County Commissioners Beginning Important Decision Making Processes

By Sid Riley

4:00 Workshop on Tuesday


At Tuesday’s afternoon workshop meeting, the Jackson County Commission demonstrated their collective management abilities as they moved forward on two critical issues in our county.
The first and perhaps most controversial issue relates to the management of the Compass Lake Municipal Services Taxing Authority. At present the county operates under a contract agreement with the Compass Lake Property Owners Association to manage the use of the tax monies generated through the taxing authority for that development.
Tax revenues for Compass Lake are approximately $856,000 per year. From that money and various other revenue generating functions the Property Owners Association is charged with the responsibility of providing normal municipal services such as security, fire protection, roads maintenance, and other municipal services. Through the years several issues and allegations of mismanagement and misuse of funds have created much conflict and disagreement between the involved groups. At this county commission meeting, the commissioners began to address this situation.
Commissioner Branch, who is the board liaison with the Compass Lake POA began by stating that in his opinion the county must place security and fire protection for the residents of the development as a prime responsibility. Because of this he recommended the County to cancel its existing contract with the POA and begin to take over management responsibility for the development at Compass Lake in the Hills.
Branch related how the initial contract was apparently designed to enhance property sales and development of Compass Lake In The Hills. He stressed that the contract as written did not provide enough safeguards and conditions to ensure proper use of the funding and provision of the required services. He feels it would be appropriate for the County to begin to correct the situation and provide the needed monetary controls and services.
Since there are several legal issues which must be resolved before the county can take this action, Chairman Lockey instructed County Attorney Baker to do due diligence and provide the needed legal guidance to the Commission for future action by the Board.
The second issue placed before the Commission at this workshop meeting was the issue of the county embarking on a more meaningful paving program designed to convert highly traveled dirt roads across the county into paved roads.
The Commissioners agreed that approximately $3 million dollars per year could be utilized for resurfacing and new paving. Approaches were discussed for deciding paving priorities, allocating new paving projects appropriately between the five districts, and packaging the contracts for each paving cycle in order to lower overall costs.

At present, the first road on the “roads to be paved” list is Sylvania Plantation Road, followed by Butler Road. At the next regular meeting in February the Commissioners hope to take definitive action on the new paving program.