The First Board of Commisioner's Meeting
After getting through the Appearance Commission, we sent back all of the necessary changes and they granted us their approval! It was like middle school all over again....and I was a cheerleader! (I really only played basketball...and was not all that popular) Anyhow, it felt great! Things were moving along nicely and the next step was to make an appearance at the next board of commisioners meeting.
We asked Angela, our rezoning guru, what we needed to bring and she told us that everything would already be loaded on the website and that we would need to say a few words about the process after taking an oath stating that what we say is true...apparently this is a quasi-judicial type of thing...I thought it sounded serious and intimidating....I mean what are we swearing to...what if I mention the wrong type of plant...are we tied to that genus and species forever! (remember I was a biologist and these are a few of the words I can recall from the college days)
No matter how I felt about it, we still had to do it. So on the day of the meeting we meet for dinner and I have a beer to help calm my nerves, poor Dana was pregnant at the time so I felt a bit sorry for her...not sorry enough not to have a beer in front of her though! I highly recommend taking up drinking if you don't already during a re-zoning process. I think it will serve you well in the end....After dinner we head on to the meeting.
When we get there we pick up an agenda and it is like 3 pages long! We are somewhere near the end of the agenda and listed in two different spots. So we knew we were in for a long night! It did not drag on too badly and it was interesting to see how local government works...however we were a little alarmed when one of the agenda items was called to speak about a project that needed approval and when he was finished the board motioned to approve...motion was seconded...that agenda item/request was approved! My heart started racing...were we going to be approved or denied right then and there....I was not emotionally prepared for this! These people had the power to squash our dreams with a single word or lack there of...at least that's what we were thinking at the moment.
Such was not the case....for our first agenda item Angela got up and spoke for us and the planning board allowed us to pass go, collect our 200 dollars, and advance to the planning board stage. For the second item (the quasi judicial phase) one of the commisioners asked if anyone was there to speak on the request...I thought he was asking if there was someone there who opposed or had something to add to what we were saying...you know like a disgruntled future neighbor who got wind of our master plan and had some opposition to weekly parties. I then realized that other people who had items on the agenda were taking an oath to be honest, truthful, etc...Wait...I remember Angela saying that we were supposed to be sworn in....SOooo I stand up in the middle of the meeting and politely said I think we were supposed to take that oath...we are agenda number 17.. I have never felt more exposed....like I was playing "pulled together business owner" and that board just called fraud! Not that they would be completely outlandish accusations...I like to reserve the truth for close friends and family! He was nice about it and we stood up and took the oath together...yet alone....while being stared at...
Our second agenda item was also commuted to the planning stage after a brief introduction and another eloquent description of our vision....I feel like those always start out so rough! They had very few questions and passed us right along! What we saw at the beginning of the meeting was the NEXT visit to the board of commissioners....when planning has already approved you and the board votes on whether or not you are allowed to do your project in their county! So more waiting...at least a couple of months...maybe we can work on our "describing our vision" skills.....
***Remember, all comments and new followers get entered into our give away this week ***
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| Go Team! Team C and D that is....maybe we should have some t-shirts made up... |
We asked Angela, our rezoning guru, what we needed to bring and she told us that everything would already be loaded on the website and that we would need to say a few words about the process after taking an oath stating that what we say is true...apparently this is a quasi-judicial type of thing...I thought it sounded serious and intimidating....I mean what are we swearing to...what if I mention the wrong type of plant...are we tied to that genus and species forever! (remember I was a biologist and these are a few of the words I can recall from the college days)
 |
| It sounded this serious! |
No matter how I felt about it, we still had to do it. So on the day of the meeting we meet for dinner and I have a beer to help calm my nerves, poor Dana was pregnant at the time so I felt a bit sorry for her...not sorry enough not to have a beer in front of her though! I highly recommend taking up drinking if you don't already during a re-zoning process. I think it will serve you well in the end....After dinner we head on to the meeting.
When we get there we pick up an agenda and it is like 3 pages long! We are somewhere near the end of the agenda and listed in two different spots. So we knew we were in for a long night! It did not drag on too badly and it was interesting to see how local government works...however we were a little alarmed when one of the agenda items was called to speak about a project that needed approval and when he was finished the board motioned to approve...motion was seconded...that agenda item/request was approved! My heart started racing...were we going to be approved or denied right then and there....I was not emotionally prepared for this! These people had the power to squash our dreams with a single word or lack there of...at least that's what we were thinking at the moment.
 |
| We felt this nervous |
Such was not the case....for our first agenda item Angela got up and spoke for us and the planning board allowed us to pass go, collect our 200 dollars, and advance to the planning board stage. For the second item (the quasi judicial phase) one of the commisioners asked if anyone was there to speak on the request...I thought he was asking if there was someone there who opposed or had something to add to what we were saying...you know like a disgruntled future neighbor who got wind of our master plan and had some opposition to weekly parties. I then realized that other people who had items on the agenda were taking an oath to be honest, truthful, etc...Wait...I remember Angela saying that we were supposed to be sworn in....SOooo I stand up in the middle of the meeting and politely said I think we were supposed to take that oath...we are agenda number 17.. I have never felt more exposed....like I was playing "pulled together business owner" and that board just called fraud! Not that they would be completely outlandish accusations...I like to reserve the truth for close friends and family! He was nice about it and we stood up and took the oath together...yet alone....while being stared at...
 |
| All eyes were on us! |
Our second agenda item was also commuted to the planning stage after a brief introduction and another eloquent description of our vision....I feel like those always start out so rough! They had very few questions and passed us right along! What we saw at the beginning of the meeting was the NEXT visit to the board of commissioners....when planning has already approved you and the board votes on whether or not you are allowed to do your project in their county! So more waiting...at least a couple of months...maybe we can work on our "describing our vision" skills.....
***Remember, all comments and new followers get entered into our give away this week ***