Plans to update county comprehension plan underway

BONIFAY – Hilton Meadows presented his recommendations for rewriting the Holmes County comprehensive plan before the Board of County Commissioners during their regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday morning.

Meadows informed the board that the comprehensive plan needed to be rewritten in its entirety due to the fact that it hadn’t been updated in the last 10 years, contained laws that are no longer in effect and do not include new laws that have gone into effect in the last 10 years.

“Quite frankly the current comprehensive plan is sorely outdated,” said Meadows. “There are many issues that have been presented to the board within the last few years that could’ve been easily resolved if the comprehensive plan was compliant with the current standards, especially involving land development regulations.”

He said many county development issues areproblems is because the county doesn’t have a comprehensive plan all their own.

“What’s happened is the planning council turned around and pulled something from the shelf and just changed the name from Walton, Bay or Jackson County to Holmes County and said this is what the county needs,” he said. “Margin notes are full of pencil marks, question marks and underlines because when someone comes in they’ve got to shoot from the hip; we’ve got to have our own plan.”

Commission member Kenneth Williams voiced his concerns being that the county paid for the same services and the county is still missing over $30,000 worth of updated maps.

“What I want to say is that I wouldn’t pay for anything till the work is done,” said Williams. “If I had it more together and applied the same principal then, then I would have my maps or I’d have my $30,000.”

The Board approved of having the matter tabled until County Attorney Brandon Young could look over Meadow’s proposal.

The Board also approved awarding the engineering construction bid for Sandpath Road to Anderson Columbia and the construction bid for County Road 162 to Jones Construction.

Chairman Monty Merchant said that he is meeting with landowners to continue progress on the 911 mapping road name request.

Also approved was the SHIP agreement with the Tri-County Community Council after being tabled at the last meeting.

The retiree returning to work policy was reviewed and approved as well as the gifts, bequests and donation policy.

“Some retirees are returning to work and they have to do so before July 1, otherwise they will have to wait a year,” said Merchant. “

Even though donations are given to county departments they still technically belong to the county.”

The Board approved the Recycling Center’s request to allow one part-time employee to become full-time.

Board member Phillip Music requested putting out bids for a backhoe for District 3 and the Board approved on the grounds that FEMA was going to provide the funding.

The Board approved the proposed settlement to settle the matter with the Department of Environmental Protection at the Holmes County Fair Grounds regarding failure to obtain DOE clearance before planning a collection/transmission system into operation. Merchant said the systems is up to required standards.

Due to the recent step decline in the Building Department’s budget, the Board agreed to set up a budget workshop to help the Building Department with its budget.

Board member Ron Monk said that he’d found an inexpensive way to pave some roads at $162 a load and 12 loads per month, the Board approved allowing Monk to try this new method for a couple of months to see how it works.

Music received permission from the board to clean out a ditch and research possible culverts to prevent flooding to an elderly, wheel chair bound man’s house from flooding.

Merchant also wanted to thank all the donations given by Board members to the Wild Game Expo in Ponce de Leon.

“I must say it was quite a success,” said Merchant. “It’s good to see the community get together like that.”

Also approved were all consent items, including: Feb. 23 workshop, executive session and regular minutes; miscellaneous appropriations agreements for Council on Aging and Holmes Creek Soil and Water Conservation; SHIP Satisfaction of Lien – Lois Duffell.