MINUTES
STATE
OF NORTH CAROLINA BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
COUNTY
OF HENDERSON JANUARY 6, 2003
The Henderson
County Board of Commissioners met for a regularly scheduled meeting at 5:30
p.m. in the Commissioners' Conference Room of the Henderson County Office
Building.
Those present
were: Chairman Grady Hawkins,
Vice-Chairman Larry Young, Commissioner Bill Moyer, Commissioner Charlie
Messer, Commissioner Shannon Baldwin,
County Manager David E. Nicholson, County Attorney Angela S. Beeker, and
Clerk to the Board Elizabeth W. Corn.
Also present
were: Planning Director Karen C. Smith, Budget and Management Director Selena
Coffey, Paralegal Connie Rayfield, and Deputy Clerk to the Board/Volunteer
Coordinator Amy Brantley.
Absent was
Public Information Officer Chris S. Coulson.
Chairman
Hawkins called the meeting to order and welcomed all in attendance.
PLEDGE OF
ALLEGIANCE
Commissioner
Messer lead the Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag.
INVOCATION
David Nicholson
gave the invocation.
DISCUSSION/ADJUSTMENT
OF AGENDA
Chairman
Hawkins added one item to Update on Pending Issues as #2 - ACommittee
Discussion@.
David Nicholson
informed the Board of the need to cancel one of our public hearings for this
evening. One of the requirements to do
a rezoning is to post the property.
Staff had posted the sign but the wrong time was included on the
sign. The rezoning hearing for Mr.
Nathan Benson must be postponed.
Angela Beeker
asked the Board to add one additional reason for going into closed session this
evening - (a)(3) consult with an attorney.
Chairman
Hawkins moved that the agenda be approved as revised. All voted in favor and
the motion carried.
CONSENT AGENDA
Chairman
Hawkins pulled one set of minutes from the consent agenda for revision -
December 18, 2002 minutes. On page 4
the motion states that item I be included in the consent agenda. Since the Board had already approved the
consent agenda, the County Attorney thought additional verbiage should be added
to include Ain the consent agenda for approval@.
Chairman
Hawkins moved that the consent agenda be approved as amended. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
CONSENT AGENDA
included the following.
Minutes
Minutes were
presented for the Boards= review and approval of the following meetings:
November
20, 2002, regular meeting
November
26, 2002, special called meeting
December
18, 2002, regular meeting *see
note above
December
20, 2002, special called meeting
Replacement
Bond for the Sheriff
Our public
official bonds are issued through Marsh, the insurance company associated with
the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners. Staff was recently notified by Marsh that
they have decided that the Sheriff needs to be named on an individual four (4)
year bond, rather than placed on the master bond with the other public
officials of Henderson County due to verbiage in the Sheriff=s statutes. This decision was a result of an
interpretation by Jim Blackburn of the NCACC, and therefore all counties using
Marsh are being asked to approve an individual replacement bond for their
sheriffs, rather than list them on the master bond.
The individual
bond in the agenda packet, therefore, had been approved as the appropriate
public officials bond for the sheriff in North Carolina by the NCACC. The verbiage in the individual bond is
virtually identical to the verbiage in the County=s master bond, and the amount
is the same C $25,000. The bond will be
considered effective as of December 2, 2002, the date the Sheriff=s re-election
was effective.
Tax Collector=s
Report
Terry F. Lyda,
Tax Collector, had provided the Tax Collector=s Report dated January 2, 2003,
for the Board=s review.
Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention Grants
The Juvenile
Crime Prevention Council (J.C.P.C.) recently revised the funding plan for
Henderson County. Therefore, a new
funding plan needs to be approved and signed by the Board of Commissioners to
reflect these changes. Additional funds
are being provided to two of our existing agencies. In addition, the J.C.P.C. is in need of more funds to pay for its
administrative expenses. All of these
increases will come from already allocated J.C.P.C. funds, which are received
for this purpose from the State of North Carolina. A certification revision form is required to be approved and
signed by the Board of Commissioners.
NOMINATIONS
Notification of
Vacancies
The Board was
notified of the following vacancies which will appear for nominations on the
next agenda:
1. Nursing/Adult
Care Home Community Advisory Committee - 1 vac.
2. Governmental
Financing Corporation - 3 vac.
3.
Henderson County Comprehensive Plan
Advisory Committee - 1 vac.
4.
Juvenile Crime Prevention Council - 1
vac.
Nominations
Chairman
Hawkins reminded the Board of the following vacancies and opened the floor to
nominations:
1.
Nursing/Adult Care Home Community
Advisory Committee - 10 vac.
Chairman
Hawkins informed the Board that positions # 5 and #18 were vacant and a number
of positions will come vacant during this calendar year. He asked Ms. Beeker to give the Board a
brief overview of how the appointments are made to this particular board.
Angela
Beeker reminded the Board that this committee is governed by the General
Statutes in its make-up and how the appointments are made. The General Statutes require that
approximately 1/3 of the members (designated positions) be appointed from
persons that have been nominated by a majority of the Administrators of the
nursing homes and community adult care homes.
The other 2/3 of the positions can be nominated and appointed per the
Board=s normal Rules of Procedure.
Ms.
Beeker distributed and reviewed ARevised Process Proposed for Use in Making
Appointments to the Community Advisory Committee@. This process had been written a few years back to help make it so
that all the Adesignated positions@ would be processed at one time
annually. Volunteers are to be
solicited during the months of December and January and a pool of applicants
would be gathered. Those names would be
circulated to the nursing home administrators so that appointments could be
made to these designated positions all at once rather than four or five times
throughout the year. Before one of
those designated positions could be reappointed, the nursing home
administrators would have to approve that reappointment as well. Ms. Beeker stated that the Board could
consider a change to the process because we really haven=t had good luck in
recruiting a pool of volunteers. If the
Board wished to streamline the process, they could take the pool requirements
out and continue to send the letter in January notifying the nursing home
administrators of all the vacancies for the coming year and give them 45 days
to make nominations. Once the 45 days
has passed, we typically don=t receive nominations and if that were the case
then you could go ahead and appoint normally, like you do to all the other
Boards. Ms. Beeker took the same
process and scratched through to revise it further as she had described
above. She distributed the newly
revised process for Board review.
Ms.
Beeker reviewed the revised process once again for the Board:
The
Board would be notified of the vacancies for the year. The Board would send a letter to solicit
nominations from the nursing homes. In
case there were people eligible for reappointment that were already serving,
include those in the letter. If no
nominations are received you could make the nominations and appoint. If nominations were received you would have
to go through the longer process.
Appointees serve an initial one year term.
It
was the consensus of the Board to approve the revised process.
Chairman
Hawkins nominated Bryan McDermott to position #18. There were no other nominations. Chairman Hawkins made the motion to accept
Mr. McDermott by acclamation. All voted
in favor and the motion carried.
2.
Zoning Board of Adjustment, Fletcher - 1
vac.
Commissioner
Messer had nominated Don Rhodes at an earlier meeting. He has talked with Mr. Rhodes and he is
willing to serve. Karen Smith had
determined that Mr. Rhodes was eligible to serve. Chairman Hawkins made the motion to accept Mr. Rhodes by
acclamation. All voted in favor and the
motion carried.
3.
Fire and Rescue Advisory Committee - 1
vac.
There
were no nominations at this time so this item was rolled to the next meeting.
PARDEE
HOSPITAL - CERTIFICATE OF NEED
Mr.
Nicholson had received a letter from Pardee Hospital requesting the County=s
assistance in their effort to seek a Certificate of Need for a third CT
Scanner.
Robert
Goodwin, President and Chief Executive Officer of Pardee Hospital, was present
to seek the Board=s support for certification for a third CT Scanner. Since Pardee Hospital is a county owned
hospital, the State requires that Henderson County be a co-applicant for the
Certificate of Need (CON) with Pardee Hospital. Application must be made to the State of North Carolina for the
CON. The third scanner is planned to be
situated near the new emergency room. The need for a third scanner is due to
growth in both volume of tests as well as growth in population. In the last
three years CT volumes have grown approximately 50%. The cost of the scanner is $1.6 million and the cost for
renovation for the scanner is $370,000. The Hospital will receive $200,000 due
to the generosity of the Pardee Hospital.
They will likely utilize a capital lease with a local financial
institution to lease the equipment and will fund the remaining balance of
renovations out of operating funds. The
Hospital expects to be approved between June and August of this year,
2003. Mr. Goodwin introduced Barbara
Platt who was also in attendance. She
is the Vice-President of Professional Services at Pardee Hospital. She is
administratively responsible for a number of areas in the hospital, one of
which is imaging and diagnostic centers. She was available to answer technical
questions.
Chairman
Hawkins made the motion to adopt the certification as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
2003
REAPPRAISAL UPDATE
Mark
Edney, Assistant County Assessor and Chief Appraiser, presented an update on
the 2003 reappraisal. He explained that
the appraisal was due January 1, 2003.
It is finished and the values are in place but notices will not be
mailed out until about the first week in February. By Statute all counties in North Carolina have to reappraise at
least once every eight years. In 1994,
the County Commissioners adopted a resolution to do it every four years. There were two reasons for doing so:
1.
To minimize the impact of the increasing
market values in this county
which are substantially high each year.
2.
To avoid the adjustment given to public
utility companies. In the fourth and
seventh year of a reappraisal cycle, if you=re
on an eight year cycle, if the assessed
value to sales price ratio falls below 90% you
have to give that adjustment to all the
utility properties.
A
large part of revenue is generated from those utilities. We also used to contract with an appraisal
firm to do a reappraisal. Since 1990
they have been done with in-house appraisal staff who are county employees and
county residents.
By
statute all properties have to be accessed at 100% market value. Mr. Edney stressed that appraisers do not
set the market value. Buyers and sellers of properties (homes and land) set the
market values.
The
total real property tax base will increase from approx. $5.7 billion to $7.1
billion, which is about a 25% increase.
About 5% of that would be growth or new construction. This does not mean that every individual
property owner can expect a 25% increase in value.
Mr.
Edney explained that the purpose of reappraisal is to equalize values so that
everyone pays their fair share of the tax burden.
He
reviewed the present-use value changes recommended by the State of North
Carolina and how they will affect Henderson County. There were numerous questions.
The reasons for the change in present-use value were: 1. Just like market values, it was to equalize
the values and distribute the tax burden equally among these types of
properties 2. The North Carolina Department of Revenue recommends that the
counties go to this one rate system.
Many counties have already done so including our neighboring counties of
Transylvania and Haywood. In Henderson
County overall 22,700 acres will increase in value, 19,634 will stay the same,
and 7,514 will decrease in value due to the change in the present-use
value.
The
question was raised if there was any reason why these numbers had not been
brought to the Board first due to the amount of change. Mr. Nicholson answered that the Schedule of
Values was presented to the Board of Commissioners by the County Assessor and
there was some discussion at that time that there was going to be a change in
present-use rates. The Board had a
brief discussion at that time. The
Board had approved the Schedule of Values.
Mr.
Edney briefly discussed how his office will be handling public relations and
reviewed the appeals timeline. Appeals will be handled a little differently
this year. Property owners will be
asked to appeal in writing. There is an
appeal form on the back of the notice.
There
was much discussion concerning the changes in the present-use values.
Evaluation
of Motor Vehicles
A
side issue was brought up about how the Board would deal with motor
vehicles. This will definitely be a
budget issue. It was the consensus of
the Board to add this item to the agenda for the Board Retreat scheduled for
this week-end. Mr. Edney stated that we
use a service called TEC that provides motor vehicle values to all 100 counties
in North Carolina. TEC offers three
prices, a high, medium, or low value and Henderson County uses the high value. We have used the high value since 1993. There=s only about five counties out of 100
that use the high value. The Board had
not been privileged to that decision in the past, it was made by the Tax
Assessor.
NCACC
- LEGISLATIVE GOALS
The
Board had received a list of the NCACC Board of Director=s adopted legislative
goals for the January Conference. Mr.
Nicholson reviewed some of the goals with the Board. Mr. Nicholson stated that the NCACC compiled this list in-house
by committee and sent it out to counties for any comments. NCACC will present this list at the
Legislative Conference January 16 and 17.
Chairman
Hawkins made the motion to name David Nicholson as the representative for
Henderson County as voting delegate.
All voted in favor and the motion carried.
INFORMAL
PUBLIC COMMENTS
There
were none.
REQUEST
TO WITHDRAW BID
When
the bids were received for the demolition and abatement of the Human Services
Building properties, the low bidder, Empire Dismantlement Corp., requested that
they be allowed to withdraw their bid due to an error.
Under
NCGS 143-129.1, a bidder may request to withdraw his bid. If such a request is received, the Board
must award the bids as if that bid had not been received. The Board made such an award at the November
20, 2002 meeting. The statute also
requires that the Board set a hearing to give the withdrawing bidder an
opportunity to explain why he should be allowed to withdraw his bid without
forfeiting his bid bond. That hearing
was set for today=s meeting.
Under
the statute, the Board must determine:
1.
Whether there was a mistake made?
2.
If so, was the mistake a substantial
error?
3.
Was the bid submitted in good faith?
4.
Has the bidder submitted credible
evidence that the mistake was clerical in nature as opposed to a judgement
error?
5.
Was the error due to an unintentional and
substantial arithmetic error OR an unintentional omission of a substantial
quantity of work, labor, apparatus, supplies, materials, equipment or services
made directly in the compilation of the bid?
6.
Can the unintentional arithmetic error OR
unintentional omission be clearly shown by objective evidence drawn from
inspection of the original work papers, documents or materials used in the
preparation of the bid sought to be withdrawn?
Ms.
Beeker informed the Board that if the answers to the six questions above are
yes, the Board must allow the
bidder to withdraw the bid without forfeiting the bid bond. A written ruling must be issued by the Board
within 5 days of conclusion of the hearing.
She
reminded the Board that at the last meeting copies of the original work papers
were presented to the Board from Empire Dismantlement to demonstrate their
claim that they made a mistake in the calculation of their bid. They submitted the original work papers to
Ms. Beeker. She copied them for close
examination by the Board but she also circulated the original documents for
review.
Following
review and discussion, it was the consensus of the Board that the answers to
the six questions would all be yes.
The claim was that the mistake was in the amount of $100,000.
Chairman
Hawkins made the motion that the Board allow the bidder to withdraw his bid
without forfeiture of bid bond. All
voted in favor and the motion carried.
Ms.
Beeker reminded the Board that a written ruling must be issued within five
days. She will draft the document and
present it to the Chairman for execution.
UPDATE
ON PENDING ISSUES
Historic
Courthouse
Chairman
Hawkins asked the Board to consider appointing a Blue Ribbon type committee to
look at some utilization for the courthouse, plans for use of the structure,
whether or not it could be phased in, how to finance the plan, and getting
numerous organizations involved. He
suggested involving the following as part of the Blue Ribbon committee: Travel
& Tourism, Downtown Hendersonville Inc., The Historic Preservation Society,
City of Hendersonville, Chamber of Commerce, Historic Seventh Avenue Committee,
Downtown Beautification Committee, and representatives from the various
municipalities as well as individual citizens that might be interested to form
a committee to study the issue. Several
counties in North Carolina have taken this route. Catawba County has converted their courthouse into a Historical
Museum and offices. Burke County has
made a Historical Museum. Cabarrus
County has several non-profit organizations including Downtown
Development. He suggested that the
committee make a 6 month report back to the Board of Commissioners.
There
was much discussion. Some felt that
numerous studies had already been done and we now need to move forward. There
was also some discussion of the demolition of the old jail.
Mr.
Nicholson updated the Board on the current status of the courthouse. He had walked the property today. Many questions have been raised lately about
the dome and the columns. He had spoken
with Dunlap Construction Company, who redid the dome in the 80's. He indicated to Mr. Nicholson that the dome
does not need to be repainted, it just needs a clearcoat put over the top. Some of the clearcoat is clouding. The structure of the dome is fine according
to Staff and people from Dunlap Construction Company. The columns are actually inside and are brick. You do not see the columns. They are covered with a plaster cover which
cracks due to changes in temperature.
Commissioner
Moyer expressed that if this project were divorced from our facility plan, then
none of the planning would involve this building.
Chairman
Hawkins stated that the Historic Courthouse had been locked into the capital
plan and had precluded development of the capital plan for the past two
years. He felt there were other
portions of the Capital Improvement Plan that needed to move forward, one being
the Human Services Building. It was the
decision of the previous Board not to put a bond issue to restore the courthouse
out for referendum.
Much
discussion followed.
It
was felt that the Committee should be charged with coming up with a plan
for the rehabilitation of the facility, what it=s use should be and how to
finance the plan.
Chairman
Hawkins made the motion for the County Manager to draw up a Charter for a Blue
Ribbon Committee to include as many of the organizations that have been
mentioned as possible, to include some at-large members, and indicate in the
charter the type report the Board would like to get back and a timeframe of 6
months to get that report back. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
Recess
Chairman
Hawkins called a brief technical break.
PUBLIC
HEARING - Rezoning Application #R-04-02 (R-T to C-2 or C-4) Mr. Nathan Benson,
Applicant This Hearing had been canceled earlier
in the meeting, see above.
PUBLIC
HEARING - Road Names
Chairman
Hawkins made the motion for the Board to go into public hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
Rocky
Hyder reminded the Board that at the December 18, 2002 meeting, the Board of
Commissioners set a public hearing for this date for the following road names:
OLD NAME PROPOSED
NAME
S. Meeting
House Branch Rd Blueberry
Farm Rd
Loma Linda Smokey
Pines Way
Public
Input
There
was none.
Commissioner
Moyer made the motion for the Board to go out of public hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
Chairman
Hawkins made the motion to adopt the road names as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
Committee
Discussions
Chairman
Hawkins had distributed a list to the Commissioners of Boards and Committees
that Commissioners serve on and had asked for response back from them as to
which Boards/Committees they wished to serve on, etc. He had received the responses back and had assigned Commissioners
to openings where they wished to serve.
He made sure that all the Committees that are required by General
Statute to have a Commissioner on were covered. If he got no request back from a Commissioner he just left them
where they were currently serving.
There are several Committees where no one showed an interest in
serving. He asked that if there were
still Boards/Committees Commissioners were interested in serving on to please
let him know.
Chairman
Hawkins noted that under the Local Government Committee for Cooperative Action
(LGCCA) that no-one asked to be placed on the Committee and he suggested that
any Commissioner could attend any meeting they wished of that Committee.
If
no-one wants to serve on the Alliance for Human Services, he asked how the
Board wished to handle that. There are
others in the same situation. Chairman
Hawkins asked Ms. Brantley to compile a list of the Boards/Committees that
there is no Commissioner serving on so the Board could decide whether to
appoint someone other than a Commissioner to represent them or to revise
By-laws or Charter if it requires that a Commissioner serve. He had also asked Ms. Brantley to check on
the reports that these various Committees make to the Board of Commissioners
and when they are due.
There
followed some discussion from the Board with some Commissioners feeling that
turnover on Boards/Committees was important to give a fresh perspective to the
Board/Committee and to give other Commissioners a chance to see how some
Boards/Committees operate. Others felt
that a body of knowledge is established and would be hard to transfer to
another Commissioner and wished to remain on a Board/Committee for a long time.
DISCUSSION
ITEMS - There were none.
CANE
CREEK WATER & SEWER DISTRICT - no business
IMPORTANT
DATES
Chairman
Hawkins mentioned the retreat scheduled for January 10 and 11 and asked if the
Commissioners had any items for that agenda, please let him or David know. There was some discussion of the start
time for the Retreat on January 10. The
consensus was to begin the meeting at 3:00 p.m. as advertised.
David
Nicholson reminded the Board of the need to reschedule the rezoning application
for Mr. Nathan Benson. He recommended
the Board set that for February 3 at 7:00 p.m.
Chairman Hawkins made the motion to set the rezoning
application public hearing for Mr. Nathan Benson for February 3 at 7:00
p.m. All voted in favor and the motion
carried.
CLOSED
SESSION
Chairman
Hawkins made the motion for the Board to go into closed session as allowed
pursuant to NCGS 143-318.11 for the following reasons:
1. (a)(3) To consult with an attorney employed
or retained by the public body in order to preserve the attorney-client
privilege between the attorney and the public body, which privilege is hereby
acknowledged. To consult with an
attorney employed or retained by the public body in order to consider and give
instructions to the attorney with respect to a claim.
2. (a)(6) To consider the qualifications,
competence, performance, character, fitness, conditions of appointment, or
conditions of initial employment of an individual public officer or employee or
prospective public officer or employee; or to hear or investigate a complaint,
charge, or grievance by or against an individual public officer or employee.
All
voted in favor and the motion carried.
There
was no action following closed session.
Adjourn
There
being no further business to come before the Board, Chairman Hawkins made the
motion to adjourn the meeting at 8:06 p.m.
All voted in favor and the motion carried.
Attest:
Elizabeth
W. Corn, Clerk to the Board
Grady
Hawkins, Chairman