Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the September 8, 2026 work session of the Gas County Board of Commissioners. My name is Chad Brown. I serve as chairman of the board as well as the commissioner of the Riverbend Township. I would like to welcome our viewers and thank Spectrum Cable and AT&T for making it possible for our citizens. For our television and live stream audience, I would like to present your Gas County Commission beginning on my far right.

Good evening, Scott Sheehan, Gastonia Township. Jim Bailey, South Point Township.

Good evening, Kathy Kloniger, Dallas Township.

Happy day after Labor Day, Bob Hovis, Cradders Mountain Township.

Good evening, Tom Keegler, Gastonia Township.

The first item tonight is proclamations, commendations, awards, and certificates. I would now ask Commissioner Hovis to now proclaim the events of September 11th and recognize September 11th as the first responders day. Commissioner Hovis.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If there's anyone with our first responder community and or veterans that would like to join me, you're more than welcome to. I think that's fitting in reference to the 9-11 recognition. If not, I'll just go ahead and read the proclamation. I see a few coming. I will say that this spring, my wife and I took our oldest granddaughter after graduating high school on a trip to New York City. We've decided we're going to do that with each of our four grandkids, and that's a special time with my wife and myself with them after they've accomplished one of the many milestones we

We'll now call on Commissioner Keger to do the commendation for Ms. Kathy Connor and naming the Connor Family Lobby. Commissioner Keger.

Thank you. Kathy, John, you want to join me?

It's a privilege for me to do this. Kathy and John have been our neighbors for many years, and they're just the finest people you'll ever run into. We all have people like that in their lives, and this is a couple right here. But I'll get to the commendation. Whereas Mrs. Kathy Bauckham Connor was born and raised in Gastonia, graduated from the second graduating class of Hunter Huss High School, and married her high school sweetheart, John Connor, in 1966. Together, they built a family and a life deeply rooted in the Gaston County community. And whereas, Kathy has been a devoted member of the

I will now call on Commissioner Cloninger to do the commendation celebrating Pastor Kenneth Ramseur Sr. of Friday Memorial Baptist Church in Dallas. Commissioner Cloninger. Thank you.

I have the honor to recognize a commendation celebrating Pastor Kenneth Ramseur, Sr., of Friday Memorial Baptist Church in Dallas upon his retirement after 46 years of service. Whereas Pastor Kenneth Ramseur was raised in a Christian home by his late parents, William A. Ramseur, Jr. and Shirley Ramseur, who instilled in him a love for God, his word, his people, And whereas Pastor Ramsour has devoted 46 years of faithful service to the Lord, serving in numerous ministry capacities before becoming pastor of Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Vail, North Carolina, and subsequently pastor of Friday M

It is with great pleasure that the Gadsden County Board of Commissioners honor citizens who have unselfishly given of their time, talents, skills, and energies in service as an appointee to one of our many boards or commissions. This type of service is the foundation of citizen involvement in our county government and is here to helping shape the future of our community. We gratefully acknowledge the work of the following individuals and certificates of appreciation have been forwarded to them. Charles Vincent, Adult Care Home Community Advisory Committee. Lorna Ross, Animal Care and Enforceme

Can you just tell people what I and E's are so they have it at home?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Start with the conversation in terms of dating. I think that's the pivotal equation for the public to understand. January the 1st is the cutoff date. In other words, if I sold my home on January the 10th for whatever, that's not a valid comp.

January 1 kind of closes the door, closes the gate while we look at the cattle that's in the field, houses, and we evaluate their status. So dates do matter. Obviously you can't in 24 hours evaluate all 210,000 homes in Gaston County to these standards. You start this process and it takes anywhere from 12 to 18 months.

But that's what I'm saying. So there's obviously work continuously going on because you can't just flip a switch. and every house be visited. It's not like Santa Claus coming around on Christmas Eve and coming down the chimney and say, okay, you got two bedrooms, you got three bedrooms. It doesn't work that way. But you have, I'm just being elementary because we got some people that need elementary instruction. So this is what we try to do to do that. So I just want people to understand how dates do matter and play into what the tax office tries to do in coming up with a real market value, cor

And I've been fortunate enough to live in my home in Vesper City for 49 years. And as a county commissioner, our houses are looked at by an independent firm, which I'm assuming that that's going to happen within a short time. This year. And the gentleman that came by and reappraised my house couldn't believe that my home in 23 was the age that it was. He said, your home appraises somewhere around seven or eight years old. And that goes back to improvements that have been made and the condition that it's kept. Does it have to be golden chandeliers and gold bathtub fixtures and all that stuff? It's just the overall general condition.

As we transition from the North Pole, Commissioner Sheehan.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Tarbus, if you could go back to slide six, I believe it was, the approaches to value.

Yeah, just wanted to clarify, there is only one approach that is used on the property when you go through an assessment, correct?

Okay, and the decision to use multiple approaches is made in-house, is that correct? Yes. Through your staff?

Okay, on the income approach, Give me some background as to how is that fair and equitable based on, let's say, if it's a commercial piece of property, and one is generating, producing some widget, let's just say, that is very lucrative, and you have a competitor next door that is not in the same field, that's not generating revenue. So how are we being fair and equitable on the income approach in that scenario?

I have one question, Chelsea. It's just back to a slide as well. When you get to it, when he started using base model, it made me think when he's using a two-bathroom as the base and a half-bath as the base for one, why is that value not $3,000 rather than $4,000? Because we have $4,000 is what we rank it out as to a half-bath.

So the way I could lower my time is to have all those enclosed at once, bidet, toilet, sink, all in one place. That's right. Okay, just want to make sure. I want to check on that because people have asked that question, but thank you for that clarification. Sure thing.

Any questions from the board at this time? Seeing none, we're still good so far. Mr. Chelsea, I want to thank you for all you guys have done. Are we through? Yes, sir. I want to ask if we can add something to our website. Yes, sir. Can we take a 300,000 model house, $300,000, and we break it down to each individual municipality and to the county and put a summation up there of what each person would have done if they'd have had a $300,000 house. What happened if you live in Gaston? What happens if you live in Stanley? What happens if you live in Macabre? Whatever it may be, we put up those mod

Any other questions from the board at this time? Seeing none, thank you guys for your help and everything. We're gonna be inundating you for a while on things. Do you have anything, Tom? But thank you so much. Other matters, any other matters need to come before the board? David has asked for a closed session. David, do you want to go over those to the subsections, please?

Motion to go into closed session? So moved. Motion made by Commissioner Hovis, seconded by Commissioner Sheehan. All in favor? It is unanimous, Madam Clerk. We are now in closed session.

We'll have a motion to come back out of closed session. So moved. Motion made by Commissioner Sheehan, seconded by Commissioner Hovis. All in favor? We are now back in open session. No action was taken during the closed session. Do I have a, oh, this concludes our work session for tonight. Our next regular meeting here in the Harley B. Gaston Junior Public Forum is Tuesday, September 22nd, 2026, 6 p.m. Thank you for watching. If you have any questions, please comment or any telephone our clerk, Donna S. Buff, at 704-866-3196. Good night. Good night.