JONES COUNTY
Planning and Zoning requests took up the majority of a Board of Commissioners meeting that took place with a full house.
The July 18 meeting was called to order by Board Chairman Chris Weidner. The opening prayer and pledge were led by Donald Black. All Jones County Commissioners were in attendance.
Weidner moved the zoning item of interest to a majority of audience to the top of the list, which was the rezoning of property next to 611 Lite N Tie Road from R-1 (single family residential) to C-2 (general commercial) to allow a commercial parking lot.
Zoning Officer Tim Pitrowski read the request to the board.
The petitioner, Lafayette Stephens, explained his request for the parking lot to board members.
He said he wanted to allow short- and long-term vehicle parking of trucks, RVs, boats and campers.
Stephens said because the area remained wet, he could not store his vehicles without creating a parking area.
“I thought since I’m going have to make this investment, I might as well make it big enough for others,” he said.
Those speaking in opposition to the zoning request included Pastor Chris Peavy, who is also a neighbor, and neighbors Butch Sementilli and Liane Snow. Their objects were similar in the fear of what the C-2 zoning could allow in the future and the non-compatibility of the parking lot with the neighborhood.
The opposition also brought a petition objecting to the parking lot with 400 signatures.
After listening to the arguments for and against the request, Commissioner Wendy Vaughn made the motion to deny the rezoning, and the vote to approve the motion was unanimous.
Pitrowski read the proposal of Christina Serrels to amend Section 66 of the Comprehensive Plan to allow one commercial vehicle in excess of 10,000 pounds in agriculturally zoned areas. He explained the request was in response to a notice of violation due to a tractor trailer being parked on her property.
The petitioner’s husband is a truck driver, and the request is for him to be able to park his truck at their house when he is home. The way this is written now, he cannot park his truck on the property because it has a house on it.
Commissioner John Wood suggested a work session was needed to dig into the situation further.
Commissioner Sam Kitchens said he understands the reason for the request but does not want to pigeonhole a solution that could create parking lots. He made a motion to postpone the item until a work session could be held.
The only P&Z item that was easily decided was a request from Bradley Baptist Church to rezone two acres from Ag-1 to C-2 to enlarge the church’s parking lot. Earlene Hamilton, who serves on the Historic Preservation Board, asked if the request could be amended to be a conditional use instead of a rezoning because the area is part of Jones County’s Scenic Byway.
The commissioners readily agreed, and Kitchens made the motion to approve the increase in the parking lot as a conditional use. The vote to approve the motion was unanimous.
The final P&Z item was a request to rezone two C-2 properties on Gray Highway to R-1 to allow the construction of four single family dwellings. Contractor Wendy Sherlock spoke for the petitioner and Franklin Nasworthy, Keith Roberts and Ronnie Hinson all spoke in opposition. The three businessmen said the rezoning would decrease the value of their nearby commercial properties.
After a lengthy discussion, Kitchens made a motion to deny the request. The reason he gave was the county’s comprehensive plan designated the area as commercial. The vote for the denial passed with a vote of 3-1, with Commissioner Daylon Martin opposed.
Visitor
Katie Williams spoke about the need for more playground equipment for Haddock Park. She said the park is lacking and, in addition to more playground equipment, needs benches around the basketball court.
Wood said he would like to see more improvements made.
“We’ve done some work in the park, but not enough,” he said.
Evelyn Hill said the speed breakers in Haddock were broken and asked they be replaced.
New Business
County Administrator Jason Rizner advised board members that it was time to advertise for the county’s millage rate. He suggested advertising the tax rate as the same as last year.
“I don’t anticipate we will have to go up, and you can always go down without having to advertise again,” he said.
Kitchens said he routinely gets calls that the commissioners need to quit raising the millage rate. He noted that the county’s millage rate has not gone up since 2014, which was prior to the service of any sitting board member.
“Your tax bill can be higher because your property value has increased, but that has nothing to do with the Board of Commissioners,” Kitchens said.
The commissioner added that the periodic revaluations of property are required by law.
Kitchens made the motion to begin the advertisements at the current rate for ad purposes, and the motion was unanimously approved.
Rizner spoke on behalf of the Parks and Recreation Department requesting approval of seven new scoreboards. He said the scoreboards were competitively bid through Source Well, and the cost would be $30,277.
Kitchens mad the motion to approve the scoreboards, and the vote to approve was unanimous.
The final agenda item was the approval of the county’s holiday schedule. Martin made the motion to accept the schedule with the addition of Friday, July 5. His motion was unanimously approved.
Called meeting
Chief Tax Assessor Anthony George addressed the Board of Commissioners at a called meeting July 14. He began with an overview of new tax revenues for the county since 2017. His presentation ended with an impressive real property increase for 2022 of $1.65 million.
With no tax increases during those years, the added revenue was the result of property valuations.
The crux of the meeting, however, was a problem with this year’s budget for the tax assessors’ department. The issue arose because of an annual training conference that had a cost in excess of $10,000. The department’s budget did not have the funds to cover the conference, which was due to begin July 17.
Due to the budget shortfall, reservations for the rooms and conference had been canceled.
George told board members that the cost was not significantly more than previous years. Following a lengthy discussion, it came to light that the department routinely went over its travel expenses, but in years past there was enough money in other line items to cover it. This year’s expenses of training new employees to replace those who had retired and unexpected office expenses used those funds.
At the conclusion of the discussion that included the need to lower future travel expenses where possible, Kitchens made the motion to move $9,500 in contingency funds to cover the cost of this year’s conference due to the importance of the training and networking opportunities.
His motion was approved unanimously, and the reservations for the conference were ultimately able to be reinstated and rooms found for the assessors to attend the training.
Vaughn spoke about the need to address the issue going forward.
“I don’t want to be here doing this again. This problem wasn’t us, but we took care of it,” she stated.
