County Commission - Regular Meeting

I want to call to order the County Commission meeting for July 20th. Madam Clerk, would you call the roll, please?

Yes, sir. Mr. Simpkins?

Here.

Mr. Nager? Here. Mr. McElwain? Here. Mr. Beatty? Here. Mr. Dawson? Here. Ms. Spicer? Here. Mr. Buckner? Here. Mr. Britt? Here. Mr. Petty? Here. Mr. Williams? Here. Mr. Grove? Ms. Gray?

All right. Commissioner Buckner, would you lead us in prayer?

Father, we come to thee this afternoon thanking thee, Father, for all the blessings that you give us here in this county. We pray, Father, that the things we do and say here tonight will be in accordance with thy will and be for the betterment of this county. It's a blessing to ask in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Everyone stand for the pledge.

and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The first order of business is the approval of the minutes of the June 2022 meeting. I open the floor for a motion. A motion by Commissioner Petty, seconded by Commissioner Buckner. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor vote with steady in aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Item number two, public comments. Do we have anyone signed for public comments? With the record, sure there was not. Next item is committee reports. Any committees to report? Commissioner Gray.

I received the Humane Society report this afternoon, but I could not read it very well, and I know we've had problems before with some of the attachments, so I'm going to have them resend it, and I'll send it out as soon as I get that.

Thank you. Any other committees to report? Hearing none, next order of business appointments. The first is Airport Authority. We brought forward the name two weeks, or no, actually it was a month ago, of Ms. Cindy Gray. Open the floor for a motion. Motion by Commissioner Graham, second by Commissioner Britt. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor vote by stating aye. Opposed? Thank you. Item number two, Sanitation Board. We brought forward the name Mr. Ray Ledger. Open the floor for a motion. Motion by Commissioner Gray, second by Commissioner McElwain. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor of abstaining, aye. Opposed, thank you. Item number three, regional solid waste board. This board never meets what we're required to have one, so thankful Mr. Kyle Ruff, Mr. Gerald James, Commissioner Cotton-Dawson, who have been serving on that for six years, and we'd like to give them another six-year term. Open the floor for a motion. Motion by Commissioner Spicer, seconded by Commissioner Ledger. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor of abstaining, aye. opposed thank you item number four industrial development board these are all reappointments mr donald richard mr don don l wash jr mr allen reagan and mr mike easley open floor for a motion motion by commissioner buckner second by commissioner williams any questions or discussion hearing none all in favor of up stating aye opposed thank you Next item, resolutions, moratorium to review zoning on data centers. A resolution establishing a temporary moratorium on the submittal consideration or approval of data centers. This is what we talked about a month ago in our work session that we need an opportunity for our planning, planning and zoning, our attorneys and consult with the state to give us a moratorium for six months where we entertain doing a rezoning. Any questions or discussion? couple for promotion bush my commission williams second by commissioner ledger any other questions discussion hearing none all the favor of the study uh... opposed thank you number two uh... speed limit on all county house road of commissioner simpkins brought this forward sure features here present yes sir uh... it says on the agenda partial for oak county house because thought we're going to have to do two separate surveys but uh...

Long story short, there's a company that can do that. So I let them demo a few roads for me. All right. For free. So anyway, so what's come up, county house roads, about two and a half miles long. Some of you don't know, there's still a lot of construction going on. I think there's six or eight houses right now in a row. Total number of vehicles was 2,674, and that is during a seven-day period. Of those with the posted speed limit, there were about 417 speeders. Looking at the 85th percentile, which was 38 miles an hour, I could recommend a 35 mile an hour.

Is that your motion or Commissioner Simpkins? Second. I look for a second. Second by Commissioner McElwain. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor vote by stating aye. Opposed, thank you. Item number three, speed limit for Slayton Wood Road, brought by Commissioner McElwain.

We conducted a seven day study on Slayton Wood. There is some construction in the general area. The speeds were actually fairly slow. There was 1,672 vehicles on Slatenwood, which surprised me. That's a pretty high number, about twice to what I thought it would read. At any rate, the 85th percentile was 24 and 28, so I could recommend a 35 mile an hour for it.

Commissioner McElwain, is that your motion? I have a second. Second by Commissioner Beatty. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor of abstaining, aye. Opposed? Thank you. Item number four, speed limit for White Road. This is brought by Commissioner Spicer.

Okay, we conducted a seven-day snapshot. White Road is about 2.4 miles long. That area out there in Abiff community is growing quite a bit. It showed the 85th there at about 43 miles per hour, but in the comprehensive study dug down under traffic volume and safety concerns, there's about 230 to 370 vehicles daily on White Road, which is, again, shocked me as to how high. The collision index they put was peaking at 0.54, which raises concerns, particularly in segments where the roads are notably lower. So I would, even though the 85th percentile with that and the community growing out there with this collision index at 0.54, I'd recommend 35 for White Road as well.

Commissioner Spicer, is that your motion? Open the floor for a second. Second by Commissioner Buckner. Any question or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor of abstaining, aye. Opposed, thank you. Thank you, Sheriff. Next time, other business, I have listed school discussion continued. Just really opening that up to whatever thoughts y'all may have. I worked on some financial issues on this. I think y'all had asked me initially to commit that 25 million, which we did that, and then when we had the last visit a month ago, it was to look at moving this to 30 million. I've worked on the numbers. I haven't found a comfort level with that at this point. There's still some things I need to work through. I can see where we can do $27.5 million, and I'd be in a position to recommend that, but I'd like to do a little more work on it before I bring it back to y'all. And again, we have a meeting in two weeks, but I want to get that to you probably by the end of this week so we can discuss individually what your thoughts are before we come back as a group because i know time is the essence on what they're trying to get done and what y'all are trying to accomplish too so but i'm open for any discussion or questions and we have uh dr sutherland here and a whole bunch of other important people in the back that are involved with schools so if you have any questions like to hear from them on any issue uh just let me know we'll bring them up to the podium Your silence means no, so I'd like to know.

How you feel about meeting halfway at 27 half million?

Just come on up front. He will hear wants to speak. It appears they don't want to negotiate in public. So we're the car lot. They may be going to check with their finance manager.

I never shy from answering the question, but I just want to make sure that it was asked of me. And this would be my opinion. Obviously, the board work has done their work and has been presented on multiple occasions, and there are several avenues to look at that. But I think we're talking about a 10% difference, but we were talking about that six months ago when it was – you know, 32, 34 million. We were talking about that figure 10 years ago when we were asked to plan ahead for the future. This is not a one and done project. This is where we're at, what we thought was most important work. Anything short of what we requested is obviously going to take some cuts to do. As I mentioned a few weeks ago up here, that we're probably going to spend more than $30 million on that project, but we feel like we could absorb some of the other costs on it. When we start cutting $2.5 million off, then we start cutting off what we can absorb, which comes from our reserve fund, which really isn't a reserve fund. It's where we're not allowed to budget our revenues every year that don't go into that work, and that builds up over time. So that can be approached in a lot of different ways, but it's easy to say any cut is going to hurt, but it's also... He just said we've had those cuts for the last year in the discussions. Ultimately, we'll take whatever is given of us, and we'll do the best we can with it, and we'll continue to provide what we can for our kids in that process. So I hope that helps some.

Any other questions? Mr. Haley?

What does it make me do at 27.5?

well just from discussions that have been brought to me individually from commissioners and some of the things y'all said out loud there's concerns about what it does to our borrowing situation moving forward uh back in the i think it was first week of march uh i did that uh debit uh debt uh analysis showing you what our capacities are which uh we're talking about this we're talking about potentially an ag center coming up uh and we're in good shape but again there's still a lot of latitude on debt service but once you borrow it there's no going back even if you have latitude so if there's other issues that come up we can take on several other issues from the dollar amounts and i can represent those to you via email and again in two weeks but Mean, I guess I'll just put it from frankly. I think the division here is is How much of the county general fund barn do we use versus how much fund balance school uses? because if again You know At school, I think we have a varied idea on what school fund balance needs to be. I think it needs to be in the 10% range or maybe less than $10 million on a $93 million, $94 million budget. I know the school board disagrees with that. I've had conversations with them. But if we're going to do this project, we're going to squeeze it somewhere out of our capacity to borrow or out of their funds and in their fund balance. So that's Kind of the deal where I'm trying to meet and I'm trying to get that clear in my head. So I'm not prepared to make your recommendation tonight.

The work sessions in two weeks, is that correct? Yes. So probably a good discussion from our side to bring some of those numbers too to share with you individually because I think it's a good discussion for the six board members along with the county commissioners more so than just we're here doing it now for this reason. But I'd love to work on that with you all at the work session. That'd be great.

You're on the agenda. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or discussion? Yes, Commissioner Buckner.

there uh since we've shut that bridge down on east behind me we've got a lot more traffic on morrow road and uh where morrow comes in cowan comes into morrow road there uh there's a high bank and if you're going east on morrow you can't see around that bank if you're turning left on cowan road and uh i brought it up at community center meeting out there a couple weeks ago and the majority of the people felt like we need to make a three-way stop there to uh Make it a little safer. It's been several people come close to getting hit out there already.

So it's a single stop on Cowan Road right now, as I recall, but Murrell's running through traffic.

Yeah, but there's a sharp curve there and there's a high bank. It's five or six feet high and all the utilities and everything is in that bank. so uh it'd probably be a lot cheaper to make it a three-way stop and it would be to well you'd have to get property owners permission to move that bank to start with and then move the utilities too so would it be okay to have mr hodges go out and take a look at that and report back to us we've talked about it and he's uh he's in agreement with me on it and uh you know uh i thought maybe we could bring it up now and put it on the agenda for uh August. You're on the agenda too. We got you.

Okay. Thank you. I'm going to have to write it down. Star Moore watches this tomorrow. So I don't have to take notes anymore. Any other questions, discussion for other business? Yes, Commissioner Simpkins.

Back to the school. So we're going to wait two weeks. You're going to review that? Yes.

And I'd like to get you some numbers. It may be the very end of the week where I can pull some better numbers together and give a recommendation. I've worked about five times. I need to work at six or seven before I get really comfortable with it.

All right.

Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Dawson?

Yes, sir. My understanding they've been before Planning Commission and BZA fortunately have mr. Andrew Mills here tonight. He might be able to report on that for us Their application

the process you know as we talked about last time we went through the rezoning it was all about coming into compliance with your regulations right so you rezone the property they spent the time doing a traffic study and a site plan that made its way before the bza and the planning commission it went to the bza because one of the buildings that was already built was in the setback the bca unanimously denied the variance request on that the site plan went forward two days later to the planning commission uh... that site plan was approved with the area where the building was in the setback was grayed out and they were told they have to bring back a plan to address that area with effectively a smaller site plan with that timeline and that's the number of their consultants picked. They wanted 90 days. They have to be out of that building or have that plan together in that time. But one of the buildings was in the setback. The rest of the site plan was in compliance with the regulations. It was approved by the Planning Commission. So there's just that one hanging issue to address and we'll know something in about 80 days.

Well, let me ask you a question. That road, was that not a 25-foot easement before we zoned that commercial?

I don't have the width off the top of my head. I mean, it's a county road. There were a little bit of road improvements right at the highway that they needed to make because of the angle onto Yellow Creek. They're gonna have to do some asphalt for the turn radius of turning onto it, but the rest of it, the traffic study did not find any grounds for doing any improvements.

Well, what I'm asking, I guess, if it was 25-foot-eager and then we zoned it commercial, then it becomes 75-foot-eager. And that's where even the setbacks are on. Is the setback right as far as if it was agriculture?

So if I'm following, the easement width doesn't automatically change with the rezoning. It's all about what is there and what does the county maintain, right? So we don't just get another 10, 20, 30 feet when something's rezoned. The site plan can show certain elements, but from the planners review, engineers, it was 31 feet into the setback.

Well, what I was talking about when it came for us, so we zoned it commercial. We thought it was over with. But we didn't put in it, the setbacks didn't apply. So then it come up, then the setbacks become an issue. Then it went from 25 foot to 75 feet, and then it was out of compliance. And what I don't understand is how do they go to a county official? And I've seen the paper where they had the affidavits and everything that they turned in. And it was okay. I mean, even Rick, the guy that done sick, he signed up on how is that possible? If it wasn't halfway right? I say they did it right. I'm just saying that, that they went through the procedures went down to Donald's office. And he said, Well, of course, didn't need a building permit. We're not really done yet. And now we're going to do to him. I mean, is it? Is that right? Is that? I've seen it, right?

I don't know if I agree with every element of what you just said. Again, it's a process. So when you rezone something, you're not looking at the site plan. That's a later process. You're not looking at the traffic study. These are all layered planning processes that go before this body at the rezoning and then goes down to planning commission and then on to BZA. I don't know what Dave Darnell said in a meeting. I know they put affidavits there, but he was not at the BZA meeting. They heard testimony. They had a unanimous decision.

You know, usually the crime's uncommitted, then somebody finds you in fault, then the county comes and does it. But the county was part of the fault to start with. I mean, how can they do that? And then also, just like what I was saying about the easement and everything, that the setback's wrong because the width of the road changed. And how far did it go down to be 75 foot right of way? I mean, does it go all the way to the bottom of the hill? Does it go out to Yellow Creek Road?

Setback and easement width are not one and the same. They're different things. So they asked for a C1 zoning to come into compliance, and the other element I'll just make sure we're aware of, they were building buildings without building permits. That comes with a risk, and that happened, right? So, and again, all of this was about working with them, and they've been great to work with, bringing it into compliance, and they've been doing that.

So what you're saying is they got, they got nine days to do whatever it did. They got to come back and get to the site for me. Is that right?

Just for the area where the building was in the setback, that building itself, the rest of the, uh, development, the site plan was approved. We can still operate, not doing anything with that. They're done with that part. It's just the front right. If you will, area of the site plan that's at the road where the offending building was. That's the only thing they have to address.

Thank you, Mr. Mills. Any other business? Next on business is the approval of notaries, Madam Clerk.

Renee Bain, Carolyn Day, Misty Hendrick, Nakayla London, Kimberly Newsome, Mackenzie Young, and Shawna Winters.

Thank you. I have a motion by Commissioner Beatty, second by Commissioner Simpkins. All in favor of stating aye? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Announcements? Are there any? Commissioner McIlwain, are there any announcements?

Yeah, July the 29th, I believe it is.

That's what my list says. Thank you, Bob. I've heard their voices today. You don't want to sing them. Well, happy birthday to you if we don't see you before then, so I hope it's a good one. Thank you, everybody. Any other announcements? Hearing none, then final announcement will be the next regular session meeting will be on Monday, August 17th of 2026 at 7 p.m. in the Buford L. Booty Reed Jr. County Commission Chamber of the Dix County.