Concerned Citizen Speaks Up at Fannin BOC Meeting
Featured Stories, News November 27, 2014 , by Derek RosasBLUE RIDGE, Ga – After a concerned citizen spoke about his lack of confidence in the board of commissioners and county animal control, a couple of new pieces of proposed county legislation were introduced at the November 24th Fannin County Board of Commissioners meeting.The meeting opened with public commentary as citizen James Bond told of an incident he had been involved with concerning, what he saw as, the negligence of county animal control and the board of commissioners.
Bond stated that he had recently seen a dog, that he believed was suffering from neglect, residing at an empty home at the meeting of Madola road and Mobile road. After several attempts trying to reach the county animal control, Bond was finally responded to by animal control by saying his concern would be addressed in order of priority.
After a couple of days, Bond said that he didn’t believe the living conditions of the dog had changed. So, he decided to contact the BOC and Sheriff Dane Kirby.
Bond still never saw a change in the dog’s living conditions and took it upon himself to begin providing food and water for the animal.
Bond ended his commentary by stating that he believed nothing was ever done because one of two reasons: either animal control, the sheriffs department, and the BOC don’t care about the well being of the animal’s well being or no one is adequately trained to address the situation.
Next, citizen Joe Webb continued the on going conversation of the rewriting of the county legislation. (Read this article to learn more about the rewrite: Rewriting Legislation)
The document is complete and has been presented to the BOC. The document has also been sent to different university systems to be reviewed to make sure all that is in the document is accurate.
Webb stated that he was very proud of the hard work that he and 12 other citizens had put into the document. He believes that the document will give the county a single document to look to for clarification on local legislation instead of having to filter through the several different documents that are in place now.
After Webb was finished, Post 1 Commissioner Earl Johnson spoke about a resolution he had county attorney Lynn Doss write that would allow all of the board members to be provided authority and information in certain situations so that the BOC could collectively make decisions instead of the responsibility solely falling on Chair Bill Simonds.
This idea came from the last BOC budget workshop where all the department heads were supposed to have been contacted so they could present their budgets, yet many said they were not informed and did not show up.
Johnson made the motion for the board to review and consider the resolution. He was seconded by Post 2 Commissioner Larry Joe Sosebee. Johnson and Sosebee voted in favor of reviewing and considering the resolution while Simonds did not.
Watch the full video of the BOC meeting below:
Fannin BOC from Fetch on Vimeo.