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Work
session adjourned quickly after debate heats up By Don Hendershot A Feb. 18 work session between the Macon County commissioners and the Visions 2025 committee was shut down quickly after it turned into a spirited debate. The session was scheduled to begin the review process for the county’s proposed zoning ordinance. By the time the meeting got under way at 5 p.m., the meeting room at the Human Services building was jammed with well over 100 concerned citizens, some spilling out into the hall. The meeting began orderly with Visions 2025 chairpeson Roberta Swank telling commissioners she felt the committee had done its job. She said that after the draft ordinance had been made accessible to the public, Visions 2025 had participated in 18 public meetings. According to Swank, the committee had come away from those meetings with a list of recommended changes to the draft. Swank said the committee’s recommendation to the county board was that the commissioners take the plan and the proposed changes and, using whatever legal and planning assistance necessary, update the ordinance. “We all stand behind this plan,” Swank said. Highland’s realtor and 2025 member John Cleaveland told commissioners he was a proponent of zoning. “It works. It would raise everyone’s property value. I’ve lived with it for 40 years in Highlands and we have the highest property values in the county. This ordinance is the very minimum you could have and still have an ordinance,” Cleaveland said. Milles Gregory, another Visions committee member, agreed with Cleaveland. He said the ordinance was a very basic plan with only three components — corridors, high-impact uses and voluntary residential regulations. “It’s time to pass it or trash it,” Gregory said. The meeting quickly digressed, however, when Corbin opened the floor to the public. Several citizens had comments and questions regarding different aspects of the ordinance. Accusations began to fly back and forth, and one citizen in the hallway said the commissioners were communists and if they sent anyone on his property to enforce zoning they could create another Ruby Ridge. This gentleman received a round of applause from many in the meeting room. Mickey Duval, a former commissioner who has filed for the upcoming election, used the occasion for an impromptu campaign speech. “Let ‘em pass this ordinance. When I’m elected, we’re gonna repeal it,” Duval said. Soon after that Corbin adjourned the meeting.
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