Meeting Notes

9/4/2008

Jim Harrell gets it wrong again

Of course, any time you blindly follow the person you think got you your job, you usually get things wrong. That's because you aren't thinking when you are blindly following. Frankly, that is what Democrats specilize in doing - following blindly and not thinking. You'd think a supposed Republican would try to do something a bit different - like maybe, be independent for a change.

Tonight, Jim Harrell made some comments during the motion to fire county manager Rhonda O'Connor that made little sense to a lot of people. He said, "Come January, you'll have a better and more professional board to work with."

Oh really?

Professional boards actually try to control spending when the county is short nearly $14 million dollars, Jim. Professional boards don't air their dirty personnel laundry in public meetings and uselessly postpone decisions that should have been made immediately, Jim. Professional boards try to do what they said they were going to do during the election campaign, and not throw their supporters to the curb, Jim. Professional boards don't spend hundreds of thousands of tax dollars on consultants to prop up their county manager, and try to keep her when that program fails, Jim. Professional boards vote according to their party affiliation once and a while, and adhere to the principles of Republican governance such as controlling spending, less government intrusion, less regulations, cutting taxes and principled leadership, Jim. Professional boards don't exclude felow commissioners from negotiating sessions when they don't agree with you, Jim.

Professional boards don't try to thwart the will of the majority, Jim. Professional boards don't stick their heads in the sand when things don't go their way, Jim. Professional board members do the work they're supposed to do and make sure the county's fiscal health is taken care of during the preliminary budget cycle, Jim.

Jim Harrell and Charlie Laughinghouse have spent countless political capital propping up a weak county manager that couldn't do her job properly, and got caught failing in their duties as finance committee members by not properly vetting the proposed 2008 budget as they were supposed to do. In trying to cover up their failure, they tried to keep someone that spent enormous personal time and capital on keeping them happy, while ignoring the other three commissioners.

They all three gambled, and they lost.

Now, the county has to pay another enormous severance package to another failed county manager. If anyone is keeping score, the only commissioner who voted against the last two county managers in every regard was me. The only commissioner who consistently voted against severance packages for our county managers was me.

I hate being right all the time. It's a curse. But I'm learning to live with it.

Either way, Doug Derrer is going to do a fine job for the county in the near term, and I hope he is given the chance to perform in the long term. He already has shown he doesn't play the political office games of both past county managers, and that bodes well for the long term health of Forsyth County.

But spare us all the crap about professional boards, Jim. You wouldn't know one if it bit you on the behind.

2/8/2008

Was there a full moon last night? Or were the stars just aligned?

Overall, a very good night from an accomplishment standpoint, and some very different public hearings.

Both public hearings that were a little strange came from District 4. The first one was asking for a variance on an easement width and setback, with another variance to allow for more than 3 lots to be served by an easement. As much as I respect property rights, this one came at the worst possible time, due to this commission turning down another request for largely the same thing just 6 months ago. In order to be consistent, I had to vote against the variance to allow more than 3 lots to be served by an easement.

The next public hearing had so much bad blood involved with it, that if this were the old West, someone would have been shot by now. Ultimately, the person requesting a variance has legal issues still involved with the property in question, and we tabled that request until I hear that all the legal issues are resolved. I don't think we'll be hearing this case any time soon.

Now, let's go to the public hearing regarding the creation of a Public Facilities Authority. The PFA, for those who haven't been up on this issue, is a funding mechanism that allows the county commission to bond out small (less than $20 million) projects that have guaranteed funding from sources other than property tax, and build them sooner. It prohibits is from funding a jail or courthouse, and we can only use no more than 60% of the defined revenue streams for bonding purposes. Those streams can be SPLOST, rental fees, fines, impact fees; anything but property taxes. The PFA was something I was originally against 4 years ago, because the safety measures above were not in the original proposal. I led the way to get them in the latest version. Last year, we passed the PFA 4-1, with Commissioner Ledbetter voting against. Since the creation of this authority needs to be done through an act of the state legislature, they require a unanimous vote from the BOC. Obviously, they rejected our request last year.
Now comes 2008. Linda Ledbetter is still against the PFA. If you go to this link:
http://www.forsythco.com/video.asp?wmsInstalled=True&MeetingType=BOC&VideoPath=boc_archives&ProperName=Board+of+Commissioners&ShowDate=BOC+02+07+08+part1&NowPlaying=BOC+02+07+08+part1.wmv&Submit2=BOC+02+07+08+part1

and move the slider to the 41:00 mark, you'll see where Linda began by reading a statement against the PFA. But keep watching, especially beginning at the 45:30 mark on the video. This is where I begin my argument to change Linda's mind regarding this issue. Note that Sheriff Paxton helps by supporting my facts. Note that I now have the Sheriff and I agreeing on something in public, which is very rare. Then watch until the final vote is taken at the 53:00 mark. Yes, that's right. For all those complainers out there who think that I can't get anything done because I don't have the ability to bring people to my side of an argument, note that Linda Ledbetter changed her vote because of my argument and the Sheriff's agreement with it.

Take that, you naysayers!

The PFA passed 5-0, and this county should be able to move forward in a fiscally responsible maner once our legislature acts accordingly.

Next comes the decision on the WalMart stream buffer variance request. This is any easy one for me, because when you net the whole argument out, WalMart can build a standard size store on that site without any buffer variances. None. In fact, they can build a larger store than they were going to agree to build if the county approved the variances, without that variances being granted.

So why give them a variance?

Charlie and Jim claim that the conditions that WalMart was willing to agree to (smaller store, different design, limited delivery hours, etc.) made up for the variance request and makes the project better. Maybe so, maybe not. But that is not our problem, that is WalMart's problem. I think that they will do what is right for that community because if they do build there, they'll want that community to actually shop there. If WalMart chooses to build on that site, I think that they will be just as good a neighbor without the government forcing them to be. Given the choice between government interference and non-interference, I'll choose non-interference any time. The stream buffer variance approval by the Appeals Board was overturned 3-2, with Brian and Linda joining me.

If you do watch the whole video, you'll see we also had a great deal of fun during that meeting. Part of it is from the high still being felt by the overwhelming support of the SPLOST and greenspace bond earlier in the week, but part of it was also that we just have a lot of fun with staff and some issues, without forgetting that while the business may serious, we don't always have to be.

9/20/2007

Wellstone, UDC and County Manager in one night

I'm not done figuring out the motivations of some of the members of this county commission, and last night just added to the mix.

The Wellstone re-zoning was interesting, to say the least. The attempt to re-zone the Lanier Golf Course into a mixed use mish-mash of continuing care retirement homes and single family dwellings went down in spectacular flames on a 5-0 denial. My objection to it was simple and consistent; if an activity center is supposed to be placed at the intersection of two major roadways, and those roadways do not exist in that area, then an activity center is not the proper classification for that area.

On a side note to the "editors" at the FCN: You have no right nor justification to give advice to this board of commissioners on how we should vote on any subject. Your "editorial" this past weekend was a laugh riot when coming from an ethically-bereft board such as yours. Gentleman, clean up your own house before trying to give unsolicited advice to us. WE took the oath of office to follow the law - you didn't. And we don't need to be reminded by the belly-crawling likes of you to do our job according to those oaths.

Now on to the UDC changes. Most of the requested changes I can live with, especially since they are ones I have suggested for years. I was willing to approve all but the changes in Chapter 8, which describes a very new and very controversial process for re-zonings to follow. Those changes were specifically not approved by the Planning Commission last month due to their controversy and their degree of difference between today's process and the proposed process. But for some reason, both Charlie Laughinghouse and Jim Harrell wanted to pass Chapter 8 over the objections of three other commissioners, and refused to consider any UDC changes being passed without Chapter 8 being included. It got to the point where Jim even withdrew his motion to approve the entire set of changes since there contained an amendment that deleted the changes to Chapter 8 - kind of like taking his marbles and going home because he didn't like the game all of a sudden. I remember this same commissioner speaking about extending the residential re-zoning moratorium saying that it is better to get changes done right, rather than changes done quickly. The changes excluding Chapter 8 could have been in place today, and the re-zoning moratorium could have been lifted, and the lower densities and larger lot sizes in the new UDC could have been in effect with no problems whatsoever, yet for some reason two commissioners wanted to pass a new process that has holes in it and contains recirculating fees for every change. I just don't get it. Anyway, we'll discuss Chapter 8 at our first work session on October, and hopefully everyone on the board will be happy with the final product. Meanwhile, the moratorium is extended another 60 days.

Now to our new County Manager. I hope this works out, but I'm not very hopeful. The forces that came together to appoint her over other interested applicants is still puzzling to me. I think there are too many people who want to see anyone in that position, rather than a fully-qualified person in that position, and those people acted in their own best interests over those of the county's in the long-term.

On another note, it is a shame that $5,000 of taxpayer money was appropriated last night to paint an historical mural in the lobby of our administration building. I'm a big fan of history, but not when it comes to the fleecing of Forsyth County taxpayers in order to fund it. The Founding Fathers of this great nation are rolling over in their graves this evening, and three commissioners should have known better. Kudos to Jim Harrell on his voting with me to try to stop this attrocity to Constitutional principles.

All in all, an exciting night whose actions will not be truly felt for months or years to come.

9/7/2007

What's going on here?

There are some things I could have predicted tonight, but having a former county commissioner lay his hands on me and threaten to hit me if I moved to postpone the agenda item to annoit Rhonda O'Connor as our new county manager was not one I could have predicted would happen. Nevertheless, it happened. Unfortunately for me and him, it happened in my office with the door closed, so charges will have to wait for a more public display, hopefully one that will never occur.

Needless to say, Brian Tam and I moved to postpone the decision for two weeks, since I just received the contract via e-mail today (It was apparently available yesterday, but I didn't check e-mail), and I wanted some time to look over the final contract which had revisions made to it just this afternoon. I think I can be allowed time to review a contract before I make a decision on spending the county's money, even if other commissioners (and former commissioners) are hot to get this appointment made. Of course, the question becomes why is this appointment so darned important to so many people all of a sudden? Why is my decision to protect Forsyth County from what I consider a bad appointment a cause of such a violent reaction in some? And why is it that some people think that my friendship with Charlie Laughinghouse is more important than what I consider to be the best interests of Forsyth County? Are commissioners supposed to vote their conscience, or are they supposed to vote their friendships?

I vote for conscience every time.

We'll let the other fact that the soon-to-be County Manager bailed on us after the vote went south tonight lay low for the time being. However, when the going gets tough, I expect an appointment of that level to face adversity better. As I stated earlier, I have high standards for the people I work with.

Now, to the rest of the meeting. It was a very long one, to say the least. Six hours and 10 minutes long, and chock full of public hearings.

The ones that come immediately to mind are the alcohol revocation hearings. I have sat in judgment on about a half dozen hearings since becoming a commissioner regarding second violations for selling alcohol to minors twice in a 24 month period, and in all cases, we've suspended the license of those violators for 30 days. Yet for some reason, the message isn't getting through to the rest of the community, because it keeps on happening! And it seems to be increasing! So tonight, we had the misfortune to have two revocation hearings that were not only in District 4, but were on both ends of my street. This means that the two nearest stores to my teenage daughters have both been guilty of selling alcohol to minors.

I am mindful of the financial implications of shutting down beer and wine sales at convenience stores for 30 or more days, but the message clearly isn't getting to the rest of the proprietors in the county. I tried for a suspension of 60 days, but the board compromised on 45 days for the first one. On the second one, I thought the accused had a reasonable excuse for the second violation, but the rest of the board wanted consistency, and we voted to do a 45 day suspension as well. I hope this message gets heard loud and clear about this seemingly growing problem in Forsyth County.

Other than that, lots of variance requests tonight, many of which were postponed. But the business of District 4 continues to move forward without needless delays.

8/4/2007

City Extortion or Extortion City?

Extort - To obtain by coercion or intimidation. The slang version is shake down.

Now, maybe I don't have a PhD like one of my colleagues on the board has, but I know the definition of extortion without having to consult the American Heritage Dictionary - but I did it so that the readers of this site didn't have to. It s a shame that the rest of my fellow commissioners either don't know the definition of the word, or they simply chose to allow themselves to be the victims of the act. Needless to say, their willingness to be extorted has cost the county $8.3 million dollars of SPLOST money. Money that we could have used to improve intersections or roads on a list of projects that are rapidly becoming unfunded due to the increase in materials. Actually, I take that back. It isn't SPLOST money we had to pay out; we don't have any. We had to take money out of county reserves to pay the shake down artists across the street.

Now before some people get their knickers in a knot about name-calling, let's first see if my accusation is accurate.

Fact: The City and County entered into an agreement in 2002 to jointly fund two SPLOST projects - Pilgrim Mill Rd. from SR 9 to Freedom Parkway and Buford Dam Rd from SR 9 to Sanders Rd. There is NO disagreement on this.

Fact: The City would be responsible for their portion of each road; that is, what is in the city limits is the city's responsibility, and what is in the county is the county's responsibility. There is NO disagreement on this.

Fact: At the time of the agreement, the city's portion to widen Pilgrim Mill Rd. to four lanes was estimated and agreed upon to be $2.2 million dollars. The county's portion of Pilgrim Mill Rd. was estimated and agreed upon to be $10 million dollars. Our portion was much higher due to the overpass on GA 400 being rebuilt. There is NO disagreement on this.

Fast forward to 2007. The city is in the middle of constructing their portion of Pilgrim Mill Rd., which is now down to three lanes instead of four. The construction costs for this project have ballooned exponentially due to the city's mistakes and general ineptitude regarding lack of due diligence when first estimating their project. All of a sudden, they don't have the money to finish their portion of Pilgrim Mill Rd., both due to those cost overruns and their overspending of SPLOST dollars to acquire property for an aquatic center / college / armory.

What is the city to do?

Well, when you don't have the ability to raise money on your own, you have to find a way to steal it from someone else. The easy mark - we call them pigeons - is just across the street at the county administration building, and the legal counsel for the city is now engaged in what can politely be called "creative lawyering". Most people would call it "fiction". Some people would call it dog squeeze.

In creative lawyering, $2.2 million is not $2.2 million, and $10 million is not $10 million. Now, $2.2 million is 18% of the total estimated cost of the project, and is now the percentage that the city is responsible for paying. And since the city is only on the hook for 18% of the total cost the county, therefore, is obviously responsible for 82% of the cost of the project - regardless of how much the city has overspent! Now that makes sense to you, doesn't it?

Fact: No language exists in the agreement specifying percentages of responsibility. None. The 2002 agreement specifies dollar amounts only. If you read the FCN, you'll get quite a different story, because they recite the city's lines word for word.

However, this is where the disagreement begins. The city makes a giant leap of illogic to come to the conclusion that the INTENT of the agreement was to separate responsibility into percentages, when no such language exists. Now here is where the extortion comes in. The city wants to hold the county to the creative interpretation of the 2002 agreement, or they will sue the county!

Remember the definition - To obtain by coercion or intimidation.

Extortion? You bet.

Now the readers of this site get to put themselves into the chairs of their respective county commissioners. You'll also get a little help here. The only legal opinion in the room of county representatives that even remotely thinks that the city's interpretation of this agreement might be plausible is that of the "independent" arbitrator hired to mediate the two parties. Yet for some strange reason, four commissioners buy into that opinion. Two can be readily explained away. They have voted to give the city everything asked of them for two and a half years. But what of the other two?

It is not my question to answer. As voters and residents, it is your job to ask the question of them. Some might say they simply wished to divorce the county from the city regarding this agreement; but wouldn't a legal judgment from the bench do the same thing, and save us far more than $8.3 million dollars?

Remember that the facts are presented above. The agreement is available for anyone to view upon request. See if you can interpret the agreement as the city has. If you can, maybe you are a candidate for a PhD.

The city has just extorted $8.3 million from your county government. Shame on them. And shame on four commissioners who allowed it to happen on their watch. People shouldn't be asking why I was the only commissioner to vote against the settlement.

People should be asking why there weren't more.

4/8/2007

It doesn't get any better than this

Always entertaining, the Forsyth County Commission continues to provide the best and worst of elected officials. It is up to the reader to decide who's on which side of the ledger.

First, the Etowah HCP came up for a vote. While I am receiving some praise for voting against the resolution of approval, I think that some folks didn't listen to what I said on Thursday night. I like the HCP in principle. It is good preventative maintenance for the Etowah region. If it were to come to a final vote tomorrow, I'd likely approve it IF (and that is a BIG if) we could make some local decisions about how to implement some things, and not implement others. I had a big issue with passing a meaningless resolution of support. It would be the same as if we were asked to pass a resolution of support for a ban on gay marriages - whether you agree or disagree with the idea, a county commission simply has no say in whether a ban like that could be implemented. It is the same with the Etowah HCP. We don't really have a say in this. The federal government will tell us whether we will participate or not, and will do so whether we choose to participate or not. My hope is that we can make some meaningful changes to the plan before it is implemented.

Either way, the plan has enough questions about it that I'd like to see some changes made before I vote for it.

But one of these days, someone is going to have to educate Linda Ledbetter on just who can amend the Endangered Species Act. You would think that someone who has taught government in our school system for as long as she did would know that only Congress can amend a federal law. Apparently, she was out that day when they taught that part in class.

Now to the residential rezoning moratorium. Kudos to both Brian and Linda for not playing games with our rules and postponing the discussion and vote on Thursday. While I was not surprised to hear from industry representatives from the Greater Atlanta Home Builders and the Council for Quality Growth come out against the extension, it was surprising to hear from a couple of the same commissioners talking about no need to continue the moratorium.

Let's face it; anyone who comes right out and says that the infrastructure study that was recently presented to us wasn't compelling enough to extend a moratorium is just flat-out from another planet. They're Klingons. They don't think like you or me (or maybe not at all). Thank goodness three of us do think about these issues. The moratorium was extended on a 3-2 vote.

Some folks say that we didn't do anything during the first 90 days. Excuse me? What do you think the infrastructure study was? You think our staff just stood around and threw a couple of facts on slides at the last minute? Of course you haven't seen any recommended UDC changes being presented during this time, because we needed to have the final results from the survey before we could make reasoned changes to the plan. I'd also like to see our Land Use Map updated to reflect as-built densities instead of zoned densities before moving forward as well.

My goal is to see this process done right. If it has to be done slowly in order to get it right, it will be done slowly.

3/17/2007

What will the naysayers have to say about this night?

A couple of trends have begun to take shape as this new commission matures into the heart of 2007.

First, we're getting a bunch of things done that previous commissions either failed to do, or never thought to do.

Our staff completed the first-ever Infrastructure Study of roads, water and sewer in this county. How can you know where to go, if you don't know where you're at? We now know where we are, and have a pretty good idea where we need to go. The big challenge facing us now is what gets prioritized, and where are we going to find the funding? Our staff did a phenomenal job in a short time to put together all this information, and they deserve our thanks, and yours as well.

We've started the budgeting process BEFORE we have to set the millage rate. What a concept! For years, we did just the opposite. How can you know what to set your income level to, if you haven't decided what you need to spend first?

We're working WITH our local legislators and state DOT representatives, not trying to go around them, and the results will be seen shortly in some better funding for some much-needed improvements in the county where state roads are concerned.

A majority of commissioners are actually following their campaign promises (for the most part). Hey, no one is perfect!

I'll get to the next trend that is taking shape after I summarize and explain the John Wieland decision made this week. I don't think there is any need to go over the details of what happened in the first place, as that has been detailed on this website and in the dino-media as well. Mr. Wieland's people in the Weston subdivision have been working diligently over the past 2 months to make the two homes in question safe enough for me and our Fire Chief. This past Thursday morning, a gaggle of folks came out to test and inspect two home sprinkler systems installed at John Wieland's suggestion, and the fire rating changes mandated by the BOC when the variance was granted last December.

All county and Wieland people left those homes Thursday satisfied with the changes. It should be noted here that Mr. Wieland has put approximately $45k to $60k worth of improvements into these homes in order to correct the problem their former site manager created in the first place. Some folks wanted the ultimate penalty of forcing Wieland to tear down a house; I got a solution that kept that from happening and still penalized them for their transgression. And it fulfilled the primary role of government which is to provide for public safety. Frankly, when you can get opposing lawyers to agree that it was the best solution possible, you've done a very good job. I'll take those kudos any day.

So I moved to withdraw the agenda item I created that would have rescinded the variance approval wrongly passed by the previous board. The motion passed 3-2, which gets to my second trend.

Anyone trying to figure out how this new board is going to vote is beginning to have a tough time doing so. I certainly can't, and I'm one of the five! Linda Ledbetter voted to approve the variance last December, yet voted against the withdrawal of the agenda item this Thursday that would have kept the variance in place. I've voted for stream buffer variances that make sense, Charlie and Jim have not. I've voted against densities that didn't have good justification, while others have voted for them.

Basically, the 3-2 majority for the past 4 years, with Jack Conway, Marcie Kreager and Eddie Taylor voting in lock-step (against the wishes of the voters, I might add), and Jack, Brian Tam and Linda Ledbetter doing the same, has been replaced with 5 board members that vote independent of one another. Makes it kind of tough to figure out how some folks are going to vote, since a few of them lack a consistent philosophy, but we are all standing on our own votes right now, and not tying ourselves to a voting bloc as has been done in the past. We can question all day long about the motivations behind certain commissioner's votes, but at least they aren't punching someone else's ticket - only their own.

I wonder what all those who decried the change to a 3-2 majority the other way are saying today. Representative government is SUPPOSED to be like this. O brave new world!

3/2/2007

Two steps forward, one step back

As I usually get the contents of this website thrown in my face by Linda Ledbetter, this column should absolutely enrage her. However, the rage should be from the taxpayers and citizens of Forsyth County to share with their commissioner from District 5 after this last meeting.

First, let's go through the less important actions of the board towards Forsyth County last evening. Commissioner aides were eliminated as of April 6th in order to give them some extra time to find employment elsewhere in the county, should they desire it. Now, all citizens will get what they voted for, and we'll see if the two commissioners in question are up to the task, especially since you now pay us three times what you did last year.

I also had to rescind a re-zoning vote by the previous commission last night, because the use was against the land use map, and in my mind, was a spot zoning and the thin wedge of commercial in a commercial-free area of the county. As usual, three commissioners of principle voted to rescind and then deny the re-zoning, and the two usual suspects did not. Will the land use map ever have any real meaning to Commissioners Tam and Ledbetter, or will they continue to use it only when it suits their purposes for over-development and bad planning?

We also passed a much-needed resolution to send to our delegation in Washington D.C. to let them know we don't want to see our election process federalized, and have costly mandates passed down to the states without proper funding. Watch the video of the meeting to see Linda Ledbetter try to justify her vote against that one.

The worst vote of the evening belonged to (again) Linda Ledbetter. I know you are all shocked to read this. At some point, maybe Ms. Ledbetter will begin to pay attention during the last 2 years of her term of office; perhaps some of the details are missed when you have someone doing the lion's share of your work. No matter.

What does matter is that the resolution and accompanying legislation authorizing a Public Facilities Authority passed on a 4-1 vote last night. So why am I complaining about Linda Ledbetter's vote? Because enabling legislation pretty much requires a unanimous vote in order for our legislative delegation to move this forward, especially when one of our delegation already doesn't agree with it, (even though he hasn't yet read it - but that is another story for another time).

Anyway, for those of you who have not been paying attention to what the Public Facilities Authority would do, it would allow the BOC to issue bonds to cover road improvements, parks and other capital expenditures in order to build them now by the use of those bonds, and pay back the bonds with SPLOST or impact fee revenues. In other words, no more waiting 5 years for costs to escalate on road projects to where we no longer can afford to complete them. No more waiting for 5 years to have enough money in which to purchase land for more parks and recreation. No more waiting 5 years to build that fire station or sheriff's precinct when it is needed now.

All that could have happened, if not for the lone negative vote of Linda Ledbetter.

This bill had enough restrictions on the use and scope of money that even I, the small government member of the commission, was happy with it. Mainly because it would have saved taxpayer funds, and it would have improved our infrastructure far faster than we could have normally done so.

But now, the only means by which this commission can catch up with the overburden on our infrastructure has been killed with a stake in the heart by your District 5 commissioner, Linda Ledbetter. To add insult to injury, she enthusiastically voted to approve this measure just last year when Jack Conway was pushing it. Go figure.

So when you commuters out there are sitting in traffic waiting for an intersection to clear, remember who is keeping you sitting behind the wheel. When you moms and dads out there have no parks to send your kids to in order to play soccer or football, remember the lone commissioner who is responsible for that. When the fire truck takes 8 minutes to get to your home while your loved one is in the middle of a heart attack and every minute counts, remember to say thank you to Linda Ledbetter for that delay.

The next time you have a complaint about the overcrowding in this county, call Linda Ledbetter first. She's the one who helped Jack Conway and Brian Tam pass non-conforming high-density re-zonings for the past 2 years, and didn't lift her finger to fix her own problem. One of these days, Linda Ledbetter will pay attention; I hope it is soon, because this county can't afford to have many more days of her inattention.

2/1/2007

John Wieland gets it - Commissioners Tam and Ledbetter don't

Two rescissions and reconsiderations were on the agenda this evening. One for John Wieland Homes regarding a variance to the setback between structures, and the Jay Land helipad issue.

Mr. Wieland has been very gracious and forthcoming in trying to get this problem behind us. He has put together a process that his people are to follow when getting inspections and site approvals accomplished in Forsyth County so that this mistake doesn't happen again, and more importantly, he has gone out of his way to meet my requirements for fire safety in these two homes.

Today, he agreed to install residential sprinkler systems in both affected homes, hopefully within a month, conditioned that the Fire Chief will certify that the homes have been modified to his specifications. Mr. Wieland did this voluntarily, through no suggestion on my part.

Mr. Wieland is, in my mind, a stand up kind of guy after all. He gets it, and I appreciate his efforts to make these homes as safe as they can be. This decision has been postponed for a month in anticipation that he will have this work completed by then.

While Mr. Wieland gets it, my counterparts from Districts 2 and 5 do not.

Ignoring a solid legal opinion from our county attorney (who, by the way, is the only person out of the six of us who actually has a law degree), they refused to vote for the rescission and subsequent denial of the Jay Land helipad. Not only did they ignore legal counsel, they ignored our Director of Planning and Development and our own UDC which outright forbids helipads in agriculturally zoned property. In short, they knowingly and willingly violated their oath of office this evening by voting against the denial of the conditional use permit.

Maybe it's me, but if I'm going to consider a legal opinion from someone, and have a choice between a legal opinion from Linda Ledbetter or Ken Jarrard, I'm sticking with Ken Jarrard.

The good news is the helipad was overturned and denied on a 3-2 vote.

We also approved an overlay district for the 141 corridor, which was long overdue and desperately needed, but not before Linda Ledbetter insulted the entire county of Gwinnett.

On another note, the termination of commissioner aides item was postponed by both Linda and Brian making a motion and seconding the motion. According to our rules, they can do this for only two consecutive meetings without a vote, but they are just delaying the inevitable, and not doing their aides any favors. My motion was to terminate the aides contracts as of March 1, 2007, and I intend to stick to that date. If they persist in postponing this issue until that meeting, and we vote to terminate them on that date, their aides turn in their access cards and keys that evening. No transition. If they allow the vote on February 15th, at least their aides get two weeks of preparation and transition. You'd think that maybe their commissioners would have this figured out.

I hope they don't think I'm changing my mind on this one. That would be an unfortunate miscalculation on their part.

1/5/2007

Happy New Year!

OK, so maybe I'm a couple of days late, but the new year really began last night at the first meeting of the new Board of Commissioners. As many of you may have already heard, this truly was the heralding of a new day in Forsyth County; not some phony announcement before the backstabbing and campaign reversals began two years ago.

The difference in just two years is truly astounding. In just one short meeting, actual campaign promises were fulfilled as a result of real legislation being passed - What a concept!

I promised voters two years ago that I would open the commissioner's meeting room again, and with the help of new chairman Charles Laughinghouse and Commissioner Jim Harrell, we did it. The People's building is back in the hands of the People again. Check off campaign promise # 1.

Next, the new majority promised to manage and slow growth in this county. Last night, we passed a 90-day residential re-zoning moratorium, with an option for 90-days more. This only halts acceptance of new applications, doesn't stop building what is already re-zoned, and still allows those applications already in the pipeline to move forward, but no new applications will be accepted until we inventory our county infrastructure and re-write our UDC so that it can be understood, complied with, and lowers building density. We are also going to re-do our Land Use Map to show as-built densities, not zoned densities. This is because some properties on the map show up as medium density as re-zoned, but have been built out as low density due to changes in plans.

It might take 90 days, it may take 180 days or longer, but we will not move forward with new re-zonings until we are satisfied that managed growth policies are in place that will rescue this county from the throes of the rapid growth at any cost majorities of the past. So check off campaign promise # 2.

The new majority also promised to remove the rules that the past majority had written to stifle commissioner input and create a more powerful chairman and un-equal commissioners. The first act last evening was to undo all the changes written in by past boards and level the playing field again for all commissioners. Many people think we have been more than fair in our insistence that equality should reign on this county commission, rather than subject the new minority to the same treatment they did to us for years. Every commissioner was elected by the same voter pool, and every commissioner deserves equal treatment. We also changed public comments to allow all 10 slots to be filled before we take up business in order to get as much public input as we can. Check off campaign promise # 3.

In other meeting notes, two out of three rescissions are still scheduled for the first meeting in February; the Jay Land helipad and the John Wieland Homes variance. The Jay Land helipad has taken on a whole new twist, with the arrogant Mr. Land actually moving forward and building his helipad in complete defiance and ignorance of my public statement issued prior to his approval last month letting him know he would do so at his own financial risk. My sincere condolences go out to Mr. Land for his obvious serious hearing loss suffered over the past 3 weeks, as nothing else could explain his disregard of my warning, except for a galactically unbalanced ego. Mr. Land proves once again that developers of his ilk think that they can do anything they like in defiance of our rules and laws because they are above them. I hope this board shows him otherwise on February 1st.

On the other hand, I had a very frank and open dicussion with Mr. John Wieland himself last night concerning his dilemma, and he has promised to provide me with written processes that he will be putting in place to make sure what happened in his community will not happen again. He knows that providing those does not mean I won't still recommend a rescission of that variance, but it shows another side of the development community than does the arrogance of Mr. Jay Land noted above.

Oh yeah, Charlie Laughinghouse is your new commission chairman, I am your new commission vice-chairman, and Jim Harrell is your new commission secretary. What a night!

Happy New Year!

12/8/2006

Arrogance, Blackmail and Capitulation

The title of this piece is appropriate, because much was made of knowing your ABC's during the recent campaign. First of all, I apologize for not updating meeting notes as often as I should. There were certainly other times when I could have. But last night was a first for a couple of reasons.

Let's move to the arrogance side of the house. Not that the majority of commissioners on this Board in the past 2 years haven't been arrogant, but this time they have gone too far, and have now done so with your money. Last night on the consent agenda (which I remind Linda Ledbetter is supposed to be used for non-controversial items - just as she claimed during the time between she won her election and took office), the majority placed two items for approval. These were the contract amendments for the administrative aides for Brian Tam and Linda Ledbetter.

Why did these contracts need to be amended?

Because the majority, led by Brian Tam and Linda Ledbetter, don't want to do the work necessary to be a county commissioner. They knew that their having personal aides was a campaign issue that many voters took exception to, and figured that the new majority would move to terminate personal aides in 2007. After all, as one commissioner has said "It took 3 votes to hire them, and it will take 3 votes to fire them". So Brian and Linda, with the willing co-operation of Jack Conway (whose term cannot end too soon), thought that they could blackmail the incoming commission into keeping their personal aides by amending their contracts to include a severance pay clause which guarantees them a full year of your moneyif they were to be terminated without cause. That amendment, passed last night 3-2, will cost Forsyth taxpayers $89,000 next year to pay for people who will not be doing a lick of work for you, all because of the arrogance of this current majority.

Why will this cost you $89,000? Because I will not submit to blackmail of any kind. They were wrong in thinking that this latest action will keep us from terminating the administrative aide program in 2007. I have no beef with the people doing the work today; they are good people who, in some cases, do some exceptional work making their commissioner look much more intelligent than they could otherwise look. But the overriding principle I believe in is that if you are elected to the position of county commissioner, you should actually DO THE JOB! Not some un-elected bureaucrat. This is especially important if you were the three who voted in a hefty 3x raise for yourselves to begin in January of 2007.

So in January of 2007, I will make the motion to terminate the administrative aide program immediately. Call Brain Tam and Linda Ledbetter to complain about this one, because they caused this misuse of taxpayer funds in the first place.

Now to the capitulation. The majority of commissioners like to talk tough, but they never quite seem to actually do anything about builders who violate our codes and come to us asking for forgiveness when they do. The latest violator is none other than John Wieland Homes, who should know better. This time, they built two homes 6 feet apart, when the separation should have been at least 10 feet. They were told that there was an issue with the separation early on by county staff, but we did not issue a stop work order at the time, apparently thinking that Wieland would correct the issue and move forward.

Apparently, John Wieland Homes thinks that it is better to move forward and ask for forgiveness later, than to do the right thing. The home is virtually completed now, and the issue is still that the homes are too close to one another. To be certain, the folks at John Wieland are very apologetic about this, and the site manager has been terminated for his mistake. Our inspector has been terminated for his failure to issue a stop work order at the time of notice, among other things.

But the homes are still too close for fire safety reasons.

That didn't seem to phase the majority of commissioners, however. I think you all know by now who I'm talking about. Needless to say, when the going gets tough with these three, the tough capitulate. So on another 3-2 vote, they pass the variance request.

But it doesn't end there.

You see, we are in the last month of a commission term, and the ability of votes to stick are now in play. We have a new majority coming on board in January who are not so willing to forgive these types of transgressions. So I issued a statement before taking this vote, and on another vote taken previously last night. In essence, it goes like this:

" I believe that this request is not in the best interests of Forsyth County, and if passed by the majority tonight, I am announcing my intention to rescind this vote at the first meeting in January of 2007. I am also putting the developer on notice that if they move forward on this in any way, they do so at their own financial risk".

The lame duck majority has now been officially neutered. Every re-zoning that comes before us in the month of December will be subject to this statement of intent, so everyone reading this who has one in the hopper for December had better figure out how to get their re-zonings into conformity with our UDC and Land Use Map, or any approval will be short-lived, and the rescission will stand up in court.

I expect to get full support from my fellow members of the new majority in January, so you'll be able to see that this new majority cannot be blackmailed and will stick to their campaign promises. Unlike the outgoing majority.

1/11/2006

No, the world hasn't ended

Last night was our first meeting of the year, and as such the commission gets to vote for commission officers for the ensuing year. Last night, I voted to keep Jack Conway, Brian Tam and Linda Ledbetter in their current positions. I'm sure this pleased the three to no end, and I'm sure that Jack will use the unanimous vote to point out the "support of his colleagues" or some other phrase. Now before some people think that Jack and I are going to start swapping Christmas cards, understand this: Last night was not the time to pick a food fight with the rest of the board. Jack, Brian and Linda wanted their second year of notoriety, and no amount of effort was going to change that vote. I have other fights I need to win for the taxpayers of this county in 2006, so I let this unimportant vote pass.

As I have written about before, last night was the night to vote on an ordinance to control the way large-scale retail behave when coming into Forsyth County. When the original proposal was presented, I was intrigued by it's simplicity and it's design. It wasn't perfect, but it could have been tweaked to make the ordinance what it was supposed to do; make the rules very easy to understand as to what big-box retailers needed to do to come here. After all the changes, deletions and attempts to wreck the ordinance from members of the board beholden to the developer lobby, the ordinance was effectively gutted, and is of no real practical use. Since a bad law is worse than no law, I voted against it. It still passed 4-1.

We also voted to correct a problem in our UDC for a family who needs constant care in their home, and our code didn't allow a care-giver to live in a trailer on-site to provide that care. Our code demanded that the elderly couple live in the trailer, and the care-giver live in the home. Not to go too deeply into this, but it wasn't designed for this, and is a prime example of too many laws without understanding the consequences. I bring up the whole matter in these notes, because if you watch the meeting, you'll see Linda Ledbetter NOT wanting to let these people do what they want with THEIR property, and not 30 minutes later, announce that she doesn't like telling a commercial property owner in another district what they can or cannot do with their property. Responsible governing requires you to be consistent. People cannot trust the judgement of other people who cannot be true to their principles.