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.

0:23 – 0:46•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

0:46•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

Amen. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

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. We have 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. A

All right. You just 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.

2:42•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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

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

16:11 – 16:23•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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.

16:28 – 18:14•BUBillie Jo 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 arduo

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.

18:22 – 19:14•CGCharles F. (Skip) Gruber

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 g

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 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 just reflecting over

21:51 – 22:02•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

22:07 – 22:22•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

Thank you commissioner Gruber for your leadership on, on your last budget deliberation process. It went real smooth. I appreciate your leadership as well. So 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 the

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

24:39 – 24:50•BUBillie Jo Underwood

Go with the requested amount. All right.

25:04 – 25:17•CGCharles F. (Skip) Gruber

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 money was going so I want to thank Brian and h

26:16 – 26:56•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

26:56•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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

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 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. But yeah. Y'all good with these? Yes. All right. Highway items. I'm good with those.

27:49•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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

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.

28:11•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

29:23 – 29:57•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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 yo

30:07•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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.

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

39:48 – 40:20•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

40:24 – 41:05•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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 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, tha

41:10•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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

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 we, we are going to have to take a little break before our next meeting. So if you want to wrap it up and then as commissioner, I was going to, yeah, we can, we can help you out.

42:20 – 42:40•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

52:30•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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 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.

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?

55:27•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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

57:34 – 58:01•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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.

58:02 – 58:47•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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, Is, is for a, a, a more right. Where's you safety factor included in that? And I mean th

I concur. We've done a lot at Blakely to help them out. And this is a chance to help out all citizens of Baldwin county at this intersection that travel through there 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.

59:09 – 59:47•CGCharles F. (Skip) Gruber

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 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

1:00:06•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

1:00:17•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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 but we'll we'll do commissioner comments later on all right sorry about that I've noticed that we didn't have any time to take a break before the meeting so anyway so commissioner Gruber

1:01:09•CGCharles F. (Skip) Gruber

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

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.

1:01:45 – 1:01:59•CGCharles F. (Skip) Gruber

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.

1:02:13 – 1:02:27•CGCharles F. (Skip) Gruber

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.

1:03:07 – 1:03:20•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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 th

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

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 pro

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 th

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

1:15:00 – 1:15:33•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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.

1:18:14 – 1:18:27•BUBillie Jo Underwood

I do have a question. That was my number one question was, 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?

1:18:58 – 1:19:48•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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

1:20:00•BUBillie Jo Underwood

Then are you willing to do that right away?

1:20:11•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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

1:21:11 – 1:21:23•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

This how many, how many more, two more, or before, before we get any further with this case 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 t

So thanks for speaking on behalf of neighbor against it.

1:34:53 – 1:35:11•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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 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.

1:35:20•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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

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

Mayor, if we were talking about access today, I would be worried about that, but I'm not 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 they were asked to do a

1:37:32 – 1:39:27•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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 hand

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

1:39:36•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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?

1:39:50 – 1:40:19•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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.

1:40:23 – 1:40:48•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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.

1:40:51•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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

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

1:41:12 – 1:41:23•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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

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

1:46:33•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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

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

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

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

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

1:59:02 – 2:00:21•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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. 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 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

2:00:26•CGCharles F. (Skip) Gruber

I need a vote or something to get started.

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

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

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. 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?

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.

2:08:08 – 2:08:53•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

2:09:01 – 2:09:44•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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 ha

2:09:51 – 2:10:21•BUBillie Jo Underwood

Not under, but that's the whole point of doing the PRD. 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. Or you don't have the option to withdraw it, you can request that from this body.

2:10:41 – 2:10:54•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

2:11:04 – 2:11:15•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

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? 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?

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?

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?

2:15:56•CGCharles F. (Skip) Gruber

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

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

2:16:10•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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

2:16:14•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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

2:16:24•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

2:18:57 – 2:19:28•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

2:20:02 – 2:20:35•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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 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

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? 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.

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.

2:21:47•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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?

2:22:02•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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?

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

2:22:23 – 2:22:51•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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 is there a second on commissioner McKenzie's motion I'll second that we've got a motion in a second all those in favor say aye aye So there's four eyes?

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

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

2:23:49•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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.

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

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

2:28:12•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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

2:28:24•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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.

2:28:34•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

2:28:45 – 2:30:45•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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 RCFE is more of a rule setting. It's not,

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

Okay. Thank you so much for your explanation.

2:34:11•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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

2:34:32•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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

2:35:05 – 2:35:19•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

2:35:22•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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

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

2:35:31 – 2:36:13•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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 it's okay. All right. 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 questio

2:36:24 – 2:36:42•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

2:36:57•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

2:37:24•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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

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.

2:37:41•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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

Okay, so commissioners, we've heard that.

2:37:50•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

Thank you, Selena. Any questions for Selena?

Public hearing open on this case. 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.

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. 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.

2:43:02•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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.

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.

2:43:53 – 2:44:20•MMMatthew P. McKenzie

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?

2:44:27 – 2:45:20•CGCharles F. (Skip) Gruber

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.

2:45:21 – 2:45:46•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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 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.

2:45:49•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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

2:46:05•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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

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

2:46:19•BUBillie Jo Underwood

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 you know it's tough it's tough to do this job that we do up here and I appreciate 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 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