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Coffee with the Commish opens dialogue Woodall hopes to continue
It’s a tale all too familiar to elected officials around the country.
Plenty of people want to complain about what’s wrong in the city/town/county in question, but no one shows up at the meetings ... at least not until they’re really mad.
Understanding that not everyone is available to come to 9 a.m. Monday meetings at the courthouse, District 2 County Commissioner Rick Woodall borrowed an idea from a colleague in Montgomery County and hosted his first Coffee with the Commish session last Saturday morning at the Double Decker in Greencastle.
Woodall was happy to see concerned citizens showing up, joking that he thought wife Rhonda might be the only other person in attendance.
“I want to thank the folks who came out this morning for good discussion,” Woodall said. “We talked about the county’s future growth, current and future zoning of our agriculture areas, courthouse annex, ditching and drainage issues and of course everyone’s favorite subject — our roads and the seven-year road plan.”
Holding court for about a dozen fellow residents, Woodall kept his usual self-deprecating manner as he sipped on a Pepsi (He ironically doesn’t drink coffee.) and talked about the issues in a less formal setting than the bi-monthly commissioners meetings.
One issue that occupied a pretty big portion of the session were proposed changes to the county zoning ordinance. In particular, the Putnam County Plan Commission has been considering changing the development standards in the A1 ag protection district. This has some in the farming community concerned.
Woodall understands the concerns but also believes some changes may be in order.
“We are running out of places in this county to build houses,” Woodall said. “Not everybody that comes here wants to live on a farm.”
While some changes to development standards in terms of acreage and road frontage may be in order, Woodall said it wouldn’t be wise to apply one standard to the entire county.
“My concern is to put the entire county under the same standard, you’re not doing planning for where the growth is going to be,” Woodall said. “We have a unique opportunity. My thought is that we are in a unique position to plan where the growth is going to be.”
Another concern, brought up by Mark Legan, is that the county had a comprehensive plan when zoning was first approved in the 1990s. The plan was renewed about 10 years ago, but it has not really been consulted since.
Woodall agreed that this is a problem.
“My question is, why would we spend all this money on a plan but never use it?” Woodall said.
“I don’t think there’s been an adequate discussion in the county,” Legan said.
Woodall said that’s why he wanted to do Coffee with the Commish, to open a dialogue and keep it going with future sessions.
“I want people to be informed,” Woodall said. “I want people to know what’s going on.”
After all, this is the community residents have chosen to live in. They might as well take part in making it better. Barry Fisher, who travels around the state in his role as a soil health specialist, opined that Putnam County is a place worth taking care of.
“It’s a pretty good place to live,” Fisher said. “When you travel as much as I do, you see that this is a pretty good place to live.”