Chatham County Roundup: Commissioner Katie Kenlan

0:00It's time now for the Chatham County Roundup made possible by Rocky River Hemp for pain and insomnia, stress and dogs too. Rocky River Hemp is natural, local and grown with purpose find your chill at RockyRiverHemp.com. Join now on the phone by Chatham County Commissioner Katie Kinlin. Thank you so much for making time for us this afternoon. So glad to be here and I'm so glad Rocky River Hemp is sponsoring this. I see them at the farmers market all the time. Yeah, they're they're going big time. It's it's exciting times, exciting times for sure. We had a sort of non-weather event yesterday. So I've been checking in with folks in the area. How did things go down in Chatham County? Yes, I like to say better safe than stupid. And even though it was a non-weather event, there was tornado watches in the area. The schools were closed in several counties. So we did decide to delay our meeting.

1:02We had a two o'clock session and a six o'clock session. And we will be rescheduling it to 6 p.m. next Tuesday at the normal courthouse. What was slash is on the agenda for that meeting? Yes, we have a couple of public hearings. One of the ones that we've been hearing a lot from citizens on is Farrington Preserve and they are asking for a rezoning to have a compact community, which means it's in an area that right now is zoned for residential on one acre lot. So in order for that to move to the planning board, we have to agree to change that zoning. So we're having a public hearing on that. Visiting with Katie Kenlin from the Chatham County Commissioners and anything else from that meeting that folks might want to know about before we move on to other items.

2:07I don't think so. There's been a lot of other things going on that I'm looking forward to telling you about. And I mean, I guess if they're able to come on Tuesday, they will get to hear from our farmland preservation coordinator. We're getting an update on that and our climate advisory board is coming back with some recommendations for us as well. Excellent. One thing I wanted to check in with you on is it looks like there was an aging school buildings tour that some folks were able to go on for the for Chatham County schools. What did you go on that? Do you have any information? I did. Yes. I am so thankful for our incredible partnership with our school central services and our board of education. And so we as commissioners are responsible for funding the schools. The state helps with salaries and certain things, but it's on the local level is how you actually get school buildings and infrastructure. So as a part of being responsible and how we invest

3:14in our schools, they wanted to make sure that we are aware of what the oldest buildings are that we have throughout the county so that we can begin to have conversations about when it's responsible to invest and repair when it might be time to rebuild. Curious about the it's kind of a unique circumstance in Chatham County schools because this is in some ways an issue that's playing out all over the country certainly all over the state where school districts are facing, you know, frankly a whole bunch of aging facilities and some tough some tough decisions about what to do with those facilities. The difference in Chatham County schools is this really kind of overwhelming projected growth that's coming to the schools. How does that enter into those those conversations about those aging facilities? Absolutely. And we actually just had a joint meeting with our board of education a couple

4:16weeks ago where together we were presented by county staff and central services staff on what are the realities of this growth that we're seeing? Where is it and where might we see new schools come online? But also what is the capacity of our schools? And there's so many layers of you know that was hours and hours of presentation. So I'm not sure exactly where to begin with that but it is exactly like you're saying I was able to go to a regional meeting hosted by the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners and I heard from nine other counties exactly about this what how we're going to approach dealing with these aging buildings and I'm happy to say anymore about that. What's I think that's something that we'll probably get into going forward. There are a couple other things that I wanted to make sure that we touch on here. You've got a legislative breakfast tomorrow. Is that right?

5:19Yes. So we will be meeting with our legislator and our senator Robert Rees and Natalie Murdoch along with the leadership from the Town of Pittsburgh, Tyler City and Bolton and with the county officials and county commissioners and it's just an opportunity for us to all one connect and strengthen our communication and how we work together. But also for our representatives to hear about you know what kind of things are impacting these different entities specifically. So we are going to be talking a lot about what's happening with Medicaid and SNAP benefits and making sure that there's good advocating for how we're going to fill in the gaps for some funding losses that we're seeing because of federal changes. We also are really concerned about and this is a huge topic that would definitely be a larger conversation but there is a

6:24national trend to do away with property taxes that we're seeing all over the country and that makes up the largest percentage of county budgets. So we will be addressing some committee that we're seeing form in the legislature. Definitely something that we need to keep our eyes on that. I mean it's hard to even conceive of what that would do for a local government. That's most of what local governments are able to do. It's what we spend a lot of time talking about frankly. When we talk about local government. Yeah they're looking at taking away funding but not looking at then unfunded mandates that were required to carry out and we as counties we provide a lot of different services like you said. Visiting with Katie Kenlon from the Chatham County commissioners and we don't have a whole lot of time left is there anything else that you wanted to get into before we wrap up? Well one of the things that I wanted to make sure folks know what's happening

7:32is March 28th from 10 to 3 at our agricultural center. We are going to have our annual ag fest and there's a lot of different activities for kids through the 4-H programs. There's garden demonstrations and food and so it's just a fun day to meet different people from the county and get outside with your family. Katie I really appreciate you taking time this afternoon and hopefully we catch up sooner rather than later. Yes great talking to you thank you so much for letting Chatham County share with people what's going on. All right take care. You too bye.