesn't approve anything all these things regarding access regarding traffic regarding drainage regarding all these things they come up through the subdivision process this this cannot be a subdivision without all those boxes being checked This is if you look at the land use it's compatible with what's around you have even in the city of Spanish port you have Audubon, which is really a County or one subdivision you have tanninger, which is a county or three subdivision And then on the back side you have our three you have four four you have some or two so our wine is not incompatible We have obviously looked at we have either under contract or ownership of all the property from two access points currently. So we have provided staff with an access plan that shows that this property does have access. So we believe we've met all the requirements. And we're more than happy to work with City of Spanish Fort, even after potentially getting this approval, to ultimately annex into Spanish Fort potentially do a development in Spanish for it. Thanks Dwayne.

Thank you. Dwayne, you want to ask your question since you brought it up about the ownership of the contract? It's hypothetical. It gets, it's, uh, turned down denied. What happens then with the contract or is it, is it different steps? before it's sold. In other words, it's timeframes.

I mean, the next step is, is really trying to come up with a solution of how something, I mean, obviously it's not going to be sold if it can't be ultimately developed.

I'm just curious how that works since you brought it up.

Yeah.

All right. Thank you. Okay.

Good morning, thank you, commissioners. I wanted to appear because of some of the comments that have been made specifically addressing the access issue, and the applicant has satisfied staff with the record access that is available. I represent SF Development and Allied Mortgage, who are developing the property, and we have looked at that and are participating in that. I did not wanna let the comments go unanswered to suggest that there was not access.

Thank you. Thanks, Jessica. All right, anybody else? I'll let it go. Come on up to back to the microphone.

So I was texting with a property owner association, uh, from a teenager who could not be here. They are currently involved in litigation. Um, uh, if anything is going on with Audubon, uh, that ally also owns, uh, but there's been no common area. a conversation or agreement or settlement with Tanager, which is where the proposed access agreement is at this point. So I just wanna make sure you guys were aware of the whole story.

Uh, mayor, if we were talking about access today, I would be worried about that, but I'm not, um, Selena come back up here and I wanted to tell you something just as a staff member of this county commission, I appreciate what y'all do and y'all's. way of doing things has kind of been denounced today in a public meeting and that's that's that's opinions and that's fine but i want to personally reach out to y'all and thank you for what you do your scar scorecard system is is what we use and it and and it went from where it went from where it went because the the applicant did what um they were asked to do and They're back here today for another go around. So kudos to you and your office and staff.

I'm going to make a comment as well. Concerning subdivisions, as far as we have passed new subdivision regulations in January of 2025, I don't really think we're seeing the benefit and the fruit of that yet. And there was one mention that was over there. It was approved prior to the 2025 subdivision regulation upgrades and those were considerable improvements that were made to the subdivision regulation so the old approvals that are in place now and some of those that you may some of you in the audience may even be living in some of those subdivisions i'm not going to ask you to show your hands if you live in a subdivision But somebody's living in these subdivisions that are being built. Anyways, I live on a farm, by the way. Got 280 houses going in next to me, and there is considerable road improvements been made by the developer that the county commission requires during subdivision process. It's even more stringent than it was when most of the ones, the one by me, and what my land, by the way, in case you're wondering, Wouldn't be here if I had all that money anyhow all I'm saying is is that these things have been thought of these things have been looked at and Can we go further with subdivision improvements I personally think we can but we have done when you have to you know come together with balancing everything so I know that that's the first thing that comes up to everybody's mind, but like we've said over and over again, we are deciding a change in use. And if it were to be approved, you've got a 417 whatever acre parcel that is RSF1. And you know what you can do on that? Until it's subdivided, build one house. So thank you.

All right. I'm gonna close this public hearing and I'm gonna ask the commission for a vote.

Mr. Chairman, I make a motion we approve this request.

Got a motion and a second to approve case Z25 slash 53. Any further discussion?

Yeah, I'd like to say this. I listen to the citizens and I listen to the mayor and I listen to the county commissioners. Yes, we're only here to look at the land use, but you know what? I'm going to look more. I'm going to look further because You elected me to make a decision more than just a land use. I've got to look at 417 acres, whatever it is, and it's going to put an impact on the infrastructure. Yes, if it proves, they're going to move forward.

So I'm sorry.

Yes, I'm out the door, y'all. I'm not getting reelected. I'm gone. But you know what? I still represent you, the people. And I'm going to say... Y'all do a great job to staff, but that's all I'm gonna say right now. But I just wanted to, I look more than just the land use because I know it's coming up and I know it's, if it gets approved and by God, Spanish fort is going to have a hail up there in my district, district two.

And I'm sorry, but that's what I have to say.

And that's further discussion on the site. So thank you. So we have a motion in a second on the floor.

Um, to approve this case, um, hearing no further discussion, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. So we got three eyes and a no. Okay.

Motion approved.

One more question. One more thing. I would just encourage that just because this got approved as a County, it takes a very, very long time for subdivision process and the city of Spanish fort can

move quickly if you want to annex this property in and then that way you would and if you don't then i mean that's up to y'all all right so our next case is the 25 62 the morgan property rezoning request all right this is a request to rezone from ra to rsf1 the subject property is located in planning district 15. It's north of County Road 54 and west of River Road North in the Daphne area in Planning District 15. It is currently zoned RA, rural agriculture, and it's requested that it be rezoned to RSF1, single family. It consists of about 153 acres. Here's some of the adjacent properties. On the locator map, you can see it is adjoined by RA to the north, west, and south. And to the east, there is some RSF1 and RSFE. Here's the flume map. You can see its moderate development potential with some conservation development potential. The subject property covers approximately 153.51 acres and is currently zoned rural agriculture. A request has been submitted to rezone the property to RSF1 to subdivide the property. The minimum lot size for the current zoning is three acres, and the minimum lot size for the requested RSF1 is 30,000 square feet. As stated, the FLUME identifies the majority of this area as moderate development potential, which allows for the RSF1 and RSF2. So staff has determined that the requested zoning amendment is consistent with the factors. It is somewhat consistent with the FLUME, and in the Smart Growth Card, it is somewhat supports. It is on the higher side of somewhat supports.

Any questions for Selina? Public hearing is open on KC25-62, Morgan Property Rezoning. Anybody signed up? Jessica McDeal.

Good morning again. Good morning. I represent Mr. Morgan. His family, um, first began acquiring what became this 153 acre tract in the 1940s. Um, the family has owned this property for approximately 80 years. Um, Beginning in the 1950s, the Penrys were the first to farm it. They've got land close by. The Penry family cleared, fenced, and grazed cattle on this property until the agricultural use changed to crop. And that went for many, many years, as you all know. Now the Penrys are no longer farming the property. And that agricultural use that served this family and the land well for generations has come to an end. And that's really the larger point here. Communities change over time, regardless of what an individual's preferences are. And the Morgan family has seen that and experienced that over the years. In the 1960s, the Navy condemned part of their land here and took it for airfields that are still out there today. Over the last decade, residential uses have come into the area and there are lots of residential uses around this property. In response the growing need for housing in our growing County Mr.. Morgan did not cause those changes but his property cannot be viewed on this application as if they did not occur and The question today is what makes sense for this property. Mr. Morgan is not asking for commercial or high intensity or industrial use. He's seeking an RSF1 so that the property, which has reached the end of its historic agricultural use, can transition to the residential use. We recognize that there are people concerned about growth in Baldwin County. It is growing, but the question before you today is not whether Baldwin County should grow. The question is whether RSF one is a reasonable use of this particular tract given its circumstances, keeping an agricultural use classification on this property that is no longer being farmed. is not preservation as a practical matter it would leave 150 153 acre tract of long-standing family land stagnant which is where it sits today i respectfully ask you on behalf of mr morgan to rezone and grant this request thank you thanks jessica any questions for jessica jessica did the owner look at something

We understand that that is not economically supportable. It's the RSF-1 that's economically sustainable. And it just sits stagnant.

Any other questions I may address?

Didn't you already do something with this? Was it presented as a RSF?

It was presented as a PRD with a mix of RSF-2 and RSF-1 lots along with a lot of other amenities inside of it.

Right. So y'all took out a vast majority of lots to bring this presentation to us.

The number of lots was reduced by over 200. Okay. Was 350 something? 344 to... I know it was a 206-lot reduction. I'm glad to see that pooled. I know that.

Thank you so much, Jessica.

Thank you.

All right. Anybody else? Michael Niemeyer. Michael Niemeyer.

Good morning, Commissioners.

Good morning. Thank you. I represent the developer, Four Star Real Estate Group, and... I had a presentation, but I'll answer your question about the estate lots. That is just on an economically viable.

Economically for the developer or?

Really for anybody. I mean, yeah, you're not going to get a developer. I don't think it's going to pay the land value the Morgan family would want and deserves to be able to put it into an estate lot type of situation. The history is important. Yes, we were here in June with a, prd attached to a request for a rezoning to from ra to rsf2 and that was 344 lots the 444 would have been the entitlement amount it was already reduced 100 but it was attached to a prd that was pretty elaborate had a lot of green space a lot of features but we read the room heard the commentary there was a debate that occurred at that meeting that wasn't about this project but just generally about projects and the development environment in the county. So we went back, we pulled our application, amended the request to now RSF1. By right, technically, theoretically, that would give this 153 acres 150 lots, but as a practical matter, there are constraints on this property would drop it down the current concept is maybe 138 or so lots all of which would be would meet or exceed the 100 foot wide minimum for rsf1 so you know we had an ambitious project we read the room we scaled it way back in terms of intensity and that's the request that's before the commission um There's also an added benefit.

I don't know if the gentlemen are here this morning.

They were here last time, but there's a donation of three or so acres to the Bell Forest Volunteer Fire Department, which will be an added benefit for the community. If this is developed, and as the commission has noted repeatedly, we still would have to go through the entitlement process. We understand that. But part of that would involve improvement of a water line down from the curve in 54 to the west to this project, which would benefit the entire area. We understand that there may be some folks who are in opposition who are concerned about drainage or impacts to Fish River, which is 1,000 feet away at one place, maybe 1,200 feet away at another, and there's development of single family between this site and the river, the county. If this ever gets approved, we would have to comply with the requirement that post-development runoff either be better than or the same as pre-development. There were some complaints we saw in some of the submissions to the commissioners when this was on the agenda before about runoff, but that's runoff from when it's being farmed and there's absolutely no attention being paid to drainage, although here we obviously would have to improve the drainage and control it in accordance with the county. So we believe that the new proposal meets everybody's concerns, and we ask that it be approved to RSF1.

Thank you, Randy. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Any questions?

All right.

Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning. I live on River Road North in Daphne on an 18-acre property immediately adjacent to the subject property. I purchased this wooded property in 2017, and it sits at the end of a private gravel road, and I bought it for its unparalleled privacy. Built our dream home here in 2020, and it probably goes without saying that I oppose the rezoning proposed for the Morgan property. I'll focus my attention and time today on the SmartGrowth scorecard and will keep my comments aimed specifically at conformity with surrounding land use and the assigned score of six out of 10, a favorable score. Digging in a bit further, the highest score of two was given in the category of does the proposed land use require building separation and buffers that fit the character of the surrounding area. I find this to be a bit erroneous. Speaking to the surrounding area, There are 15 properties that border the subject property by touching the property's defined property lines, including at the property corners. The smallest lot is 1.3 acres. The largest is 230 acres. The average is 37.8 acres. This is clearly a rural community. Some may argue that I'm thinking too small and may have cherry picked the sample. What if we extend my assessment to the properties that surround those? initial properties giving additional benefit to the subject property. There are now 31 additional properties to consider in the assessment of conformity. The smallest lot in the sample is one acre and the largest in this sample is 155 acres. The average lot size drops to 29.2 acres, still a very rural community. What if we got a little crazy and went to a third degree of separation and consider properties that are adjacent to that previous sample of 31 This adds a whopping 76 properties to the assessment and extends the reach to nearly one mile in any direction. The smallest lot in this group is 0.5 acres. The largest is 238 acres. The overall average drops to 23.4 acres per property. Still a strong rural community in my opinion. All the lot information was pulled from the Baldwin County website and is considered to be believed inaccurate as of September 14th yesterday. In conclusion, I'll leave you two points. I've sampled 122 properties near the Morgan property. The average property size is 23.4 acres, and it's a highly rural and nature area, and it stands in contrast to the conformity findings of the Smart Growth Assessment. Two, being rural in nature, you'll find rural things associated with these properties, including privacy-seeking owners, farm operations, farm animals, ATV, off-road equipment, hunting and shooting, most of which will be outlawed. in the plan development being considered. I ask you to consider keeping rural Baldwin County rural and vote no on rezoning. Thank you.

Hi good morning, my name is Matthew McCray and I live on River Road North as well just down the road from where Jason was just saying. Most of it has already been said so I'd like to take this time to just say that I appreciate what commissioner McKenzie said here we all know that this rule. area rezoning is ultimately gonna move towards, and they've already come up and said, proposed development. I do appreciate the fact that they said that they have listened to some of the comments and that the size of the lots and that type of stuff has increased and that there's gonna be potentially a reduction in homes for what they were looking to propose there. The biggest concern that we have, for me at least, is the water runoff. I know what he just said in regards to it's a farm area and that they're going to have to do all these different things. This is a really serious problem for the people that live right along Fisher River right there. And he said it's over a thousand feet away or something like that. I understand. But I was here during Hurricane Sally and I was here during just regular flooding with heavy rains and everything else. And the water levels rise to over the bridge that crosses Fisher River right there. And Melissa Livingston, who is my next door neighbor, can't be here today, I believe sent a letter to you guys in regards to this with some pictures of just a localized flooding when we had significant rain there. If you move forward with this in the residential area, and I understand that's a different form of this, but I respect what Mr. McKenzie has just said in that this is also important to think about and see forward. If that is black topped, roofed, and everything else, there are gonna be considerable runoff potentials there because right now, the land is able to soak up some of the water that comes here, but even so, it's not able to soak up enough right now to keep the Fish River from flooding and moving over. And that people that are right there along that area comes up into their yards, people that have horses down there, their horses are swimming at that point. So I just wanted to bring that to the attention of the council when you're talking about this. That's all I had to say at this point. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Good morning, Commissioners. David Deal with SE Civil. Not to berate some of the points that's already been made, but a couple things that were brought up I did want to address. One of them is about buffers. Even with the new plan, going with a straight zoning. In our PRD, we were required to have buffers. We're still going to have those buffers. There's large oak trees, other feature trees around the perimeter of the property. So we're leaving anywhere from 30 to 40 feet buffers depending on where those trees exist. Obviously, it's good for the neighbors and it's good for the development. As far as water runoff, and I'm sure you already are aware of this, If this moves forward into the subdivision process, you guys have pretty stringent regulations about water runoff and staff is pretty good about reviewing those very strictly. So, you know, right now there's a large low area there. When you have a lot of rain, there's no controlled release. Once we put a pond in there, obviously it's going to be a controlled release and we're going to be required to not increase that rate of that runoff. And, you know, there's potentially even make it better. And as far as the comparison of parcels, and again, I think you guys are aware of this comparing a proposed subdivision and in an area like this to 80 acre and 200 acre agricultural parcels or timberland or whatever's really not a apples to oranges. I mean, apples to apples comparison. So I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. Thanks, David.

All right. Nobody else has signed up to speak. Close the public hearing. Commissioners?

Mr. Chairman, I just want to make a comment that there's been many, many times when we see a piece of property that is farmland and when you look at the natural drainage that flows across there. Um, I'm, I'm a CPA by trade. I am not an engineer, but I listened to engineers and they explained to me how that that's how the good Lord made that prop property. And that's the drainage that's coming across that property. And, um, but then comes along man and man is gonna have to take care of that if he's going to develop that property. And so that's what those subdivision regulations, are for, and that's why we strengthened them to the dismay of many developers. Um, we had a room full about this many when we tried to pass them. Um, and they all, you know, wanted to throw, if they had things, tomatoes at us, but, um, I don't know about y'all, but I thought that was funny. Um, but anyhow, I just want to say that what Mr. Deal just said is true. They're going to have to make this property work. through the subdivision processor, or are they still just got one big piece of property that's gonna be what it is or if it's gonna be rezoned? Thank you.

I need a vote or something to get started.

And I'll second it.

We got a motion and a second to approve this case.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Nay. Next case, Z26 slash 08. Coburn property.

This is a request to rezone from RSF 2 to RSF 3. The subject property is located in Planning District 14. It's north of 104 and east of County Road 49. As stated, it's currently zoned RSF 2. It is requested for RSF 3. The property consists of 19 acres. Here's the adjoining properties. Here's the locator map. To the north is RR, which is rural district. To the west, east, and south is zoned RSF2. The flume shows this area. The majority of it is moderate development potential. There is also a portion that is in the mid-density development potential. The subject property... of approximately 19 acres. A request has been made to rezone the property to RSF 3. As stated, adjacent properties are zoned RR and RSF 2. Many of the nearby subdivisions predate the adoption of District 14 zoning map, which was approved in 2023. The two subdivisions located west of the property have average lot sizes of approximately 10,000 square feet. with lot widths ranging from 60 to 70 feet. These lots are consistent with the RSF3 zoning, which typically permit 10,000 square foot lots that are 70 foot wide. So the FLIM identified this area as moderate development potential and mid-density development potential. The mid-density development allows for the RSF3 zoning, The property in question is located just west of the town of Silver Hill. Planning District 14 did put a high-intensity commercial and residential node area at this intersection of 104 and 49. So the requested zoning is somewhat consistent with the factors in the zoning ordinance. It's partially consistent with the flu map. the smoke smart growth card scored this as strongly supports and this property this was brought to y'all a couple months ago and they asked for it to be tabled so they could communicate with the town of silver hill thanks selena any questions for selena no all right um public hearing is open on the coburn property zone on request

Good morning commissioners, Corey Bronen camp. Thank you for hearing this case. Just wanted to, um, outline this rezoning, uh, real quick on the behalf of the applicant. Um, you may recall is, uh, Selena had mentioned that we were before y'all, I think it was a month or two ago. And, uh, mayor Lyles had, I guess, sent a letter in, um, with some concerns about our proposed development. um so we we went and met with the mayor we went and met with the town council members and um their biggest concern was just obviously lot size and so where we landed was i think previously we were 10 000 square feet at 70 feet uh lot width and uh the mayor really wanted us at 12 500 average lot size just to conform with um what the town of silver hill has is there minimum lot size requirement. And so we updated our site plan to reflect that, um, our three, as was pointed out is 10,000 square feet and 70 foot. Um, and I think we're average of 12,500 and, uh, 95 or 90 to 95 feet wide. Um, really our, our biggest, uh, Our biggest item in, in meeting with the town, uh, was utilities or there's implications with utilities. And so we wanted to make sure that, that they were on board with what we were proposing. Um, the, the town serves a water there. And so, um, the, the mayor agreed to, to provide this development water so long as that we conform to that 12,500 minimum square footage. And so, um, we were, uh, we were in agreement on that. went before their town council. They were excited about the development. And so we're coming back to you all here addressing the concerns that were raised in the last meeting in hopes that you all can be behind this. So I'd open the floor for any questions that you may have.

I have a question. You've seen other people here today that's reduced the density of their projects to get them across the board because that's what they heard. You, you, you having some agreement with the mayor and a site plan, that's good for you. You rezone this RSF three, you do whatever you want. You don't have to live by that plan. And that's what scares us. Um, you can go to the 10,000 square foot lots, which nobody wants. Why didn't you go to the drawing board back to the drawing board and consider a lower density subdivision like RSF two or even RSF one?

Sure. Um, We had explored that with our engineer and I guess the struggle with making this property work is we're limited by the width of the property and the way that a 15,000 square foot lot is configured, it would only really allow a single road and lots on either side, which it does not become feasible at that point. So we decided to, basically increase to 12.5, which to your point, we could do 10, but no one's going to build a subdivision without water. So, you know, we're...

This meeting between us and Silver Hill, though, that's some agreement that y'all have made. This has nothing to do with water. So you got to quit referencing the silver. I mean, we asked you to get, you know, the mayor had his concerns and And an agreement with him with 12,500 lots is not an agreement with us. And our RSF3 does not say that. It says 10,000. Sure. Yes, sir. So it's an open-ended, you can do whatever you want with it once you get RSF3 designation. Go ahead, Commissioner Underwood. Sure.

You know, this property was voted into zoning in 2023, just a little over three years ago. And... You are zoned RSF2 right now. You could apply for a PRD and you could achieve your 12,500 square foot lots if it was, I'm making sure my planning staff is, I'm not giving you bad information, but I concur with Jeb that there is absolutely nothing that could prevent you from doing 10,000 square foot lots. lots on a regular subdivision. So that's all.

Sure, I understand. So the objection is really just over the 2,500 square foot delta per lot is the objection from 12.5 to?

The objection is between 10,000 and 15,000 square foot lots. As far as how you configure those and you lay them out and you go through the subdivision processes, that's a whole different step. You're already zoned for residential single family two, which was created during the platting, the map process when this came under zoning and everything around that has the same coloring just about, you know? And so the fact that there's a potential, if there's a potential hardship or something on your property, that would be addressed in a PRD. So I mean, you know, if this vote goes against you, you have a whole year before you can apply again. So you might want to think about that really quick like.

Well, so I was saying the difference of 10 and 12, five, you were suggesting a PRD to bring it in under 12, five. Is that accurate?

Not under, but that's the whole point of doing the PRD.

To achieve the 12, five.

That is a, that is a possibility. So, I mean, you know, I, I'm not up here to give you advice, but I mean, you know, you're the one that's going through with this application and you stand a chance of getting it approved, you stand a chance of getting it denied. And if it's denied, you've got to wait a whole year before you can reapply for this piece of property. Or you can withdraw it and go back to the drawing board.

Sure.

Or you don't have the option to withdraw it, you can request that from this body.

Sure, understand. And I'd love to just raise a quick question to staff. I assume...

They're right behind you.

Yep. PRD would be an option here if we wanted to come back and explore the underlying zoning. Okay.

Just to clarify for that, that doesn't mean that's a guarantee.

That's not a guarantee, but you're already zoned for RSF 2 at 15,000 square feet. You've got that in your pocket. You want to subdivide it in that arena, which is a whole lot further than these people trying to go from rural agriculture to RSF 1.

What I'm hearing is the 12,500 is a lot size that the commission could potentially get behind if we came back with a PRD.

I'm not going to, there's going to be, by the time you come back, these guys sitting beside me ain't going to be here. I'm going to be here. Lord willing, if he gives me health.

Okay. Um, then I would, I think the prudent thing to do would be for us to withdraw the application. I would respectfully request y'all to withdraw it. Um, and I.

Staff, is that something that goes through y'all?

It comes through us.

Are you requesting a withdrawal? I would respectfully request a withdrawal, and then that way we can go back to drawing board. Your request has been heard. Thank you. Thank you.

I've heard the request.

So we do have a request from the applicant to withdraw this application. Is there anybody else that was signed up? All right, no requests. I mean, nobody else has signed up. Do I close the public hearing and take that vote? Yes, sir. Close that public hearing. Commissioner, do we have a motion to accept the withdrawal?

Yes, I'll make that motion.

And I'll second. Got a motion and a second to accept the applicant's withdrawal. Any further discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Commissioners, are y'all doing okay on breaks or anything?

We want to keep rocking and rolling?

Well, we got eight more or nine more. Let's do one more. Hensley, the Hensley property. How are you doing? What's your name?

Hi, I'm Dana planner.

I met her in the elevator.

Nice to see everyone this morning. Good to see you too. Okay. So we have Z 26, 29, the Hensley property. Their request is to rezone from RSF one to R a. All right. County planning district map. All right. So this is on the far North end of Bishop trace road, north of county road 93. This is planning district 22. They are currently zoned RSF one, and they're requesting to go to our a about 8.3 acres. And I said residential requests, but they're actually requesting this so that they can put farm animals on their property for four H and future farmers of America type programs. images of the subject property and the adjacent properties. Your locator map showing to the north RA, to the south RSF1, east RA and west RSF1. Your flume indicating the property as rural agriculture slash low impact development areas, the mix of that conservation development and a little bit of that ideal CONSERVATION PRESERVATION. ALL RIGHT. THE ANALYSIS. SO THE SUBJECT PROPERTY COVERS ABOUT 8.3 ACRES AND IS CURRENTLY ZONED RSF1. THE REQUEST TO REZONE THE PROPERTY IS TO RA. THE AREA ALONG BISHOP TRACE ROAD IS LARGELY UNDEVELOPED WITH A FEW SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENCES NEARBY. AS FAR AS CONFORMITY WITH THE FLOOM, ONCE AGAIN THE FLOOM IDENTIFIES THE PROPERTY AS IDEAL CONSERVATION some conservation development potential, and some rural ag LID potential. These place types allow for CR, OR, RR, RA, and RSFE. All right. In summary, the request is from RSF one to R a. I found that this is consistent with the factors specified in our zoning ordinance and consistent with the flame and the smart growth scorecard strongly supports the request.

Okay. Any questions for staff?

Okay.

Public hearings open on this case, the 26 last 29, the Hensley property zoning request. Anybody signed up? Okay. Nobody signed up. Anybody here wishing to speak on this?

Okay. I'm Haley Hensley.

I just wanted to say yes, we just want to put some farm animals on the property. We originally wanted to put like a meter at the front because our house is so far back and we were told incorrect information. So that's why we went through this whole process. So we were just wanting to hope to rezone to the rural agriculture.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Mr. Gruber, you had a motion?

Yes, I do. Make a motion that we approve case number Z26-29 handling property rezoning request.

I'll second it.

We've got a motion and two seconds, so that'll be good to approve this request. Any further discussion?

No, it's the easiest one. Hey, do y'all... All in favor, say aye.

Aye. Do y'all draw straws or you just got the... Go put your form animals on there for me. Oh, no.

Next up, Z26-30.

Wait, you said we could go to the bathroom, didn't you? Okay.

All right, so we're going to be in recess for 10 minutes. An order around 1137. We have no administrator, but that does not matter for this case. Go ahead, Dana. Dana.

All right, we have Z2630. This is the Caldwell property, and the rezoning request is from RR to RSF1. All right, the county planning district map. This is on the corner of County Road 33 and Daughtry Lane in Planning District 39. It's currently RR Rural. The request is for RSF1, residential single family. It's about one and a half acres, and the request is to... subdivide the property, subject property, images of the adjacent properties. All right, so to the north you have a mixture of BCZ and RR, to the south you've got BCZ, to the east RR, and to the west RA. all right the flume is showing this as a rural ag low impact development potential area and an ideal conservation preservation area this is just zoomed out a little bit more so that you can see that it's about one and a half miles from that neighborhood center node all right so the subject property is about one and a half acres currently zoned as rr which is rural request is for rsf1 residential single family and a bit of an explanation as far as THE FLOOM IS SHOWING IT AS A COMBO OF RURAL AG LOW IMPACT DEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL AREA AND IDEAL CONSERVATION PRESERVATION AREA. THIS ALLOWS FOR RR, RA, RSFE. ALL RIGHT. SO ONCE AGAIN Z2630 REQUEST IS FROM RR TO RSF1. It is somewhat consistent with the factors in the zoning map amendment and it is inconsistent with the flume and it somewhat supports the request.

Thank you. Any questions for that?

I do have a question. I was trying to, I see you've zoomed it out a little bit on this locator map that's on the screen versus the one that was in our packet. Yes. I don't see any residential zoning classifications anywhere near this. I know we see this beloved BCZ, but that's why I needed to see a bigger picture there, so thank you.

Okay. Public hearing's open for this case, Z26-30. Anybody signed up? Okay. Okay.

My name is Seth Moore with Moore Surveying here for the applicant asking to get this rezoned. There is across the street half acre lots or smaller if you look just kind of to the north in there. There are other parcels around the corner to the...

It's not the size of the lot. There's lots of non-conforming lots that are zoned a particular classification it's just i was trying to see if there was any type of a a residential rsf one two three four five six you know that's what that was the question okay i'm very aware of non-concern because this just came into this just came into um zoning a few years ago yes ma'am thank you thank you so are you speaking on behalf of the app yes well how many acres is this

It's almost 1.3. They're wanting to divide it into two 34,000-square-foot lots and would be more than a – in an R1, you've got to have 30,000 square feet. So they're going to be a little above that in that zoning. City water is there. Of course, the power is there. They do have Daughtry Road, which we've talked about. Instead of trying to access 33 on both those lots, to access Daughtry Road so that you don't have any more turnouts on those properties.

Since you're speaking on behalf of your applicant, I mean, we don't have to know this, but, I mean, Matt has alluded to it and several other, Commissioner McKenzie and several other cases. What is the intentions?

To build two houses.

Just keep residential. They're keeping it within the family or they're selling it. Well, one of them, they're going to keep in the family.

The other one, they're planning on building a house and selling it.

Okay. Okay.

And so the reason you can't do a family subdivision, it's a subdivision because you're splitting it in half. It is like a 400 home.

It's not a track home development. I mean, it is a split. And since you're got, don't have enough to do two, one, two acre lot, you can't do the family. Is that right?

They can't do a family division because it's already in an existing subdivision.

And I don't think it's big enough to do one anyways, even if you didn't already in an existing one. Okay, I'm good. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Anybody here to speak against this?

All right.

Close the public hearing. Commissioners, make a motion that we approve.

Okay.

I have a discussion on this first. Okay. I just feel like that in this area that once you bring in one of the residential single family uses is definitely gonna potentially create a domino effect. So that was my concern when I was looking for the surrounding areas. I'm not a big fan of BCZ, but it exists in this area, so thanks.

Well, I'll further the discussion on this. know this is not going to be a huge subdivision so this is splitting a lot in half so these family owners owners of this land can do what they need to do to have a piece and sell a piece so um is there a second on commissioner mckenzie's motion i'll second that we've got a motion in a second um all those in favor say aye aye So there's four eyes?

Four eyes. I don't like it that much.

All right, so we got that one. Now we're on case Z26-31, the Clifford property.

Oh, okay.

Sorry. You just override me. You just keep going. Okay.

Excuse me. I'm in la-la land right now. He says that right now, but there's other times. Oh, wait. No, I don't say that.

All right, Dana, let's go. You're doing good on your first presentations.

Okay. Z2631, this is the Clifford property. The rezoning request is from RA to RSFE. Got your district map. All right, this is on County Road 62, east of the Ballam Beach Express. This is in Planning District 12. It's currently RA, which is Rural Agricultural. The request is RSFE, which is Residential Single Family Estate. It's about 4.67 acres, and the rezoning is requested for residential use. Got the subject property and the adjacent properties. All right, your locator map showing RA everywhere. The flume indicates this is a combo of rural agriculture low impact development and conservation development. Once again, the subject property is about 4.67 acres, currently zoned as RA with a request for RSFE to subdivide the lot. The flume is showing that combo of rural ag LID and conservation development area. This allows for CR, OR, RR, RA, and RSFE. All right, and the request is found to be consistent with the zoning ordinance and consistent with the flume, and the SmartGrowth scorecard strongly supports the request.

All right, any questions for Daniel? No questions? Open the public hearing on case Z26-31, Clifford property. Anybody sign up to speak?

Good morning, Commissioners. I'm here to ask you to maintain the rural agricultural zoning on this property. This property was sold in 2024. It was around 20 acres at that time. It's already been subdivided. All of the lots are above three acres. This particular lot, too, was purchased in April this year. And why on earth someone would want to buy a piece of property and then come to you and ask to have it subdivided is beyond me. I'm a neighbor, we are fighting for our rural agricultural lifestyle in Rossington. There is a 900 person petition circling in Rossington to try to maintain as much rural agriculture as we can. This is a needless request and I respectfully ask you to maintain rural agriculture.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else? Yes, sir.

So right now that piece of property is a permitted for two houses. So my parents are 80 and they're going to move out there as well in the second house. So the idea is that I can put their house on their piece of property. That's it. Nothing else is going to change. It's going to have two houses out there anyways. Uh, there'll be a shared driveway. So infrastructure wise, nothing. is different it's just that house will be on this piece of property mine will be on mine and then when you know they want to life goes on they move on or need to go to nursing home i can sell that or they can sell it be done but regardless two houses are permitted for that piece of property you're roger you're roger yes sir okay we appreciate it thank you thank you sir thank you

Anybody else? All right. Close the public hearing commission.

I was going to add one thing. Sorry to interrupt. Uh, I wanted to say that they can't do a family subdivision or it's already been decided about. Yes. So I just wanted to make that clear.

Appreciate you bringing that up, but thank you. Don't take me seriously.

All right. So we got, um,

Ready for a motion on this motion that we approve it or is it discussion or are you making a motion? I wanted to discuss it. We'll discuss it after I made the motion.

Okay. You made your motion. I'll second the motion, but I'd like to discuss your discussion. Well, it's up to the chairman.

Any further discussion?

I would just like to say that in this area in Rossington, I am, I do applaud the desire to stay agriculture. But an RSFE doesn't steer far from an agricultural, there's things you can actually have in RA, like a dog kennel that you can't have in an RSFE. And I can assure you that in this very area, I can't tell you how many complaints I've got because there's dog kennel, not very far from there. If I'm thinking of the right area, am I thinking of the right area? Is that where the big, pretty poodle dogs live and get sold? I mean, it's been arduous. So, um, RCFE is more of a rule setting. It's not, I would, I've mentioned many, many times about non-conforming lots that exist in the RA. where you've got one acre lots, you've got things, and so an RSFE is a minimum of 80,000 square feet, and based on the square footage of an acre, which is 43,560 square feet, if this is the four point whatever acres, that's over 200,000 square feet, and you would have, there's no way you can get three lots out of that, even if you tried. So the two lots subdivision I don't feel is an unreasonable request, with the RSF estate size lot designation just because of the, I don't think that our system's perfect, but I didn't create it, and even if I had it would be imperfect, not trying to say that it is or was or couldn't be, but I think that the balance of trying to figure out how to keep this rule setting as well, it's a challenge enough with it being a long, skinny lot, Other than that, I just want to make those comments.

Thank you. We have a motion and a second to approve. We finished our discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes. All right, so we're on case Z26-32. Nelson proper.

All right, C2632, Nelson property. The request is a rezoning from RA to RSF1. You've got your district map here. This is on Feeley Road south of Highway 98 in Planning District 32. Once again, it's currently zoned RA, rural agricultural. The request is for RSF1, residential single family. The property is about 3.05 acres. The request is for residential use to subdivide the property. Here we have a subject property. Images of the adjacent properties. So we've got RA. Looks like I did not update this to show RSFE to the west, so I do apologize. I don't know how I missed that. But you've got RA to the north, east, south, and RSFE to the west. The flume is showing the entire lot as moderate development potential, and it is close to Alberta town limits. It's also near two neighborhood center nodes. So zoomed out a little bit more to show you some of the surrounding flume area. The subject property covers about 3.05 acres and is currently zoned as RA, rural agricultural. The request is for RSF1, residential single family to subdivide the property. All right, the flume shows a combo of Oh, not a combo, excuse me. The flume shows it has moderate development potential, which allows for RSF1 and RSF2. It's also within a mile of two neighborhood center nodes. In summary, the request is from RA to RSF1. It's consistent with the county zoning ordinance and consistent with the flume, and the scorecard strongly supports the request.

All right. Any questions for Dana? Public hearings now open on KC 26 slash 32. Has anybody signed up to speak? All right. Ms. Nelson.

Hello. Hello. I'm the property owner and I just figured it would be real simple to explain what we're doing. We have three acres. It was owned by our parents. My mother passed away in January. I inherited it. We're subdividing the property and my brother is taking half and I'm taking half. We'll both be living on that property.

Okay. Thank you so much for your explanation.

Was there not an ability to do a state division on that?

I don't think it's big enough.

So it is.

It is three acres and they do have to rezone in order to subdivide to meet the minimum lot size requirements.

Yeah. But on a, on a family estate, is there not a, an exemption for that? Shouldn't this be an exempt subdivision?

Is this an existing, is this an, an existing subdivision, Dana? I believe so. Yes. Okay. Well, they wouldn't be able, if it's in an existing subdivision, they wouldn't be able to do a family division and get the RSFE lot size for a family division.

Okay, not even on a, because that's really what family subdivisions were really created for was these kind of purposes. I was just checking to make sure. Okay. Because I really hate to change a zoning classification when there's, you know.

If they already have the right to do it.

They already got the right to do it, but also. The, this was, um, how many acres? I'm sorry.

How do we find out if it was already a subdivision?

It's plaid. It has to be plaid. And I, I mean, that's not something real quick I can do. You have to look at the GI, you have to look at the maps and all that kind of stuff. So if we've got, um, it's okay. All right. Um, so I I'm just, if you've got three acres here. And you're going from rural agriculture to RSF1. There's RSFE right beside it. I would have preferred to have seen an RSFE. Was there a reason why RSF1? That's the hang up I've got right now. I'm sorry to put you on the spot, Dana. I know it's your first day and this ain't going to be the last time you're going to get these kind of questions.

No, that's okay. So the minimum lot size for RSF 1 is 30,000 square feet, so that's the minimum zoning jump they could make to meet the minimum lot size requirements.

It could have went to 80,000. There's three acres there. Three acres times, right? No, that's 130. I'm sorry. My math, my brain, I'm tired. Sorry. It's been a long time since I had that food at 5 o'clock. So we're... Never mind, forget it.

So this is... I think I've closed the public hearing, did I? It's closed. So we heard from the applicant. We've heard from our staff, commissioners.

I'll make a motion we approve this application. Awesome.

The motion is second to approve. All in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you all. All right. Frago property, case Z26-33.

Commissioners, we've been notified that the applicant wishes to withdraw this application. Okay.

Hill, you sat here all day, didn't you? Hang on. She sure does.

Hang on just a second, guys. Can y'all please remain?

Need to have a little order in the room while we conduct business. We still got to go through the process. Selena, present the case.

If it's a withdrawal, you still got to present the case?

It's up to you. I mean, I can still present it. If it's a withdrawal.

Okay, so commissioners, we've heard that.

I'll make a motion that we accept the withdrawal request. I'll second it.

Cut a motion in a second to withdraw. I don't see us voting against this. So all in favor say aye. Aye. All right. The case has been withdrawn. Kicking that can. It's going to come back up in October, so we're not getting out of it yet. All right. Z2634, Five Rivers Capital LLC.

All right, this is the last rezoning request. They're requesting to go from single family to B2, which is a neighborhood business district. The property is located in Planning District 22, north of US Highway 98 and south of Barclay Avenue. It is currently zoned RSF2, single family, and they have requested B2, neighborhood business district. The total acreage is 1.19 acres. Here you can see where it's located in the county, close to Lillian. All right. To the north, adjacent to the subject property is RSFE. To the south is B2. And then to the west and east is RSF1. Here's the adjoining properties. All right, so the subject property consists of 1.19 acres. It's zoned single family. The applicant is asking for B2 neighborhood business district. They also own the parcels south, which they would like to do a business, join the parcels and do a business on them. The flume shows this area as a conservative development area. Also, it's near a... neighborhood node neighborhood center which allows for b2 neighborhood business districts so staff determined that the there was consistence with the factors in the zoning ordinance it's somewhat consistent with the flume and it is evaluated with a smart growth card which shows it strongly supports the request And we did receive, um, two letters from citizens saying they were opposed to this rezoning. Okay.

Thank you, Selena. Any questions for Selena?

Okay.

Public hearing open on this case. Um, is there anybody signed up to speak? Okay. Okay, who are you? Okay, so, yeah, come on up. We'll let the, is this like a for and against type? We'd strongly support it. Strongly support it, okay.

Yeah, so we're an adjacent property owner. We also own the property that we're selling to the local business. They're trying to put a car wash there. Know when you look at it on the front end. It looks like it's surrounded by some residential stuff We've been trying to maintain this property and it is it's we run people off of it every single week We had to we know we it's it's on the top of the hill as you're in Lillian going down front highway 98 The front parcel the front portion of this property is actually zoned b2 because it's right on 98 this is just an additional little piece of parcel that is behind that property and And in order for them to put their car wash there, they would like to rezone it to incorporate all of it. The small back piece of property is not usable for R1 or for any sort of residential use whatsoever, especially if there's going to be a car wash right in front of it. So that's it, that's all I wanted to share.

Thank you so much.

And we also own the property across the street, so we are strongly supporting this, hoping that we get more services in the Lillian area, which is dramatically needed, so that we can then choose to do something with the parcel across the street. That's right. Thank you.

All right, so anybody, let's go this route. Has anybody signed up to speak against this rezoning? Everybody else is for it? Does the rest of the four people want to speak on it, or I mean, we get the gist of it. I mean, this is definitely a piece of property that just needs the tail end of it matching the front end of it.

Got the highest scorecard.

It's got the highest scorecard of all our cases today. So if y'all feel comfortable not talking to us, David, just let us know. All right, y'all good? All right. Well, you already talked. I'm sorry. All right. Public hearing's closed.

I'll make a motion we approve this request.

Got a motion and a second to approve the request. All in favor hereby say aye. Aye.

That's four to zero. All right.

Whew.

All right. I would say we've made good time. I told Commissioner McKenzie I want to get out by at least 12, 12.05. I'm Close to it. Anything else? For the greater good, we've got to go through our charts. We've got press. Any press? No. What else I got to say? I hope those are short. Commissioner, comments. You go first, Matt.

Yeah, I just want to say thank you, staff. Thank you to the Plankton Zoning Department for all these cases. And I just want the citizens to realize that the four of us are still the body for right now. We are still in charge until the new commission takes over, and I'm very proud of the ones that got elected, so I look forward to turning it over to the new ones. But the four of us are still the body, and we're going to still make decisions, so thank you.

I hadn't quit working. That's right. All right, who's next? Mr. Groover, how about you? Comments?

I want to thank the staff for getting us where we're at today. We had quite a bit of an agenda here. And also, I just want to thank the budget staff for adopting a $276,661,927 budget. which is a pretty good-sized budget. It's gonna be put to good use, and I wanna thank everybody who had anything to do with the budget. It was a different time this time, but it all goes back to, we started it last year when we were going over the budget, and we're just continuing it on.

make it better so it's about to match the it's about to match the population about a million dollars in person yep yep so it's getting we're getting we're getting close so anyway thank you all very much right um thank you everybody ditto what everyone else has already said but i we didn't get our commissioner requests earlier and i might request that we either take that clock down or get a different one because i've been sitting up here for three hours looking at the wrong time

And it don't show you nothing. I can't see it because of the glare.

Well, you sit over there behind that pole probably. You got a phone?

Use the phone.

I do use my phone, but I'm a noticer, and that's just been wrong for too long, and it just needs to come down off the wall.

You know what they say about having clocks in buildings? Everybody's always checking the time. That's why you don't put them in churches and stuff.

Yeah, we do. You put it right there where the preacher can know what time it is. We got one in ours.

Is that all you got?

We do have one.

Well, that was a request. I didn't know if you had a comment. That was my request. Okay.

I said thank you to everybody. You too. Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, I'm going to make it short. Everybody's already said all their thanks, and I've done go unrecognized, and I have shared my blessings and thanks with this staff today and how gracious I am to be able to be a part of this organization and have a – employees like we have uh you know it's tough it's tough to do this job that we do up here and i appreciate uh the employees that hardly ever get recognized which is the four of us that sit up here so thank you matt billy joe and skip uh for all that you do because it's our jobs are not easy and i think the public does not realize that but that's fine um you know Taking the cussing outs on the Saturdays and Sundays and all this kind of stuff is what we got signed up to do. So I just wanted to thank y'all because we never do it for each other. And nobody else really ever does it for us. So we appreciate what y'all do. Meeting's over with.