By Carol J. Bova

There’s no way to answer this in the paper before the election, so here are some facts for Dee Russell and anyone else who agrees with Russell’s statement about the Draft Floodplain Ordinance being tainted by “Secret Meetings.”

Studying FEMA regulations on your own and writing down possible rewording of an ordinance is not a “secret meeting.” Discussing different viewpoints in FEMA bulletins on the phone does not constitute a “secret meeting.” Checking with FEMA and NFIP staff on how best to include information—not a secret meeting. Typing up corrections to an ordinance and letting others read them and comment to get the clearest wording is not a “secret meeting” when the draft and details were all given to Amy Dubois as she requested.

Taking Amy’s NINE spreadsheet sections of comments that were not in a usable condition and retyping them into one document anyone could download and compare to the draft ordinance line by line and cross referencing them to her unusable ones was not a secret meeting.  Giving the organized spreadsheet to her that listed, explained and gave the FEMA and NFIP sourcesr AND posting it online on a site open to the public was not a “secret meeting.”

When was the last time you saw anyone writing a document in public? I’ll bet never. You see people discussing a finished draft in public meetings, but a formal discussion of the draft floodplain ordinance never happened. It was dismissed by the former lawyer because he wanted it in the zoning ordinance. Something the board told the lawyer before him they didn’t want.

Is it required by law to be in the zoning ordinance? No. Was the lawyer told that by DCR? Yes, and he chose to ignore them and said so in a public meeting.

There were 65 comments on Amy’s spreadsheets.

The Building Official and Zoning Director offered NONE.

One general comment was from a citizen and did not relate to the ordinance itself.

First lawyer said to delete definition of market value.

Dubois/Love  made 3  comments.  One was to request an appeals process process be added. Two  were on definitions of market value and substantial improvement. DCR said the suggested Dubois/Love combination of substantial damage/substantial Improvement might be technically compliant, but they advised against it. (DCR email 6/1/18).

The other 60 came from Debbie Gibson, G. C. Morrow and me. They added necessary language according to the regulations, used FEMA recommendations, and eliminated unnecessary material. There was never anything improper in the work that was done and submitted. Each section benefits everyone in the floodplain in the same circumstances in exactly the same way. And I have an official email from a FEMA Region III spokesman that proves the former county attorney was wrong to dismiss what we did as not part of the regulations. All of it was.