Highland Supervisors And Planning Commission Will Hold Joint Public Meeting On Draft Comprehensive Plan in July

Monterey, Va – At a joint meeting last week, the Highland County Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission took action to place the draft county comprehensive plan before the public next month. During the deliberations on the comprehensive plan Planning Commission member Jim Cobb brought up a controversial issue mentioned in the plan.

“Where it says consider expanding the Board of Supervisors and the School Board to five members each with staggered terms; if you made that statement, then I believe you need a target date” says Cobb.

The group decided to change this section of the plan to ask the Board of Supervisors to hold a public hearing to assess public input on this proposal to increase the numbers of Supervisors and School Board Members. The group then agreed that the public hearing on this specific issue should occur during the county’s 2012 fiscal year.

After completing review of the draft comprehensive plan, both groups agreed to hold a joint public hearing on the Highland County Comprehensive Plan on Tuesday, July 19 at 7:30 PM in the Modular Conference Center. The plan will be made available to the public soon. Following deliberations on the comprehensive plan, County Attorney Melissa Dowd had comments for the Planning Commission members.

“Having been County Attorney for 18 years, I have seen quite a few Planning Commissions” says Dowd. “And I am astounded at you all’s commitment to what you’ve done. I can tell you there have not been a lot of Planning Commissions in my 18 years that would have taken it and taken responsibility for it.”

The Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission agreed that the next major issue they will have to tackle will be revising the county zoning ordinances.
The Planning Commission then adjourned their meeting and left the Supervisors to complete additional business. County Administrator Roberta Lambert was unable to attend this meeting so County Attorney Melissa Dowd gave the administrator’s report on the first item of business.

“The McDowell Fire Dept has provided Ms. Lambert with a resolution requesting a loan of thirty-five thousand dollars from the revolving loan fund that the County Board of Supervisors has made available to emergency services and other organizations” reads Dowd. “What they’re proposing is to purchase personal protective equipment for the firemen. They would like to borrow the thirty-five thousand, and have the repayment schedule at $5000.00 a year beginning May 2012.”

The Supervisors approved the resolution granting the loan.
In other business the Supervisors were asked to add funds to a county program.

“Virginia Juvenile Community Crime Control Act, which is our juvenile community crime program, and it is because of the activity with our juveniles this year, they’re going to need about $2000.00 more to make it to the end of the year” says Dowd. “We currently do have a juvenile from Highland County in detention; that is not a free program.”

The additional funds were approved by the Supervisors.

The next regular meeting of the Highland County Board of Supervisors will be Tuesday, June 7 at 7:30 PM in the Modular Conference Center in Monterey.

Story By

Heather Niday

Heather is our Program Director and Traffic Manager. She started with Allegheny Mountain Radio as a volunteer deejay. She then joined the AMR staff in February of 2007. Heather grew up in the Richmond, Virginia, area and now lives in Arbovale, West Virginia with her husband Chuck. Heather is a wonderful flute player, and choir director for Arbovale UMC. You can hear Heather along with Chuck on Tuesday nights from 6 to 8pm as they host two hours of jazz on Something Different.

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