Remarks by James E. (Jeb) Ball
346 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 7 of 14
And it will be in support. We hope our letter of support helps out and carries some weight with y'all.
Anything, Matt? Yeah, just thank y'all. Hang on just one second, Judge. I just want to say thank you, and I can remember when I was running my first term of office, I was running with Judge Scully in his office term, and I came to know his daughter and didn't even understand what ARC was until he told me about it, and he was one of the first person I thought of in this, but I also have some friends and a personal friend that It's grown in this day camp, whatever you call it, program, and it immediately shut down the family's life as far as like now who's going to stay home and miss work, take…
Yeah, but we ought to recognize her. That's right. Well, we appreciate y'all coming today and appreciate the outpouring of support for something that means so much to not only you guys, but to our county and possibly surrounding areas. I don't know if ORC of Baldwin takes in neighboring counties. I don't know how it works, but if it's a benefit to everybody, then it's great. May it be so. So, anyway, I will tell you this. We are going to vote on this. It's already been consented on. Y'all don't have to stay through any more of this boring stuff, but y'all are more than welcome to sit here.…
Okay, so I have a request, and it's kind of a new request and something I've been thinking about since the last couple meetings. Commissioner Gruber brought this up, and I wanted to go ahead and take care of it, and I thought he was going to be here today, and since he's not, I'm going to take care of it. So I'm going to ask our attorney, first of all, to help me out, word my request, because I'm going to be requesting... a moratorium for 180 days on all rezoning cases that have not been put in the portal yet. This will be strictly new cases that aren't in limbo. We don't have a planning…
Can't believe we're having this conversation. We can't get out of here fast enough and
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
So we are going to adjourn this work session, and it's 936. Welcome to our 10 o'clock regular meeting. Today we have our invocation by Pastor Wilson Newell with the First Methodist Church, and then followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. We'll get Commissioner Underwood to lead us in that. If you all don't mind, please stand for the invocation.
Thank you and welcome again to this meeting today. First order of business is adoption of the September 15th, 2026 regular meeting minutes. Do I hear a motion? I'll make that motion.
Motion by Commissioner McKenzie, second by Commissioner Underwood to adopt the meeting minutes. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes. Commissioner Underwood is going to do our finance section.
You heard the motion to pay the bills. Is there a second? Second. I got a second. No discussion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye.
I'll second that. Got a motion and a second to ratify the interim payments as allowed by Policy 8.1. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Next up, we have our consent agenda. Please note for the record that item CF1 has been pulled to our other staff section, so we'll be voting on everything except that item.
I'll second that. Got a motion and a second to adopt our consent agenda. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye.
And just to note for the record that for people that don't understand how consent works, we did take care of a pretty large item today that was affecting the citizens of Baldwin County with the art. Baldwin County program. So just wanted to bring to the actual live video feed that the commission has adopted to send a resolution in support of ARCA Baldwin County to the commissioner of the Department of Mental Health. So hopefully we can get that straightened out and y'all will be recertified soon. Thank y'all. A lot of representatives here earlier for the work session represent Ark of Baldwin…
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Y'all have any questions for Eddie? No. Okay. Open a public hearing on this item EF1, the amendment to Baldwin County floodplain development ordinance. Is there anybody signed up to speak? Yes, sir. All right. Nobody signed up to speak. Anybody sitting in here wishing to speak about this? All right. Close the public hearing. Commissioners?
I'll second it. Got a motion and a second to adopt this correction and amendment to the Baldwin County Floodplain Development Ordinance. All in favor say aye. Aye. All right, motion passes.
All right, so here in section F, we will bring, there's our other staff recommendations, where we'll bring up item CF1. This was pulled from our consent agenda. We have to vote on it separately. Item CF1 is the termination of building construction regulations agreement with the town of Summerdale.
We got a motion on item CF1 and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed?
Okay, motion passes. All right, next up we have, we got item GA1. which is an addenda. So RFQ for engineering services permission to advertise. I guess that could have been brought into consent, but.
Thank you, Frank. All right. Commissioners, do you all have a motion on this?
Second. Okay, got a motion and a second to approve item GA-1. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Next up is an item that I discussed at the work session. It has now been called Resolution 2027-20 of the Baldwin County Commission, and this resolution imposes a 180-day moratorium on all rezoning requests and all new data centers and renewable energy projects within zoned areas under the jurisdiction of Baldwin County, Alabama. I make a motion that we adopt this resolution as outlined by our attorney.
So I was gonna also add to it as well in the discussion topics. And I'm sure Commissioner Underwood will also echo this. Our staff is inundated right now with a bunch of rezoning cases and we've just got 14 on the agenda for our Fair Hope meeting coming up. And it's getting out of hand to the point to where we can't catch our breath And we don't have a planning director in place. We don't have our master plan in place. We don't have flumes in place. All that stuff that dictates rezoning cases is not available yet. And so what I wanted to see was just a pause and a slowdown. And Commissioner…
Well, the new commissioners can catch a breath for a little while because they won't have to deal with them for the first 180 days of office, which is, you know, I don't think they'll pile up. I think people will really consider that. And developers will consider to bring a right product to the new commission that it needs to be something that when you bring it to it shouldn't be controversial it shouldn't be you know going against everybody's will around the area and stuff like that and that's what this master plan once it's solidified and a new planning director gonna find right now we…
All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All right, motion passes. Any press here? Okay, good. Commissioner, comments?
All right. I'm going to ask if we have any more comments. Matt, you got anything?