By Stephen Smoot
Last week, the Pendleton County Commission held its first meeting of the month of July. Commissioner Roger Dahmer opened with a prayer that included a plea for rain and a request “to guide our words and deeds.”
Carl Hevener, Pendleton County Commission president, began the meeting by sharing a concern that he had. It related to “an issue down at the community building parking lot,” specifically large trucks using it.
“We spent good county money to repair that lot,” Hevener went on to say. He suggested prohibiting large trucks from using it with the exception of emergency vehicles.
Rick Gillespie, Pendleton County Emergency Services coordinator, suggested that signs read “no commercial truck parking” to clearly allow for vehicles used by the Franklin Volunteer Fire Department and other county emergency services. He also informed the commissioners of the existence of “a huge crack coming up through the helipad.”
Later in the meeting, he provided an update on the Seneca Rocks tower’s progress. The project needs to find a contractor to put gravel on the access road and a driller to help work on the foundation.
After a discussion concerning a proposed water study covered elsewhere in this edition, Dahmer read a proclamation provided by Matt Monroe, executive director of the Pendleton County Farmland Protection Board.
The proclamation acknowledged that statewide, the Farmland Protection program’s “perpetual conservation easements” had set aside “over 44,000 acres of agriculturally important farmland” and worked “to control urban expansion.”
Mike Alt, Pendleton County Emergency Rescue training officer, was asked about operations, to which he replied “things are still going good.” He also reminded the commission of the desire to schedule a working group session on spending state aid for emergency services.
Karen Pitsenbarger, Pendleton County administrator, shared progress on the courthouse annex – of which little had occurred. “We were on a roll for about two days,” she said, adding that another obstacle had formed. This newest issue came in from the United States Department of Agriculture, from whom the county would obtain a loan to construct the building, requiring verification from at least two private sector banks stating that they cannot match the interest rate offered by USDA.
“I already got the letter saying they (the bank) cannot match the interest rate,” Pitsenbarger said. The building contractor, Omni, told Pitsenbarger that they had never seen USDA do this over a courthouse annex.
Hevener replied, “So Omni’s no help because they’ve never had to deal with this before?”
To which Pitsenbarger said, “It’s not Omni’s job . . . I’m picking my way through it the best that I can . . . apparently it’s a new thing.”
In further business, Hevener received reappointment to the Solid Waste Authority.
Pendleton County received its Payment In Lieu of Taxes from the federal government. The county received $361,905, approximately $51,000 more than last year. Payment In Lieu of Taxes is money given by the federal government to local governments with federal lands within their jurisdiction. The money replaces funds that would otherwise be paid as property taxes.
