Arrowflinger Al
August 3, 2021
Good morning. It’s Monday, August 2nd, 2021. Over the weekend, I got a letter from the County Attorney, Ben Jackson, of Lincoln County,
(video is interrupted by Lily, the ever-vigilant beagle!)
(Video resumes).
It’s Monday, August 2nd, 2021. Over the weekend, I got a letter on his own letterhead, from Ben Jackson, attorney at law, who also happens to be the county attorney, but it didn’t reference that fact. So I don’t think the letter should have even been opened. When I saw it I kind of laughed.
You see, I didn’t send a letter to Chairman Norman, I sent an appeal via certified mail, care of the Planning Department of Lincoln County, to the Planning Commission Chairman. That’s what a citizen is entitled to according to the ordinances of Lincoln County, Georgia. So, the letter he wrote was not from the Planning Commission Chairman. It didn’t set up an appeal time, which is supposed to be 15 days, but therein lies the problem, doesn’t it? Because last month, the Planning Commission met on Tuesday, and the County Commission voted on the subject matter, the Crooked Bridge subdivision, on Thursday.
So how you fit a 15 day appeal time into two or three days is a little bit interesting. I don’t think that a judge can fit 15 days into two or three.
So that’s the matter at hand: what are the rights of appeal of a citizen, when the public works director makes an adverse decision? Now, for the Planning Commission members that see this video, I’d like to call your attention to your minutes of the June meeting, in which a citizen showed up at the meeting and had a complaint against the Public Works Department and its Director, and was told by that Director that she did not have any right to speak, that any complaints against his office would have to go to the Lincoln County Commission. But that’s not what the ordinances of Lincoln County say. It says any citizen has the right to appeal to the Planning Commission Chairman. So I hope that the Planning Commission will take a good look at this video, go back and look at your ordinances, and see what they say.
For another thing that I shouldn’t even discuss here, I guess, because of the inadequacy of that letter to meet my appeal, is this: in his letter, the County Attorney made special reference that I was wrong because the exemption that they were citing would occur when you were zoning or subdividing non-residential lots into multiple residential lots. But he’s got a little bit of a problem, because there’s a table in there that specifically lists the residential districts. The residential districts include A1, A2, A3, R1, R2, and R3. So, Mr. County Attorney, I suggest that you might read the ordinances and maybe you’ll see what I’m talking about when I’m saying Lincoln County needs to overhaul the whole book of ordinances and do something right for its people for a change.
Have a good day.
