Page 2A March 20, 2019
iR I3orter
A Forsyth woman was cited for failure to maintain lane
after falling asleep and crashing into a man stand-
ing on the roadside and breaking his leg on Tuesday.
Vieishuia Henderson, 24, of Forsyth was traveling on
North Lee Street behind Dairy Queen when the ac-
cident happened. Inv. Alexander Daniels of the Forsyth
Police Depai:tment said Henderson fell asleep, left the
road and struck 21 -year-old Chris Jackson, who was
standing on the shoulder talking to his grandfather. They
had stopped to help a family member who had been
stopped by police for an unrelated traffic citation. The
son of Monroe County Battalion Chief Wesley Jackson,
Jackson was taken by Monroe County EMS to a Macon
hospital for treatment.
!
To Residents of Monroe County,
purpose of this letter is to inform Monroe
County residents of the actions your County
Commissioners took throughout the process of
the re-zoning of the proposed slaughterhouse
on Hwy. 42 South. I have been told to give up the fight
because the Agricultural Commissioner of Georgia has
backed this project. The process began with the condi-
tional use zoning of agricultural property. A few concerned
neighbors came together and requested some conditions
be attached to the Slaughterhouse operation, if approved.
On November 6, 2018 the commissioners approved the
slaughterhouse 4 to 1 to with conditions. I drove to the
zoning office a couple of weeks later to get a copy of the
final conditions that we agreed to. The Monroe County
zoning officer, Anita Buice, told me the conditions were at
the attorney's office being reviewed before final approval. I
found out later that these conditions don't go to the attor-
ney to be finalized. The minutes from the meeting just have
to be approved by commissioners and this makes them
official. The minutes for the November 6 meeting were
approved by commissioners on December 20. At this point
the concerned residents, Mr. Egloff (applicant), and the
commissioners have entered into a contract. These condi-
tions are considered legally binding.
I am not going to go over all of the 17 conditions agreed
to, just the ones that that have become issues so far.
Building
The Building will be approximately 8,000 square feet situ-
ated 700+ feet from the road and resemble a metal barn/
storage building. There are numerous structures in the area
that are approximately the same size and are doser to the
road.
intended on allowing Mr. Egloffto use well water until
county water was available. Again please refer to the ap-
proved condition above. Does it say ANYTHING about
using well water until county water is available?
At this point I have been told by Mr. Rowland that they
were not going to tell Mr. Egloffthat he can't open up until
county water is run out to this location; so they were going
to allow him to use well water until the county ran water
out here. Our main concern with this is that once he is al-
lowed to hook up to a well, there is no tugency whatsoever
to run county water out here anytime soon or possibly ever.
During the November 6th meeting, Mr. Rowland offered
to use SPLOST money to extend county water to the area
but this is not a fast or easy task on a state highwa) Some
residents present at this meeting were not too thrilled with
this offer simply because they have been begging for water
for years but it's never been seriously considered. Now the
commissioners are willing to run the water to accommo-
date one individual.
I retained an attorney who sent Mr. Egloff a letter stating
that if he does not abide by the conditions that he agreed to
that there will be further legal action taken. Things seemed
to have settled down for a little while and then "daughter-
house minutes clarification" was added to the agenda for
the March 5 meeting. Oh by the way, it was added on the
afternoon of March 4 so no opposing party was notified.
Myself and one other opposing property owner happened
to find out about it and were able to attend.
My attorney put together a memo to advise commis-
sioners that they cannot make substantive changes in a
condition of zoning by merely "`clarifying" the minutes.
This memorandum supplied precedent from the Georgia
Supreme Court to back this up.
It was assumed that Mr. Egloff would be required to use
the same blueprints that the com-
missioners approved in the meeting.
These blueprints were included in
the original notice to neighbors for
the conditional use application and
called for a 7500-square-foot slaugh-
terhouse. As I looked at the building
permits for December in the Mon-
roe County Reporter, something
caught my attention. Mr. Egloffhad
been issued a building permit for
10,858 square feet. I went directly to
the building department to ask how Craig Martin says he doesn't want
this is possible and ended up being his girls next to a slaughterhouse.
deferred to none other than the
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zoning officer Anita Buice. I informed Mrs. Buice that Mr.
Egloff has been issued a building permit in direct violation
of the approved conditions. At first she said she didn't even
have the approved minutes yet until I explained to her that
I had a copy of them in my hand. She insisted that he was
not in violation because planning and zoning only counts
heated and cooled square footage and the building depart-
ment counts complete "under roof" square footage. Please
refer to the actual condition pertaining to this above. At
any point does this refer to heated and cooled anything?
No it doesn't!!! It says the BUILDING will be 8,000 square
feet. This is where it gets interesting. How is it you can
send notice's out and have commissioners approve one
set of blueprints that shows 7,480 square feet but submit a
blueprint to the building department for 10,858 square feet
and its be issued with no questions asked? Mr. Rowland
explained to me on the phone it was miscommunication
and compared it to a carport or porch on a house. THIS IS
NOT A HOUSE. THIS IS AN INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.
Mr. Rowland told me that he, County Manager Jim Hedges,
and others reviewed the recordings of the meeting and
agreed he needed to stick to the 8,000 square feet total that
was agreed to in the conditions.
Water
Water use will be high and should be supplied through
the county water system and not from wells so as not to
impact neighboring water supplies.
Bear with me here. This one is a little more involved. This
was one of the most important conditions on the list, if not
the most important. People look at you funny when you
speak of a well going dry but it is a possibility. As a matter
of fact, one of the individuals that authored some of the
conditions had a well go dry a few years ago. And that was
before anyone even heard of a slaughterhouse coming to
the area.
I spoke at the meeting and handed out the memorandum.
I was informed that they do this all the time and sometimes
these things need to be revised. I
pointed out to the commissioners
that the time to revise them is after
the meeting and before they are ap-
proved. Again, the meeting pertain-
ing to this was on November 6th and
the minutes were approved on De-
cember 20. I also want to point out
again that I was told by Anita Buice,
the zoning officer, the first attempt I
made to get a copy of the conditions
that they were being reviewed by the
to raiseattorney. If they were reviewed at all
by any attorney with no changes or
recommendations then why do they
still need to be "revised?"
The commissioners already had the amended conditions
done, Mr. Rowland simply read them aloud and they voted
to approve. Mr. Tapley and Mr. Evans were not present.
The amended conditions allow Mr. Egloffto use well water
until county water is available.
The Driveway
Mr. Eglofftold the residents, and more importantly the
commissioners, that he had approval for a driveway for this
facility from the Georgia Department of Transportation.
This facility will be located on a state road and any drive-
way must be approved by the state. After the November 6
meeting I took it upon myself to call the GDOT to verify
Mr. Egloff had the approval as daimed. I was shocked to
hear that my phone call was the very first they had heard of
Mr. Egloffor this project and there was no application or
approval for a commercial driveway for the slaughterhouse.
Yes, I said commercial. You see, the GDOT considers this
commercial, the Monroe County building department
considers it commercial, and any insurance on the facility
will be commercial. The only party that thinks it is not a
commercial/industrial facility is the Planning and Zoning
department.
According to a recent news broadcast, Mr. Egloff met
with the commissioners to discuss the "clarifications"
to the conditions that were agreed to by all parties and
approved by the commissioners. So Mr. Egloffmet with
commissioners with NO opposing representation invited
or present and then proceeded to change the minutes
as they saw fit. Does that seem right? Is this how we as
citizens and
conotituents expect to be treated? I expect this
from Washington, but I like to hold my local officials to a
little higher standard maybe I am wrong and should just
expect a politician to be a politician and nothing more.
During my conversations with Mr. Rowland about the
square footage of the building, I asked him what the plans
for water were. He informed me that the commissioners
Thank You,
Craig Martin and concerned residents of Monroe CoUnty
County road crews have cleaned this graffiti off the May-
field Road bridge, and officials say they have suspects.
e
e
'We don't want to ugly up our
county like that.'- Junior Wafts
By Will Davis
pubhsher@rnyrncr.net
Monroe County au-
thorities say they have
four suspects in the case of
graffiti spray painted on the
Maytield Road bridge over
the Towaliga River.
Monroe County road su-
perintendent Junior Watts
said they discovered the
graffiti on the concrete wall
of the bridge on Monday,
March 11 and cleaned it off
using a 4000 psi pressure
washer on Tuesday. Watts
said he's talking to county
code enforcement officer
JeffWilson about the case
and they do have four
suspects.
"If you know these peo-
ple" said Watts, "it doesn't
take a rocket scientist to
figure out they did it"
Watts said they will ad-
dress the suspects aggres-
sively.
"We don't want to ugly
up our county like that,"
said Watts. "It's unneces-
sary and uncaUed for and I
won't tolerate it"
Have questions about Medicare?
Do you qualify for help with
prescription drug cost or Medicare?
Please feel free to earl me and I will gladly answer
any of your questions. I represent over 20 plans
and will always give you honest and unbiased
answers.
There's never a charge for Services!
Terry Martin
Independent Agent
Specializing in Medicare Health Plans
Medicare Advantage & Part D Plans
Medicare Supplement Plans
tatmart 40@yahoo.corn [
Local Agent - Bolingbroke, GA
f ~1, ,
