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Wednesday, March 12, 2014 –11:00 a.m.
Courthouse Annex, 79 Jackson Street, Zebulon, Georgia
1. CALL TO ORDER…………………………………………..Chairman J. Briar Johnson
2. INVOCATION………………………………………………………………Ben Maxedon
3. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE……………………………….Chairman J. Briar Johnson
4. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA – (O.C.G.A. 50-14-1 (e) (1))
5. ORDER OF BUSINESS: Discuss updates regarding Pike County Ordinances.
a. PRESENTATIONS BY COUNTY ATTORNEY/COUNTY MANAGER
County Attorneys…………………………………………….Rob and Tom Morton
County Manager………………………………………………………..John Hanson
6. COMMISSIONERS’ COMMENTS……………………..Districts 1, 2, 3, 4, At-Large
7. FINAL COMMENTS…………………………………County Manager, John Hanson
8. ADJOURNMENT
Agenda subject to revision
All five commissioners are present as well as County Clerk Jo Ann Wrye, County Manager John Hanson, and County Attorneys Rob and Tom Morton. Also present were Planning and Zoning Director David Allen.
The first reading will be in March. There will be a 2nd reading in April. Planning Commission will review this on Thursday. They presented a 19 page summary of changes between 2012 through 2013 so they can review this before it comes before them. There was a workshop in January on this. Much of this is clerical changes and formatting errors as well as code changes as we bring the code up to date.
If the public wants to look up an ordinance, they will be able to access an updated code book on the county website located at www.pikecoga.com and be able to read this when the process is complete. Currently, there is a 2012 list of updates and a 2013 update list of updated items. The animal control ordinance is listed under 2014 so it can be accessed by the public, but it has not been added to the official code book yet. This has been a long process with a beginning in 2010 that went all of the way back to 2000 where there was research of ordinances and minutes to ensure that everything was accurate.
The intent is so that the public and public officials can access an updated code book. Commissioner Bass suggested that any changes that are approved during the year can go to the web and see this. Consensus to make this policy.
CM Hanson will be here 6 months as of June 30th and the county is going to need to finalize a contract in conjunction with the budget process. Consensus to do this.
There was a list of items that needed to be done that was given to CM Hanson by the Mortons when he came into this position. The financial policies needed to be reviewed so they could either be followed or deleted as well as implementing some new policies such as those with the use of county credit cards. Vending machines were addressed and need to be addressed in the financial policy changes. Financial policy changes in general as well as spending limits. This was their top priority.
Other changes to Personnel Policy need to be addressed in 2014. Personal time is an area that needs to be addressed. The grievance procedure and the appeal procedure need to be separated. This Personnel Policy needs to be addressed in general. Everything goes to the county manager now. Commissioner Jarrett said that this is flawed because the county manager could be the problem and asked that this be addressed. She said that she doesn’t foresee this being a problem but said that it was based on years of following county government and it needed to be addressed.
The CAP program for asset replacement in the county needs to be addressed. This process has begun but we need something that is workable.
Job descriptions need to be looked at including Jennifer Gilow’s position in the BOC office. It was a part-time position before and now it is full-time.
The finalization of the chipper needs to be addressed since Keep Pike Beautiful is inactive.
The settlement and consent order is a done deal on the Magistrate Court case as of the past week.
The landfill meeting with the consultants will include an assessment program that is acceptable to the EPD for the next two years. They will also be sending a 2 year budget plan to the commission for this work for the upcoming work session as well.
Then County Attorney Rob Morton walked through specific code sections and asked for consensus from the commissioners on each section. Commissioners want the ordinances to be clear so that the ordinances are easily understood and not open to debate or in need of defense. [Note from the Editor: I stayed for a little over an hour of this meeting and headed out to lunch. There was a time that I was afraid to miss a meeting because I did not know what would be added to the agenda and passed when the citizens and the media were not looking. It is SO nice to have faith in this commission that they will not pull any shenanigans like that! It is also nice to see everyone working together with the county manager for the good of the county. Things have been quiet of late and when I think back to what used to be, I am very thankful!]
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