Page 2 10 December 2004 A LOCALLY OWNED NEWSPAPER The Franklin Chronicle Franklin Briefs December 7, 2004 Present: Commissioner Cheryl Sanders, Chairperson; Commissioner Bevin Putnal; Commissioner Russell Crofton; Commissioner Noah Lockley, Jr. and Commissioner Jimmy Mosconis. The meeting was called to order at 9:00 a.m. and minutes for five previous meetings were approved. These wifl be posted on the county's website. The county bills were paid, totaling $1,867,293.05. The Board presented a Resolution commending Eileen Annie Ball for winning the New York Times Li- brary Award. Van Johnson, Solid Waste director, produced the pre- sentation of awards to Little League players. Extension Director Bill Mahan reported on a program featuring Alligator Harbor farm- raised clams at the Chamber of Commerce's Christmas Luncheon at the Gibson Inn last week. He also informed the Board on the continuing search for a boat ramp site. "I met with Seth Blitch from the ANERR last week in Eastpoint and looked at the Old Ferry Dock area as a possible boat ramp site, We went out at low tide and .didn't find anyplace that looked like it had enough water depth to be suitable for a boat ramp, I spoke to Pat Harrell with the Fish and Wildlife Commission yesterday about the Box R Boat Ramp Grant Application. She informed me that in the preliminary review and ranking of the proposals that we have been approved for funding ($275,000) and that we should receive written confirmation of the award by the end of the week. Ms. Harrell told me that our next step will be to develop a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the FWC and Franklin County." County Planner Mark Curenton presented the fol- lowing report to the Commission- ers: 1. There are still two vacancies on the Board of Adjustment: one regular seat and one alternate seat. Commissioners Lockley and Crofton will, submit nominations. 2. At the last meeting the Board tabledconsideration of avarianee for the portion of Lot 23, Alligator Point subdivision, north of Alliga- tor Drive. Dan Garlick is still re- searching the ownership issue on this property. 3. I have notified Mr. Sammie Simmons that the Board is look- ing into the situation where a county road was built across his property in Lanark. Copy of letter for the Board file. 4. The National Oceanic and At- mospheric Administration grant that is helping to pay for the de- sign of the Alligator Point beach renourishment has been extended until May 31, 2005. Copy of let- ter for Board file. 5. David Wilder is here with a re- quest to revise preliminary plat of Resort Village to move one lot from the Gulf side to the Bay side. The Board approved. 6. Rich Reeves has received the LAP agreement for Phase III of the St. George Island Bicycle Path from DOT. Funds for design of the path are available now, and funds for construction of the path will be available in 2007. The Board approved. 7. The second warranty inspec- tion on the St. George Island Landscaping project was con- ducted on Nov. 17, 2004. There were some plants that needed to be replaced. Island Home Land- scaping has been notified of the required warranty work, but so far they have not responded. I have a copy of the inspection report and Rich Reeves's letter to Island Home Landscaping for the Board's file. 8. There is more money available from DOT for landscaping projects in the County. Some resi- dents of St. George Island have suggested landscaping the east side of the causeway leading onto the island. Commissioners are to submit proposals and Mark Curenton will correlate them for a report to the Board. 9. The developers have submitted quit claim deeds to the County for the roads in Palmetto Village and Blue Heron Village in Eastpoint. I have the original deeds for the Counties file. 10. The County has received an easement to cross the Lanark Vil- lage Water and Sewer District property for our drainage project in Lanark. I have the original deed for the Board's file. 11. The County has received an- other pay request from C. W. Rob- erts for the Twin Lakes Road. This request is for $9,346.43. The Board needs to approve paying this amount as a change order to the paving program. The Board approved. Planning Consultant Alan Pierce presented the follow- ing report to the Commissioners: Preble-Rish, Inc. has been work- ing on parking improvements for the Health Department. At this time, two major improvements have been designed. One, a new parking lot behind Apalachee Mental Health clinic to assist with overflow parking from the Health Dept.'The Health Dept. would lose 9 on 12th St. but the would add 31, for a total' gain of 22. Two, a new parking lot right in front of Dr. Miniat's building that would remove his 12th St. parking. The total number of spaces for Dr. Miniat would not change. He has 10 on 12th St. that he would lose, but he would gain 10 in a much safer arrangement. With the con- struction of these two lots, the county would then be able to re- move all of the parking along 12th St. which is a traffic hazard. The Mental Healtn Clinic parking would be the same butt re-organized to close their curb%' cut. At this time, estimated cost of con- struction is $25,000 for the Men-, tal Health lot, and $10,000 for Dr.., Miniat. The county has not bud-, geted for either of these projects. One solution for funding Dr. Miniat is to re-evaluate his rental' payments and increase it since he will be the beneficiary of this new parking lot. The Board estab- lished a rental/lease arrangement for Dr. Miniat four years ago at-. $1200/month, which included the Board paying all utilities, and that arrangement has not been re-evaluated. The Board directed the County Attorney to contact. Dr. Miniat to ascertain his plans.'- FEMA has concluded their writer ing of Project Worksheets for hur- ricane damage. The final numbersL for Alligator Point is $229,446.51' for damage repairs, and , $116,955.46 for hazard mitiga--; tion, for a total of $346,401.47. Additionally, FEMA has informed the county that another $40,000 of hazard mitigation funds are available. These could be used on Alligator Point, or on some other'. hazard mitigation project. The Board has until April 15, 2005 to" submit an application. I recom- mend the Board, allow the new Emergency Management Director, to recommend a project, unless the Board has something now it wants to work on. The Board ap-, proved. .. The Board's legislative delegation, will be announcing its meeting date soon for the county.. Does the Board have any particular re-, quests they would.like to put forth to the delegation? One issue the, Board. should consider is a re- quest to have our delegation pur-. sue the state taking Alligator Point' Road. The Board has it something to offer now, however minor,. which is that the county has thep FEMA funds which could be spent, protecting the road before it is turned over to the state. Draft recommended response to ORC report.. Provide Board copy of proposed 'responses for most of the issues raised in the ORC re-, port. The three issues not ad-' dressed are: boundary for Coastal. High Hazard Area; St. James Is- land Overlay and related land use changes; and responses to other. proposed land use changes. I received a telephone call from Ms. Val Hubbard, DCA, last week about the meeting Chairman Sanders and I had with DCA back in November. Ms. Hubbard asked that I reiterate that DCA has not signed off on any issue or the wording of any response. But based upon that initial meeting, DCA believes the county is on the right track And did not need to- 'meet'aamn .on most issues until a wkTitten response was created& They liave not even seen this pro- posed response, and will not un- til the Board tells me, or some- one, to submit it to them. DCA still retains their legal authority to re- view the county's responses, and will retain that authority until a properly adopted comp plan is submitted to them and they re- view it for compliance. The purpose of the meeting the Chairman and I had, and any fu- ture meetings, is to get direction from DCA. Franklin County is try- ing to be responsive to the state's concerns. With the conclusion of Mr. Pierce's comments on the recommenda- tions to the criticisms by the Dept. of Community Affairs on the draft comprehensive plan, the discus- sion turned to a number of citi- zen comments about the planning process. Comprehensive Plan Discussion By Richard E. Noble December 7, was certainly an ap- propriate date for this months frst county commission meeting. The meeting was proceeding ni atter-of-factly, my boss was just starting to doze off, when sud- denly, without warning, the room exploded. Well, the room itself didn't explode but several people within the room certainly did. Quite obviously, there are a numn- ber of people here in Franklin 'County who are not happy with "the County's Comprehensive De- velopment Plan. First Allen Pierce stepped to the podium. He presented tothe Com- mission his preliminary re- sponses to the DCA's thirty-two, or so, criticisms of the County's initial Plan. Allen Pierce qualified his proposals' as a first response, indicating that most of the re- sponse material wasrouftine. "Let me repeat, and to the public here," he said turning to the audience, "this is not a complete document .. At this point'ladies. and gentle- men (speaking to Commission- ers), I want you' all to take'the policy decisions'without me inrter- fering. ' " Commissioner Sanders then pro- ceeded to defend Mr. Pierce's pre- liminary report once again' arnd then concluded; "Let's send this up there (to Tallahassee), see hdw DCA feels about it; if DCA do6h't like it, they can kick it back: or whatever. I don't have no problem with it." Allen Pierce then repeated that he did not want to interfere with the Commission or its policy making ability and requested to leave the rdom. As Mn 'Pierce readied him- self to leave the packed room, Commissioner Sanders went on with her defense of Mr. Pierce's preliminary response. Allen Pierce was half-way out of the hall when Commissioner Sanders and Com- missioner Mosconis hailed him down and asked him to remain- on account, it later became obvi- ous, that they did not want to go through the p'.'titii: abuse all alone. The fluo'.r %' then opened )up to the public b-yommlsic'ri,er Sanders. ;Mr. Dave McLain of the 'Apalachicola Bay and River Keep- ers Association was first in line to the podium. Mr. McLain, a mature individual-graying some- what-was very composed and presented his remarks respect- fully. I don't know If his face and neck are always that color red, but as he went about his busi- ness, I was privately wishing that the EMT workers had an issue this week. I have read in the past about Human Spontaneous Com- bustion but I had never actually seen an event of the phenomena. Mr. McLain first pointed out that there was no mention in the Commission's report of the sug- gestions made and recommended at any of the previous public hear- ings. Specifically: Documented Public Concerns * Preserve community character & quality of life. * Protect and preserve natural resources. * Require compatible land .use planning. * Establish concurrency and im- pact fees. * Develop affordable housing. * Enforce regulation of develop- ment. * Support viable commercial sea- food industry. * Support business and workforce development. Commissioner Sanders then asked Mr. McLain if he could pos- sibly. include in Mr. Pierce's state- merit his particular concerns..Mr. McLain explained that it was not simply his complaints or recom- mendations that were at issue. And tried to explain to the board that they were not living up to the basic requirement of the State with regards to Public input. 'The 'Commission promised the DCA that the public will be involved and the public is not being in- volved. " A debate 'ensued in which it seemed to this reporter that the Commissioners tried to explain to Mr. McLain that he and the pub- lic had already been consulted; or that he and all the people in the hall did not represent the public; or that Mr. McLain should not be worried that simply because he had not been listened ,to so far that this would coriniue to be the case in 'the fiiture.' Mr. McLain voiced a continuous response for,, What. understood to be, a request for an announced or publicized public meeting or meetings to discuss the, Compre- hensive Plan and its DCA criti- cisms. It was clear that the County Commission members did not share this desire. 'This is not an, adoption," repeated commis- sioners Sanders and Mosconis over and over. Extensive public input was man- datewth a consensus and a fi- nal consensus statement from the public-was the notion that Mr. McLain repeated over and over. Mr. Mosconis informed those pro- testing that we have "Two Master degrees ... both Allen Pierce and Mark Curenton have Master's Degrees in Planning." Mister Mosconis then invoked the Nixonian notion that he and the other Commissioners represented the "Silent Majority." "I look at this crowd out. there ... this does not represent the people of Franklin County," suggested Mr. Mosconis. . "'This is not the issue ... This is not the process as described by law ... Public hearings were man- dated," responded Mr. McLain. Speaker after speaker then were called to the podium; a doctor, a business man, a clam farmer and commercial fisherman etc. Most vocal among the speakers was the clam farmer and commercial fish- erman, a Mr. Van Lewis. Mr. Lewis voiced several opinions, none of which were overly flatter- ing to several of the county Com- mission members: He' accused past members of the board of not doing their job in a good many instances 'and jeopardizing the health of the community by not introducing a non-toxic method of mosquito control which he has recommended for the, past six years. He became niore and more animated in his statements and the police representative was ac- tually called forward to inform .him that if he did not quiet down he would be, removed. So ... was the "People's Voice" heard? That is difficult, to sgy. If Mr. * Mosconis is. correct, the.11 people" weren't even' really there.. If. Ms. Sanders is correct, the people have 'already been heard. If Mr. Pierce is correct this is not about . the people-at least not at this *point in the discussion. Will there be future public meet- ings on the Comprehensive Plan? Mr. Pierce's response was tabled until the. next meeting and Mr. McLain was asked to include his suggestions into Mr. Pierce's Re- sponse-in the appropriate lan- guage by the next meeting. So, in conclusion, all that I, can say is-TO Be Continued!. WAKULLA PORTABLE BUILDINGS 3771 Crawfordville Highway, 2 Miles South of Traffic Light, Crawfordville, FL (850) 926-8215 ori (850) 926-2664 / ^ Located at the intersection of 319 & 98, Medart l 1 l t r 8 Serving Wakulla and Franklin 8"50--9266 81 Counties Since 1986 The oldest and most trusted 3140 Coastal Highway body shop Crawfordville, FL 32327 Fax: (850) 926-6182 Insurance Claims Welcome WRECK HECKT www.mikespaintandbody.com MV #12153 S'5 Tree Service, LLC LICENSED & INSURED $300,000 58 FT. Bucket Truck & Chipper Tree & Limb Removal, Etc. 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