November 28, 2023, Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

I attended the November 28, 2023, Camden County Commission meeting at 10:00 a.m.

To be honest, there were actually two Commission meetings that day. There was a 10:00 a.m. meeting and a later meeting at 1:00 p.m. which I’ll also discuss.

Commissioners Skelton and Williams were present. Commissioner Gohagan was absent because of an important dental appointment.

The room was about half full because the County Auditor was presenting the county’s preliminary budget for 2024. To summarize the presentation, for the past three years, revenue for Camden County has exceeded expenditures by over $2 million per year. In 2022, revenue was almost $3 million higher than expenditures. This can be a little deceptive because Camden County did receive a significant amount of federal money during the pandemic to include almost $9 million in ARPA money.

I was able to take some photos of the slides.

Assessed property value in Camden County for 2022 was over $1.8 billion. The half cent county sales tax raised almost $6.5 million.

Currently, sales tax is starting to trend downward from 2022 peaks and the total number of real estate deeds is dropping also.

Who knows what the future holds? It seems that the Commission is still committed to pushing funding for the Road and Bridge Department, but that money is going to have to come from somewhere and the county only has so much money in reserve.

The next agenda item was Armored Transport County Contract – Renewal/Cancellation.

Presiding Commissioner Skelton explained that the county has used an armored truck service to escort its cash deliveries to the bank. When there was discussion about renewing this contract, Skelton wondered if the Sheriff’s office could provide some its armed deputies to safely escort the money. It turns out that the Sheriff was willing to assist, so the Commission resolved to not renew the armored truck contract.

The final agenda item was a Surplus Funds Request.

The request had been reviewed by the County Attorney and the Treasurer. The Commission approved the Request unanimously.

And that was that for the morning meeting.

We reconvened for the afternoon Commission meeting at 1:00 p.m. I bribed Mrs. Gadfly into coming with me to the meeting by promising to take her to Pablito’s for lunch afterwards.

The only agenda item for this meeting was Discuss Maintenance of Lindsay Estates Road.

We spoke to several ladies before the meeting who were there for this matter. Their family has owned a lakefront property on Lindsay Estates Road for decades. They had known their neighbor for years, but a recent change in ownership has created an issue regarding parking on the road. The neighbor’s new usage of the parking spaces made it impossible for the family to turn vehicles around when they drove down Lindsey Estates Road to use their lakefront property. They were seeking clarification that Lindsey Estates Road, the road shared for access by both properties, was a county road.

This meeting also had Commissioners Skelton and Williams present.

One of the daughters from the family explained to the Commission about the issue they were having with the access road. Recently, the neighbors had installed parking spaces along the road. Since these spaces had been inserted and a trailer had been parked in front of the property, they were unable to pull out of their driveway and back out to turn around to drive back up the road. Their only alternative was to drive in reverse back up the hill.

Nobody was present from the neighboring property.

Commissioner Williams confirmed that Camden County had received CART funds to maintain that stretch of roadway. He mentioned that this is one of the ways a road can become a county road. The other two reasons it can become a county road are either through a road petition or if the county has maintained the road sporadically over a 10 year period (I always wonder why he constantly mentions this reason).

There was some question over how wide the county road should be? The Road and Bridge personnel who were present explained that Camden County roads can vary wildly in width (Boy, can they!) and Commissioner Williams said the statutes don’t dictate the width of the road.

The representative from the family had paperwork that she called a road dedication which stated the county road in question would be 20 feet wide. She had done some research and found this paperwork filed in the Clerk’s office.

The Commissioners explained that while they agreed that it was a county road and that the county would maintain it, it might be up to a judge to decide if they needed room to turn around or a proscriptive easement to establish that requirement. County Attorney Green agreed that it was possible they could obtain such a judgement, but he was clear that the county would not be able to assist with that. The Commissioners did consider that the maintenance right of way distance required for the county road might give the family the room they needed to turn around anyway.

In some final irony, Commissioner Skelton mentioned that the neighbors had asked if the county could post a “No Thru Way” or “No Turn Around” sign on the road. Based on his facial expression, that is not going to happen.

Finally, the Road and Bridge Administrator recommended to the Commission that the county should conduct a right of way survey on the road. Everyone thought that sounded like a great idea.

And that was that. Like most of these neighbor disputes, I always leave hoping that they’re able to work things out without getting sore at each other.

Mrs. Gadfly seemed to enjoy herself and I was surprised at how interested she seemed in the proceedings. She did earn a Journalism degree in college so she’s probably got more news instincts in her little finger than I have in my big, possum head. Or maybe she was just looking forward to the tacos.