Note: All documents were pulled from the12/17/2024 Agenda Packet located on the Columbia County Government Website at 9PM on 12/15/2024.
Edit 12/17/2024 11:07AM: Name of Commissioner Couch’s nominee confirmed.
I was checking out the Meeting Agendas for both the school board and the commissioners last night. The School Board decided to reschedule their meeting to the same night as the Commissioner’s Meeting, Tuesday 12/17/2024. I may have muttered “you’re killing me, Smalls” under my breath when I saw it but I’ll just record the school board’s live stream. My notes from the School Board may be a little late getting out though. The School Board will start having public hearings about HB581 soon so keep a lookout for those. Although it's not on the agenda for the commissioners, HB581 was discussed extensively at the Planning Advance meeting back in November that took place in Athens, GA.
The Commissioners have a large consent agenda so I took a look at the packet fo12/17.(For those that don’t know, the consent agenda is bundled together and voted on -usually approved - with no discussion.) Two things jumped out at me buried under “3. Development and Planning Services Committee.” The Commissioners are dissolving the Greenspace Advisory Board (H3d). It says that “the Committee is no longer the preferred method for securing community feedback related to the greenspace, trail network planning, or the acquisition of property.” Since it’s on the consent agenda, there will be no discussion, such as what is the new preferred method for securing community feedback or are they just not interested in securing community feedback? I dug a little deeper and watched the video from the 12/10/2024 Columbia County Board of Commissioners Development and Planning Services Committee. Here is a transcript from that video:
Scott Stirling: Resolution 24-47 to dissolve Green Space Advisory Board. This board has been in effect in this county for nearly 25 years. It was initially created as part of the State mandated 20% Open Space act that they put in place in the early 2000s. Initially that was State-funded in part. It quickly became unfunded. However we will still take advice and advisement from the general public on Green Space matters but we just feel this is an opportunity to gather that info the way that we have been over the last several years and that is through public hearings, public interaction, community, Board of Commissioners as well. We feel at this time this is probably a good opportunity to dissolve this board and proceed to *muffle* practice. Staff is recommending approval of Resolution 24-47 to dissolve the Green Space Advisory Board.
Melear: Move to Consent
Skinner (I think): 2nd
*motion carries*
My opinion: The advantage of having a Green Spaces Board is that you have a group of individuals who are organized and paying closer attention to the issue surrounding the Green Spaces. One would hope that the board would consist of individuals with various levels of expertise and community involvement regarding these spaces, but it could also just be political appointees with no qualifications other than to push whatever political narrative the Commissioners want at the time. However, it’s more seats at the table to advocate for the maintenance and preservation of these spaces. Public hearings are nice and all, but then it’s just individual voices that are easily blown off by County staff and the Commissioners in favor of the economic interests of the developers in the community. Sometimes the public might not even be readily aware of the public hearings depending on how closely they pay attention, and often, our local media coverage is heavily influenced by a lack of resources available to them and the owners of those publications. I think this item should at least be moved to the Debate Agenda. Why are we quietly disbanding the Green Spaces Board right before the holidays with very little discussion? The intent may not be nefarious but it feels like a sneaky underhanded covert attempt to dissolve this board by how it’s being dissolved.
The next item buried in there are the appointments to the steering committee for the 5-year update to Vision 2035. The steering committee is to serve as a sounding board and also provides input throughout the process. I looked up some of these folks online just to get a sense of who they are with easily accessible online information (i.e. LinkedIn, social media, public articles in the media, etc.) I include notes below. Some folks I couldn’t find any information. Alison Couch’s nominees’ name is misspelled so it should be “Sarah MacDonald.” Connie Melear nominated her son for the steering committee which is interesting. It also appears that the builders and developers are well represented.
Doug Duncan: Russell Wilder (business owner), Joe Edlemon (Chairman of Columbia County Republican Party)
Connie Melear: Jim Cox (political consultant, Columbia County Development Authority), Bryce Melear (Connie’s son and insurance agent since June 2023)
Don Skinner: Carroll Proctor (I think Martinez..?), Troy Akers (Asst Professor, Medical College of Georgia)
Mike Carraway: Mike Wiltse (Chairman 12th Congressional District @ Georgia Republican Party), Tiffany Heitzman (Home Builders Association Executive Officer
Allison Couch: Sarah McDonald, (actually Sarah “MacDonald” - Executive Pastor of Quest Church in Grovetown), Chris Hermann (Appling resident, Business Owner)
Chamber of Commerce - Russell Lahodny (CEO)
Development Authority - Cheney Aldridge
Fort Eisenhower - (Blank)
Board of Education - Steven Flynt (Superintentendent)
Developers: Jonathan Crawford (Southeastern, Development), Keith Lawrence (Meybohm, Director of Development
Discussion:
Stirling: One last housekeeping item - it’s part of the Vision 2035 comprehensive plan 5-year project that we are underway with. We typically create a steering committee. So what we did last time was we had a very robust steering comittee and we thought that was a little unwieldy at times. There were a lot of members. We had upwards of 35. We think a little pared-down version of that will still be effective but yet provide the feedback we need to help guide that process. So what we wanted to ask for was 2 appointments from each of the Board of Commissioners, and then the Chamber of Commerce, Development Authority, 2 folks from the Development Community, we think get the school board on as well, and I’m in talks with Fort Eisenhower to have a representative on the board, but what you have here before you is a partial list, but we have filled in some of the other names for the Chamber, Development, Board of Education, we have those names. We would ask that you approve that and forward that to the Board of Commissioners for final approval. Staff recommends approval.
Melear: I move to approve
Duncan: 2nd
Skinner: So the other names will be added?
Stirling: We’ll fill them in between now and Tuesday. I think we have a couple of them that we just need confirmation on.
