At a Pickens County Commissioner’s Meeting on Thursday, July 26th, Pickens County Commissioner Robert Jones announced the county signed a resolution adopting changes to chapter 6th of the Pickens County Code of Ordinances regarding alcoholic beverages and also adopted a resolution authorizing Commissioner Jones to sign and submit an application to the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority (GEFA), a state revolving fund program, to obtain funding to construct water system improvements.During the new business portion of the meeting on Thursday, Commissioner Jones announced that the county had signed a resolution amending the Pickens County Code of Ordinances regarding alcoholic beverages. When FYN asked what kind of changes to alcoholic beverages will be made to the county Code of Ordinances, Jones allowed Pickens County Director of Public Relations Norman Pope to answer the question.

Pope then explained that about two years ago the licensing board of Pickens County requested some assistance in looking at the county’s malt beverage and wine license permitting process and the county’s distilled spirits permitting process.

“The reason for it is there are a lot of discrepancies between the two,”

said Pope. Some of the reasons Pope mentioned for the researching of the permitting processes were that the two processes had different closing times and different distances required from churches and school buildings. Pope also said that the board had worked for two years to simplify the processes eliminating some things that are in deemed unnecessary.

Pope then said that in addition in simplifying the processes, the board decided to add a provision to the ordinance enabling wine growers to have a farm winery permit. Pope explained that farm wineries are permitted by the state of Georgia even if they happened to be in a dry county.

“The advantage of a county having that type of permit will enable us to regulate that a little bit more and in addition to that I think it really opens up the property owners to the opportunity to have certain things associated with the farm wineries throughout the state of Georgia made available to them,”

said Pope.

Pope also said that a public hearing was held on July 19th and at the hearing the licensing board unanimously endorsed sending the resolution to Jones to be signed.

Also in the meeting, Jones announced that the county had adopted a resolution authorizing him to sign and submit an application to GEFA, a state revolving fund program, to obtain funding to construct water system improvements. As of right now, a specific project has yet to be named for what the funding would be used for because according to Jones, the county must first fill out a resolution that allows them to apply for a GEFA loan in order to use for future projects. However, it is known that the loan would be a GEFA Georgia Fund loan used for water system improvements.

As well as making changes to the permitting process and approving the resolution, the county also signed off an application received from the Pickens County Planning and Development Office on June 14th from C.B Jones requesting a conditional use in a land use classification of agriculture on 27.44 acres located on Young Loop. On July 12th, FYN reported that the special use request had been approved at a Pickens County Planning Commission public hearing on Monday, July 9th that will benefit Moto Mountain, an ATV park in Fairmount, by setting up 10 recreational vehicle hookups and a laundry facility.

The County also signed off a zoning request from June 11th sent by Julie Timmons to the Pickens County Planning and Development Office requesting a change in a land use classification from rural residential to highway business on 2 acres located on 3660 Refuge Rd. FYN also reported that at a Planning Commission meeting on July 12th, the Planning Commission denied Julie Timmons, formerly of Pickens County, a request of a .84 acre piece of property of her and husband, Stephen Timmons for the property to be rezoned from rural residential to highway business because of neighborhood complaints. However, after the denial, Timmons verbally amended her next request, which would have requested two acres to be rezoned from rural residential to suburban residential, so that her complete 2.84 acres of property be rezoned to suburban residential to allow for the property to possibly be divided into two lots. Jones, at the meeting on Thursday would sign off on both the amended request and the denial.

Lastly, in the meeting on Thursday, the county announced that they had closed a Revolving Loan Fund at Jasper Banking Company; an E-911 Fund at Renasant Bank; a Jail Fund at Renasant Bank. When Jones was asked why the bank accounts were being closed during the meeting, he replied that many of the accounts were revolving accounts where the loan had already used and were closed to clear up county bookkeeping.