The Jones County Board of Commissioners recognized a special service project and listened to ideas about State Place Cemetery at last week’s meeting.
Board Chairman Chris Weidner called the Aug. 4 meeting to order. The prayer and pledge were led by Rev. Wilbur Greene with New Damascus Church.
The first item on the agenda was special recognition that was handled by Commissioner Wendy Vaughn, who highlighted the service project of Griffin Moore. The commissioner explained that for Moore’s Junior Year Service Project, he came up with a program called St. Nick’s Necessities.
That involved providing bags for older kids and teens in need of everyday necessities, such as personnel hygiene and toiletry items.
Moore said the first year $10,000 was raised and over 500 gift bags were provided and over 300 bags during his senior year. It also expanded to taking bags to homeless shelters and DFCS. This year 175 bags were delivered to schools.
Vaughn applauded Moore for his efforts and thanked him for providing for the age group that is often left out when Christmas gifts are distributed, teenagers.
The commissioner said Moore graduated from First Presbyterian and had his choice of colleges, which he informed her was Alabama. When asked where he got his ‘brains,’ the young man did not hesitate.
“My grandfathers,” he said. Vaughn noted that one of those grandfathers was Thomas Griffin, and his parents are Dr. Kara and Geoff Moore, all who were in the audience.
State Place Cemetery
The question of the future of the county- owned cemetery has been a point of discussion since 2011 and with these board members since 2024. Greene has been the spokesperson for the cemetery and the families with loved ones buried there since the topic was brought back to the board in February of 2024 because of complaints of the lack of public access.
The original purpose of the cemetery depends on who is asked, with members of the Black community claiming the property was donated to the county for the purpose of providing a place for Black burials. The county’s perspective is the cemetery was donated for indigent burials, which actually stopped happening 20 years ago.
Since the indigent are now cremated, the county’s stance is there should no longer be burials there because it is county-owned and maintained. But that is not the case. In 2011 it was discovered that a public works employee was allowing the burials. It was also discovered some of the recent burials have been on landfill property, which got the attention of the EPD.
The presence of stone grave markers brought up questions about those buried there being indigent.
Subsequently Len Strozier from Omega Mapping was hired to map out the graves in the cemetery with the use of land penetrating radar. The property was cleared and cleaned up by public works, and a more accessible entry was constructed from Overland Way.
Strozier reported finding 881 graves on the 10 acres with at least 30 burials on landfill property. The number of known graves are 295 with 202 unmarked and the remaining 384 unknown. Some of the burials are thought to go back to the 1800s.
Commissioners held a work session May 9, 2025, for the purpose of resolving the issue by allowing the property to be ‘sold’ to a private entity that would take over maintaining and managing burials on the property. The sale price could be as low as $1 to the right entity.
That’s where Greene comes into the conversation. The pastor told the board he has been working with people to find a solution and asked for more time.
“I feel obligated to protect this historic cemetery. It was donated to all afro-americans to be buried, but I don’t want this to be something to divide us,” he said.
Greene said some of the graves date back to the 1850s, and there have been discussions about the types of graves. He pointed out that moving the graves that are on the landfill property would be expensive, and he is concerned about the cost to maintain the cemetery.
The speaker said there were two public works employees who previously took care of the cemetery without there being any cost in the budget. He said the county has the equipment to maintain the cemetery and added that the families of those buried there are taxpayers.
His suggestion was to reestablish the cemetery being taken care of by public works as in the past.
“There was a system to show where people were buried,” he said.
Greene said he is not blaming anyone but wants to preserve history. He said some of those buried in the cemetery are veterans, which could mean federal funding.
“If someone takes it over, what happens in 20-30 years? Let’s work together. We would be willing to help with cleanup days,” the speaker said. “Don’t let this be an issue that divides us.”
Weidner said the board will have another work session.
“We all have loved ones there,” he added.
Feral cats
The next visitor at the meeting was Ronald McCant, who talked about an ongoing problem with feral cats. He said he has brought up the issue before, and it keeps getting worse.
“The cats are out of control, probably because neighbors are feeding them and they continue to reproduce,” McCant said.
He said it got bad enough that he bought and set traps but got no help from the county about what to do with the cats that are caught.
Weidner agreed this was a problem that seemed to have no end.
“It’s a shame people aren’t responsible,” he said.
The chairman said the problem just keeps escalating and assured McCant that an animal control officer would come to his residence the following day.
New Business
Abby Barton with Keep Jones Beautiful came to the meeting for the renewal of the KJB contract renewal between the county and Gray/Jones County Chamber of Commerce. The county’s portion of the program is $30,000 for the year.
Barton said there were no changes in the contract for the coming year.
Vaughn made the motion to approve the contract, and the motion passed with a unanimous vote of the commissioners present. Commissioner Sam Kitchens was not at the meeting.
Water Department Superintendent Brandon Stark presented the final business item on the agenda. He reminded the commissioners that the GEFA loan for the replacement of the county’s water meters was approved in August of 2025 and the project was now ready to move forward.
The next step was approval of the resolution for the project to begin, putting the loan process for $3,171,200 to pay for the meters and their installation in motion. Stark added that the loan payments were already included in the water department budget.
After a brief discussion, Commissioner Daylon Martin made the motion to approve the resolution, and the motion passed unanimously.
Department heads
County Administrator Jason Rizner talked to the commissioners about the millage rate process that would start with advertisements of the rate. He said he needed guidance from board members about how they wanted to proceed.
His question was about using the normal rollback rate.
Rizner added the board can lower the rate advertised without running more advertisements, but if the rate was raised, the process would begin again. He added that he does not have any digest numbers yet.
Weidner said yes to the rollback rate and added he hoped the rate can be rolled back even more. He said the last three years of the state mandate had been tough.
Commissioner John Wood said the county definitely needs to roll back the rate to take the burden off taxpayers when they can.
Martin said without numbers it is hard to speculate, but if the rate can be rolled back, he wants to do that.
Vaughn too said she would like the tax rate rolled back.
The administrator asked about having a budget work session with department heads. The commissioners all said they would like to have a face-to-face with the department heads and tentatively agreed to holding the meeting on a Saturday.
Rizner stated what the county branding survey was out and encouraged everyone to fill it out.
Comments
Wood stated that social media is not the best way to reach commissioners about county issues. He said a text message or email would be a better way if a response from the board was really wanted.
“Facebook is the worst way for getting action,” he said. “It’s a whole lot of drama and no action.”
Vaughn reiterated the importance of participating in the branding survey that is available on the county’s website. She said a lot of effort has gone into the branding project.
The commissioner also encouraged all pet owners to be responsible and have their pets spay or neutered.
Martin agreed with Wood’s comments. He said all the contact information for commissioners is available on the website.
“You get a lot more traction when you contact us, and we will do our best to address your concerns,” he said.
The commissioner said he hopes taxes can be put to bed quickly, and he added that anyone with questions about their property values need to appeal.
Weidner talked about animal services. He said there are two contact numbers on the website.
“Yes, we have a problem with people dumping puppies, but we will always come for dangerous dogs,” he said. “There is no way we can house them all. We do have to put some animals down because there is no room. We could double the size of our facility, and it would be filled in a week.”
At the conclusion of the comments, the meeting was adjourned at 7:05 p.m. The next meeting of the Board of Commissioners is scheduled Aug. 17.
