Lake Santeetlah – With the Town of Lake Santeetlah headed toward doing away with zoning, councilmember Diana Simon urged the council to reconsider at its May 12 meeting, without success.
The town will hold a public hearing to consider repealing of the town’s zoning ordinance and zoning map at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, May 26, via Zoom.
The zoning board, which would become irrelevant without zoning, urged the town council to keep town zoning in place.
Simon said zoning in the town is required by statute and asked the council to reverse its decision. She had previously asked Town Attorney Bo Carpenter for an opinion about zoning requirements and sought support from a memo he wrote to the Town Council, to no avail.
She asked the council to restore funding for a zoning administrator, funding for which appears doomed as presented in the preliminary town budget, which will have a public hearing at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 28, via Zoom.
Simon’s motion to reconsider died for lack of second.
“I really did not expect any response,” Simon said.
Councilmember Jim Hager, who historically sides with Simon with issues such as zoning, was not at the meeting.
Were he there and seconded Simon’s motion, the chance of it getting a third vote and thus a majority is unlikely.
Mayor Connie Gross, Vice Mayor Ralph Mitchell, and councilmember Tina Emerson have voted as a majority bloc and have been pushing for an end to zoning in Lake Santeetlah.
Emerson has argued that town zoning needs to be more established with a proper, full-time zoning administrator at a cost upward of $100,000 – many times more than what the town has been paying for a part-time administrator.
Gross said she is looking into the option of sharing zoning responsibilities with a nearby town or county.
Connection fee
The town council changed the fee for connecting to the town water system from a flat rate of $500 to the town’s actual cost for services, equipment and materials. The change is effective on passage, which occurred on May 12.
The change was necessary because – in some cases – the cost to connect a new residence to the water system would exceed the fee the town was charging.
“This way we’re not going to lose any money off the connection fee,” said Emerson, the town’s finance director.
The town will continue to repair or replace faulty or broken down water equipment “as the cost of doing business,” Emerson noted.