Remarks by Billie Jo Underwood
212 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 7 of 9
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.
Yeah, we do. You put it right there where the preacher can know what time it is. We got one in ours.
I said thank you to everybody. You too. Thank you.
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.
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…
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 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.
Go with the requested amount. All right.
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.
Yes, I'm good with that as well. I wish we could do this. P&Z cases that fast.
Well, you ain't on the ballot, though. You can say it.
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.
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,…
Well, that's up to the chairman. You've got this.
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.
Do you want to do the highway item before all these public hearings?
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…
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.
Mark, I don't know what that meant, Mark.
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 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?
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…
Then are you willing to do that right away?
You guys have been in the same room all morning and you've not even talked about this.