The Macon County Board of Commissioners voted to cut the county planning board from 11 to five members in an effort to make conducting business easier.
The move also removed the ability of the towns of Franklin and Highlands to appoint members to the planning board, where previously each municipality was able to appoint one apiece. Both municipalities reserve the ability to have a liaison on the board as a non-voting member. The decision was made following a public hearing in which Highlands Mayor Patrick Taylor and planning board vice-chair Lee Walters spoke.
Taylor urged commissioners not to remove the towns’ representation, saying “I’ve had a conversation with Mayor Guffey of Franklin. He can’t be here tonight but we both agreed … the towns should have representation. We have ordinances on erosion control, land use, all of the things that you address with a planning board.”
“We don’t want to lose our voice,” Taylor said.
Walters shared information from N.C. general statutes 160D-301 and 160D-604, saying the county would need a planning board in some form or another. He said he believed the planning board should have at least nine public members and two voting liaisons.
Commissioner John Shearl said, “I was appointed by the chairman in January of ’25, and I’ve attended no meetings with the planning board.”
Meetings, planned for the first Thursday of each month, are consistently cancelled. County Planner Caleb Gibson said the board only meets if the county has been tasked with a topic for discussion by the Board of Commissioners.
“I think, trying to get 11 members, some people are showing up to these meetings and feeling their voices are not being heard,” Shearl said. “When you try to get 11 people to agree on something, that’s too many. I think if we can reduce that board down to five, I think we’ll have a much more productive makeup of the Macon County Planning Board.”
“No disrespect intended, but there is a reason why we people live out in the county, and it’s to get away from government control … I don’t agree with the town’s zoning regulations and everything. If I did I’d live there,” Shearl said. “I respect the town board members to be a liaison to this planning board.”
Commissioner Josh Young added the county commissioners cannot serve as voting members on the Franklin or Highlands planning boards.
“I think there’s a gentleman’s agreement for us to be liaison to them, them to be liaison to us, but another side of this coin is … a lot of folks in the rural part of this county look at the government as authority, and when you have employees as voting members on a board, let’s say a five-member board, and two government employees are voting members there appears to be a conflict and I feel like we need to have organic community involvement,” Young said.
Taylor noted the reason the towns have the extra representation is because town residents are county taxpayers, but county residents are not town taxpayers. Shearl said Franklin and Highlands residents can still apply to serve as voting members.
Shearl moved to reduce the planning board’s membership from 11 to five voting members and two non-voting liaisons selected by the towns of Franklin and Highlands and for the county attorney to amend the bylaws to account for the change. The board voted unanimously in favor of the motion.
- Shelby Powell
reporter@thefranklinpress.com