Planning board considering conflict of interest policy

By NICOLE CARTRETTE
Staff Writer

The Columbus County Planning Board has mixed feelings about adopting a conflict of interest policy.

Planner Director Stevie Cox asked the board to require all members to sign a conflict of interest statement and adopt a policy in regard to conflicts of interest in the near future.

As written, the draft policy states: “any individual who may benefit directly or indirectly from the Planning Board’s actions or decisions shall abstain from participating in any decision or deliberations by the planning board regarding those cases.”

The draft policy applies to direct, indirect, and perceived conflicts.

Newcomer Lacy Wilson, a real estate agent, was appointed by Commissioner James Prevatte to replace board member Bill Ashley, owner of Ashley Electric. Wilson was concerned with the legal ramifications of signing the statement, he said.

Board member Ivan Wilson suggested the statement be reviewed by the county attorney. “We need some legal help with the statement so all parties are protected in a conflict or potential conflict,” Wilson said.

James Register, a board member and land developer who has abstained from taking part in cases in the past that involved properties he owned, said in the future he would have no problem abstaining.

“Instead of getting trapped into signing something I wish I hadn’t signed,” Register said he prefers individual board members taking the approach of abstaining when occasions arise.

Other board members took a different view.

“I don’t have a problem with it,” Chairman J.B. Evans said, pointing out he had signed similar statements serving on other boards.

“It just talks about if you are involved in land you won’t be involved in voting on it,’ Evans said. “If we are planning to do things right, we shouldn’t any trouble with it.”

“Let him take it to the county attorney,” Wilson said. “This may be fine.”

“I agree with what you said. I think the public demands it,” board member and Tabor City Town Manager Al Leonard said. “Each of us personally should want us to have a policy adopted by January.

“I hope we can enact something,” Leonard said, instructing Cox to get a draft back to the board before the next meeting so they could have their private attorneys review the statement if they wanted. “I think the county cries out for that at this time.”

In other matters:

Lacy Wilson requested that agenda packets be mailed rather than delivered by a Sheriff’s deputy. “Isn’t it more efficient to mail them than to have deputy sheriff deliver packages?” Wilson asked. “Isn’t it a whole lot cheaper?”

He explained that a sheriff’s deputy went to great efforts trying to get the packet to him although Wilson was out of town and it was inevitably left at his office.

“When I got a chance to look at it, I missed a trip and didn’t have the facts,” Wilson said who was unaware of a site visit board members were invited to participate in on Friday afternoon. The site visit was to an Evergreen campground that had a case pending before the board.

Cox said as a one-person department, sheriff’s deputies deliver packets sometimes to ensure they are received in time. He said he would work on mailing them but added “there will probably be times they will be delivered by deputies.”

“A deputy drops mine by the house on his way home anyway,” Evans pointed out.

The board adopted a land use plan study prepared by the N.C. Department of Transportation. A land use plan that former County Manager Billy Joe Farmer and former Assistant Manager Darren Currie worked on is not yet completed, said Tyler Bray, of the NCDOT.

Bray said a land use plan needed to be adopted before a comprehensive transportation plan could be adopted by the board of commissioners. However, a resolution and endorsement of the planning board would allow for the Comprehensive Transportation Plan (CTP) to be brought before the board of commissioners.

“All I’m asking is for the board to endorse that to take it before the commissioners,” Bray said.

Bray said he hopes the CTP will go before the commissioners at their Jan. 2 meeting. “This is a huge tool,” Bray said, adding that revisions have been completed for Chadbourn. Tabor City and Lake Waccamaw revisions are planned for next year covering the entire county with a transportation plan.