County Commission Agendas - Regular Meeting

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Yeah, absolutely. working. I'd like to call to order the uh January 12, 2026 Johnson County Commission meeting. Like to say thanks to everybody being here. At this time, I'd like Mr. Please call the role to establish a qu. Commissioner Goalie present. Commissioner Kenner present. Commissioner Bucker. Commissioner Mc.

We do have a quum. uh and at the central all please stand like this across the nation and all our Lord God in heaven we acknowledge you as a creator of all things on heaven and in earth and and the creator of seasons and we know that you are in charge of seasons and we're thankful for that. We're thankful for this season that we're in. We just pray that as u we get into the winter months that we we're expect bad weather that will affect persons and their families and their property. So God, we just pray that you'll continue to watch over us, guide us in everything that you do. Save us in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Attention, salute, pledge. I pledge algiance 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.

The agenda is in your packet. Uh there are three items in our new business that we talked about the last meeting and we do have a item for discussion tonight in Brook session uh with solid waste uh the park and public. With that, do I have a motion to adopt the minutes for the Dece for the January 12th, 2026 meeting and board session? And second, all in favor say I. I.

Motion carries. Thank you. But I don't think we have any awards or presentations tonight. So with that, we'll uh public comments. So we will proceed into the new business. You do have in your packet the amendments for the December the 22nd, 2025 meeting and work session. I'll give you a few and we'll take a motion.

Motion to approve. Okay, we have a motion to adopt the minutes of the W 22nd 2020 meeting and work session. Do I have a second? Second.

We have a second. All in favor say I. motion. Thank you. Also in the uh packet, you have the uh 2026 uh Jackson County holiday schedule. It uh is based off the state holiday schedule that we received about two weeks ago. All dates are are the same. There are a couple of exceptions. one and we do and have for I think probably a decade or two celebrated Good Friday as a holiday here in Jackson County. That was Friday, August the 3. Other than that, this is a reflection of the state of Alabama on 26, 2026 for holiday schedule. Give you a chance to review that. And with that, do I have a motion to approve the uh 2026 holiday schedule?

I make that motion. We have a motion. Have a second. Second. We have a second. All in favor say I.

Motion carries. Last item in the new business for approval tonight is a change order that we discussed in the last meeting for out structural. That reflects several things. It reflects some uh credit that we received for as I mentioned last last time the original design for the foyer of the NS was for its statues that he concreted into the floor. we didn't think that was a very good idea and we asked the contractor to change that to uh stencils that could be moved and so there's a credit of $18,844 that um also there are some items that we did add we did add some sound panels to try and cut down off uh echoing in the area there and some material costs for signage and also So, some drainage work that we're going to have to do on the basement outside entrance to the bathrooms. And so, you see the cost for those. The result of that is an increased cost of $9,91.37. This change order is uh approved by MRH and it is from PMC Construct. Do I have a motion to approve the change order for the courthouse structural repair?

Motion. Have a motion. Have a second. Second. We have a second. All in favor say I. Motion carries. Thank you. Uh with that, that's the last item of our new business portion needed. We will move now for our work session. Um had a couple of items that has come up in terms of particularly the first item. Uh there was a recent uh I guess uh review by the state attorney general on on an item and he is uh well I'll turn it over to Mr. Porter but it his decisions may affect us in some of our work here in the county.

There was an opinion issued by the attorney general in response to a request by the Randolph County and Road Utilities Board. It had to do with landlords being responsible for their tenants utility bills uh that remained unpaid. And bottom line is that the attorney general issued an opinion said that the utility board could not require the land owners um to be responsible for their tenants utility bill. That applies. similar to the uh the action that that the commission took some time ago regarding garbage bills. It's not exactly the same because the city of Rowan Oak obviously is not the same as Jackson County and the providing utility services is not exactly the same as providing garbage services, but it's substantially similar. And I'm afraid that if somebody were to challenge it, it would be the same same result. Just the opinion of the attorney general's office was uh that the the governmental entity could not require the land owner to be responsible tenants bills. And so that's sort of where we are. It was my recommendation that we not enforce that in

but but it's not 100%. It is but it is substantially similar regarding the authority of the government. So let me open up for questions and comment. I think it's very similar. Then we probably just need to quit enforioning that go with the advice of our attorney. Great.

Okay. Now, we did uh I think a motion approved the action that we're taking now to require land owners pay for their tenants unpaid bills. But we would have to and then a mo subsequent motion uh reverse that motion. Okay.

And we wait until the next meeting will help us with an appropriate motion to what the attorney general. Thank you very much. Any others comment on that? If not, the next item is living on the dock. We've had this discussion for a while. Um in your packet uh Mr. Porter has made a recommendation on a motion for us to consider. Um and uh give you a chance to read that and then let's open for discussion. So, let me ask u Mr. Parish, our director of the parks, u how many folks do we have right now that are living on the top?

We we now only have one couple that lives on one boat. Okay. Um when we say live, you mean permanently. Permanently, which has been allowed according to our rules in the past. It has not been forbidden in fact. Okay. How many do swips do we have? Oh, I don't know that exact number, but roughly 40 I mean to live on. Oh, uh, ADOC has 16. 16. Okay. Uh, so let me open for questions and discussion.

That is that a TVA law that says they can't. It's not. No. T unfortunately the TVA regulations only provide to the campground. They don't allow living in the campground. It doesn't extend to the dock because it's the dock is actually on TVA lake. I think it's TVA only. We just have the right to use that. We have a permit from TVA to have our dock there in our marina. And so we pursue it to that that permit, but it does not in and of itself prevent that.

City of Scotsboro, Goosebond Marina, what do they do? They allow people to move on. They allow them. I asked that question of the mayor the other day to just check allow. I I on search. I I think with it being, you know, such a liability to the county and and the state of the previous disaster, it's we we definitely don't need to let people reside without other permanent residents. Beneficial the county did not allow that. Yeah. I think our dock is is I don't think I know is principally a wooden dock.

Yes. and the dock at Greenspun I think are newer docks and they're all better. Okay.

Uh I will comment that over the past couple of years we've had some incidences on the dock with this disagreements between uh folks who've lived on the dock and some who've lived and some who didn't. Uh, and I know Doug has had to deal with that several times. We have a current issue that on the dock that is before the court. Um, and we're waiting for the court date that settle that. Um, some questions about the motion. The motion here allows a grandfathering of up to 60 days I think is what it says for individuals that are living there now. Correct. Is that is that a fair 60 days there? So let me ask that question of commissioners. What do you think of that? allow someone to make a decision and and make the move to get off the dock.

I mean, if that's if that's their permanent residence, it might it might take longer than 60 days. Um, but remember that current regulations require them to have a quote permanent address off the dock. They have to have a permanent resident, a permanent address somewhere else. Some of them have gotten around that by using an address that's not their home, but they have I wouldn't be opposed to give 90 days. I would I would agree 90 days is I think fair.

Do do we know this one couple that's staying there? Do we know they have an other address or not? They they furnish us a primary residential address away from away from it's up on the mountain but they can still come and stay there weekends all they just can't make it their permanent residence. Yes.

Yeah. We did have that discussion remember of what would be an appropriate number of days to allow folks to to stay on the in motion six days. Now, yeah, in in the motion that I drafted for you to consider, it says six days during any 30-day period. It's a rolling 30 days. Now, you may not agree with that. That's fine. I I just tried to figure out what's better than be three weekends a month during the during the summer or three, you know, six days during the summer. Y'all decide that he may decide it should be more or less. You know, I think got all fairness to them. Those essentially what we're trying to do is prevent people from living there full-time perfectly. So I I think out of fairness 14 or 15 days out of the month that would be kind of

I would say they're concerned with it. My view is if you start doing that, they they're getting close to living on the dock and my concern is they're But if but but if it's six days in a 30-day period, let's say they're taking a summer vacation, they stay there week and day summer, they'd be going six out of the 30. Would you consider eight? We're negotiating. Give them two nights, four weekends a month. Yeah,

maybe talk about the number of consecutive days they can stay on. I think that gets into all you got to do is break it with one day and you're back on the dock. Uh, I think the idea is how many days do we do we warm do we warm? I do recognize that you you can have weekends and you can have the holiday period in there and during the summer you take well but if you went with eight days then that would give you a full week during the summer. You can spend a week vacation there or you can do it every every weekend for the summer.

Whatever you all decide. Have you had any of the other boat owners question the period of days? What as far as in other words restricting is there a number of days right now? No, you're right. I just wonder if the couple were asking questions. If we went with the six or eight, do you feel like the the other renters that are renting the other 15 slips or so? Will that be an issue for them?

No. About 10. I'm okay with that because if you have a holiday, if you're staying every weekend, you have a holiday, three day holiday in there and some much we have two weekends that are home. So, I don't have a problem. I just don't want to get it so so close to that really sort of just I'm okay. I'm okay with and and we can we can tell we can monitor just from visually, you know, seeing them every day. We can tell from the power bill. We can tell if somebody's living on it.

Okay. And we asked this one also in the next. Okay. Um, go ahead. Devil's ad. Um, do we need something in here that defines because what if I make it an Airbnb situation where nobody stays more than 8 to 10 days, but it's rented 30 days out of the month or or do we care? No, it says the renter or their guest. So, it applies to who whoever. So, so really it's about people on a boat

that I just before before something slips through. Understand? Remind me again. How often do you require them to own to show that their their boats have moved? We we require them to do an annual inspection with the availability at any time for us to check it and they would have to demonstrate that it is available under power per our request. Okay. is a perfect policy.

It's already perfect. Okay.

Uh I'm going to another part of this that I'm going to throw out for us to consider. I believe we ought to review every agreement and every little document we have regarding both the campground and the marina. And we are to update those to make sure that there's no slip through. One of the issues we're in dealing with now is a is a slip len that has two boats in and by the definition we have right now it's pretty hard to uh two large boats in a slip and way in my mind the way that agreement leads he is prohibited now he is allowed to have another vessel I can I can I can define the vessel anything. I make a I make a little humor out of it. You could pull the Queen Mary in there. It's a vessel. But my point is um he has taken advantage of that and he's putting another full-size boat in. We need to define what we really want. I think the intent was seeds and those kind of things in there. And if it is a little a little more definitive, I think we're going to look at other aspects of the agreements, I think. And those would have to come before the commission. I'm trying to be good.

Can we move this motion to the We can move this motion to the next meeting and then later on approve the other documents. And how would we make sure you can't you can't approve this as a standalone policy or part of a room because the marina has set rules and you can just amend that set of rules to add this provision and then we'll go back and review all of the provisions of the rental agreement and the the rules regulations and then include this in it and redo the whole thing. Okay. Sure.

Okay. So I okay with that? We'll bring this motion before the new business meeting. Okay. All right. Uh with that, we'll move to the next item in the work session, and that is our county uh rebuild Alabama annual report. We do this every year. I think we have to post it uh publicly. So many.

Thank you, chairman. Commissioners, it's it's small and I'm sorry for that, but we try to get it all on their their form in one page. So, we are required to present to you annually um as part of the Rebuild Alabama Act that passed in 2019, the county rebuild Alabama annual report. So, this should reflect directly the county transportation plan from the same year and it's an essential report on the projects that were approved by you all to be performed and their uh status in that performance. there is a column for percent complete and you'll see the monetary values that um go along with that completed work and it's an account of the county rebuild Alabama funds as well as the federal exchange fund. So I will I will just highlight that there's only one project that is not 100% complete and that's county 42. So that is the federal lady exchange funding all approved and the remaining items of work are markings and legends and striping and pavement marker. So once that work is completed that status will

comment and we can approve this the last. Yes sir. And um the chairman is correct. Once once approved um we are to make it available for public inspection and post county website questions comment. Thank you all. Can I get you give a little update since you're here 93 had a chance to go through there. Could you give an update?

Okay. So um just recently the stabilization work contract work is completed. Um the road reconstruction and the failure area is completed. So now it'll be the county that orchestrates the next the next phase of it. So there's quite a bit of remaining work to do before we get to paving guard rail. Those will be two remaining up with their ditch work. There's some pots that need to be replaced. Uh we'll rework the unpaved sections before paving and then paving and guard rail. And I know this man down where that logging road is.

There will be some sections that were required by failure repair. Yes, sir.

Okay. One other question I've got is we enter this year. We uh do we need to have a special work session to discuss this year's build program? I know we got safe streets and roads that that you're working on. We do have some money for how do we want to allocate those funds for roads with the strip paving other projects. I can tell you what we're thinking um from the last roads meeting we had and the direction we came away from that was uh at least what I recall correction if I'm on about you know a 10 mile size program. So our plan was to go back to our road evaluations, revisit our list. We had some pretty healthy list and we only picked, you know, a road or two from those. Revisit those, give them another once over and then present to you for your consideration as far as recommendations. As usual, we'll have way more than we can afford on there, but our our priority suggestions and then present that list for your consideration and then you know wherever wherever we are from a monetary standpoint, we can make selection if that sounds okay.

Okay. So, my ask is would it be good for us to set down special roads work session? Why don't you lay that out and have a longer discussion than we usually have? We're we're happy to help. Anyway, you you let me ask I'd be fine. Yeah, that's Yeah, I'm telling we're talking like late January, February. Yeah, special work when he has the data together. We'll set a date for it and then announce it. So, and uh I thought of having it at public works. The data is there. Is that there? Yes. Same as we did last year.

Okay. All right. That's the last item in our work session. Uh we will put this on the the rebuild as part of the meeting. So that's the last item in our work session. We will go into an executive session for discussing the tending negotiation and good naming captive. Uh but before that uh reports from our staff, county administrator, uh nothing. County attorney. Nothing else. Thank you, sir. Uh county engineer, you have anything else?

Thank you. Let me ask anything. Yeah. Honor say y'all know we opened up X this week. All the technology worked great. Just going to say appreciate y'all approving that technology. It mesh well with ours. We didn't have any problem with the county side of it. State had their own issues, but ours are good. So, thank you all for sharing. No, sir. Thank you. All right. So, thanks to everyone and that we'll move to comments from the commission. Commissioner Bo.

Uh, yes. I just want to thank everybody for a wonderful holiday season. Uh yeah, we got some wonderful season uh change coming coming as uh as Porter alluded to in his prayer and yeah, hopefully can avoid any of the white stuff on the roads. I don't mind it in the yards or hanging on the trees and so uh but we don't we don't want any any longer snow and we certainly don't want guys. So everybody stay weather aare and be safe. District two of Mr. Again, thank all you county workers for what you do. Your job's never easy. I know. We appreciate you. District one. Commissioner Bill,

I appreciate all the all the uh county employees for the work they do and uh hope everyone had a happy new year and looking forward to a good year this year. District 4. Thank you. whatnot. About um hard work the county employees have put in and like also say thank you for all those that put in the extra work moving moving over to the annex. I know there's a lot of extra work that went in the moon. I know it wasn't easy but u I'm looking forward to seeing that that continue and the way it's going.

Let me also say thanks to everybody uh that works for our county. They show up every day and go to work to test the people of Jackson County. And I'm going to say particularly emphasize that a little getting ready to open up the county index. We had folks who worked during the Christmas holidays and through the New Year's holidays. They didn't have to do that, but they were there making sure that their workstations were ready, their equipment was ready, and that we were ready to have a successful opening on the 5th of January. and we had a very successful opening. It may have been one of the largest days of folks who were coming in to pay their taxes and get their driver's license and get their tags that I've seen in a long time. And um everybody over there worked and uh took very good care of our our Jackson County folks and the people I think that had an opportunity to visit. They were very happy with the service that they got uh not having to or the parking lot was right in front and honestly had a lot of folks comment on the fact they didn't have to go through a scanner and uh when they walked out they were very pleased about that and folks were very happy. So thanks for everybody that works very hard for that. Uh, with that, our next meeting is January the 26th. It will be here at 5:00. And that do I have a motion to go into the fir? I

motion carries. I need