Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good evening, I'm calling to order the Columbia County Board of Commissioners June 16th, 2026 meeting to order. Ask Vice Chairman couch to open this with an invocation please.

Please bow your heads. Dear Heavenly Father, we are so thankful for this day and for all the many blessings that you bestow upon Columbia County. We ask that you be with our county staff, with our sheriff's deputies, with our firefighters, and with our EMS workers. Be with us now as we work through these agenda items and help us to do all things in your will. In your most holy and precious name I pray, amen.

Please join me in the 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.

Let the record show we have a full quorum of commissioners. Commissioners, you have the minutes from the June 2nd, 2026 meeting in your packet. If you've had a chance to review them, I'll accept the motion to approve them.

Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to accept these as presented.

Second. Any questions? Motion is second on the floor. All in favor, raise your right hand. Motion carries. I see no changes to the agenda.

Just that we will need an executive session, Mr. Chairman.

Right. Is that not on here?

It wasn't before, but I believe it is now.

The agenda is approved. I see no special recognition. We'll jump straight into the consent agenda. Commissioners, you've been to the committee meetings. You've seen the items put on the consent agenda. They've received the necessary votes to be placed on this agenda, so if they still meet with your approval, I'll accept a motion to approve them all.

Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to accept all of these consent agenda items as presented.

I'll second that. Any questions? There's a motion, second on the floor. All in favor, raise your right hand. That motion carries. On to Vice Chairman Couch.

Yes, sir. I make a motion to accept the 2025 Georgia Opioid Crisis Abatement Trust Grant for the Columbia Judicial Circuit in the amount of $9,500. Second.

It's just an additional grant from CJCC for Columbia County. The amount was listed $9,500.

Any questions? There's a motion and a second on the floor. All in favor, raise your right hand. We accept the $9,500. Commissioner Lear.

I make a motion to approve the first reading of resolution number 26-14, amending the fee schedule for development services.

I'll second. So as part of creating our new online permitting process, our app permitting process, Mr. Scarberry has found some some changes needs to make to make it clearer, uh, which permits you're applying for. So a lot of this is cosmetic corrections. Some of them are just updates, but we did have a couple of changes to fees. One is the cap on a change of use fee. Right now we could cost, for example, uh, Amazon could pay an $80,000 fee. He's putting a cap at 24,000. on that also creating a fee for foundation only so if you're building a building you can come in and pay five percent of the fee up front to get your foundation approved while you're designing the rest of your building so creating that fee um ev charging station just make sure that people can see what permits they're actually applying for when they do it online themselves versus calling our ladies at the counter or coming in to see the ladies

So when we have our second reading in two weeks, will this go into effect the very next day or the first of the month, next quarter? What's the time schedule for that?

I would say as soon as you adopt it, it goes into effect.

Next day? Okay, thank you.

Any other questions? There's a motion and a second on the floor. All in favor, raise your right hand. Seeing no legal matters or requests for review by committee, yes, public comments. Mrs. Susan Warren, Susan. Thank you.

Tonight my only comment about data centers is actually a question. I would like to know if you have at all considered my plea that I made at the May 5th board meeting to amend the data center ordinance to include a surety or performance bond that would help to protect Columbia County for the building of any future data centers that are not yet rezoned. It's been more than a month since I asked and I've heard nothing about this either online or personally. So if not, why not?

We have not yet decided.

Okay, but you're considering it?

We're looking at options, yes ma'am.

Thank you. Now the issue that brought me to the board meetings initially before I had ever heard of data centers, the library system. I have kept coming and speaking mainly about the data centers, but I simply cannot leave here tonight without speaking about an issue very relevant right now. Before October, I believe it was of 2024, Columbia County as a part of the regional GCHRLS had an unbelievably wonderful library system with three local locations that functioned and served our county so well. There were many well-educated, loyal, well-liked, hardworking employees and managers at these branches, and a very respected regional manager. We cooperated well with our fellow counties in the regional system. Now we no longer are a part of that system, but are set up as a single county region. And unfortunately, a lot of those same people are no longer with us. and a lot of important institutional memory and goodwill went with them some were downsized and duties changed but many left because they as librarians who cared about how the job was done could not in good conscience work where that was not what columbia county was valuing in our libraries You wanted to placate the unwarranted and constant voices of small group who espoused racist and homophobic views in the name of protecting the children. Their complaints specifically identified LBGTQ plus literature as pornographic. And they wanted change that doesn't serve many of our county residents, regardless of what chaos and unfair practices would be the result of you to their wishes. And you also came to the political pressure from our legislative contingent, Lee Anderson, Rick Allen, etc, to silence those complaints and protests. Now we have a single county region that we have trouble hiring appropriate staff for. See what that did for us? I'm not just talking about the current controversy about the recent so called children's librarian. And she really didn't actually meet that license and requirement to be called a library. But the many other issues you've had replacing staff. How many circulation managers have you had in the last year? How many young adult managers and just staff in general? Some departments are understaffed. The issue with getting qualified candidates to even apply has come up. It's time for Columbia County to focus on all the citizens we serve and go back to having the library run by real librarians and not politicians or other county employees. You can start by having qualified people who actually read the books serve on the library board and go back to writing bylaws that really work and then abiding by them. And I do wonder now how those same incessant complainers you listened to about the book placements feel now. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am. I believe we have, let's see, an executive session. I'm gonna make a motion that we move to executive session.

Do I have a second? Second.

All in favor raise your right hand. Ooh.

There it goes.

Report on our session.

Yes, we discussed two litigation matters. One is an existing litigation matter, and one's a potential litigation matter. No decisions were made. No decisions were made.

All righty. Anything else needs to come before the commission?

Make a motion to adjourn. Second.

We are adjourned.