Christian Peterson
reporter.riverbendnews@gmail.com
On Tuesday, May 21, the Suwannee County Board of Commissioners met for its regularly scheduled meeting. The meeting began with the approval of the minutes from the previous meeting. The board then turned to hear public comment, to which there was only one response. Keith Broaders announced that he would be hosting a constitutional class. The board then turned to its consent agenda, pulling one item for further conversation before approving the rest of the consent agenda.
The pulled item was the approval of appointments to the Value Adjustment Board. The board required two county commissioners as regular members, one county commissioner as an alternate, one citizen as a regular member and one citizen as an alternate. After some discussion, Commissioners Travis Land and Franklin White were selected as regular members, Commissioner Maurice Perkins was selected as the alternate and Commissioner Land was made chairman of the board.
The board then moved on to staff items. Fire Chief Eddie Hand requested the board and community's thoughts and prayers for Dixie County Fire Rescue, as they had recently suffered the loss of a battalion chief. He also told the board that Suwannee had offered to help out the department as they recuperated from this loss. Deputy Sheriff Buddy Williams then stood up to speak, thanking the board for approving the body scan system for the sheriff's office, as it had already identified diseases early in some deputies.
The board moved on to the commissioner items next. Commissioner Don Hale thanked the rest of the board for approving the Suwannee River Water Task Force. Commissioner Perkins announced that in a few weeks there would be an informational meeting regarding a federal assistance grant available to farmers. It was then County Attorney Adam Morrison's turn to speak. He told the board about an issue regarding the gate along the Suwannee River, on Suwannee property, yet owned by Hamilton County. Morrison explained that the gate was used by both counties and this problem had only recently been realized. He asked how the board would like to proceed, whether to leave the gate where it was or move it. The board decided that since it had never been an issue before, there was no reason to make a change and elected not to do anything.
Morrison then brought up the county's current policy of taxing a fire assessment against vacant property owned by churches and other non-profits. He continued explaining that the county had regular issues with these entities not paying the assessment, specifically because the bill was being sent through the Tax Collector's office, and most of the entities assumed they need not pay the bill, as they are exempt from taxes. The board discussed the issue, and discovered that no longer assessing would lose the county a maximum of only $5,000, though it was stated in the meeting the number was probably closer to $2,000. The board elected to stop charging the fire assessment, and to retroactively reimburse any payments for the assessments going back five years.
The board then moved on to general business. The first item was a discussion on whether to make June 19, Juneteenth, a paid county holiday. After some discussion, and the reveal that every paid county holiday cost the county $74,000, the board elected to make a proclamation declaring the day a holiday, but unpaid.
County Administrator Greg Scott was then given the floor. First, he told the public that the county was doing debris pickup from the recent thunderstorm, in which county roads right of ways would be picked up between May 28 and June 7. He also announced that the county was starting budget preparation and were reviewing county equipment that may need repairing or replacing. After some closing comments from the commissioners the meeting was adjourned. The next Suwannee County Board of County Commissioners regular meeting was held on Tuesday, June 4, at 5:30 p.m. Check back on a later edition of the Riverbend News to read about the meeting.