Late last week, Alan Foster unexpectedly tendered his resignation from the District 3 seat on the Putnam County Board of Commissioners. However, as of The Eatonton Messenger’s print deadline Tuesday morning, the situation could still be described as “a bit muddy.”
“(L)ast minute” changes to a draft of the county’s new – and much-debated – short-term rental (STR) ordinance apparently spurred Foster’s decision.
District 3 centers on the Lake Oconee region and carries a majority of the county’s STR permits.
When contacted last Friday evening, Foster was reluctant to go into his rationale but by Monday he had taken out an ad in this week’s Lake Oconee News (page B3) to more fully explain his reasoning.
Much remains unclear about what happened last week and how to realistically interpret it, even about the procedural validity of Foster’s resignation via email to County Manager Paul Van Haute.
But according to Foster’s letter, several things seriously bothered him. “I was floored,” he wrote.
The first was receiving an email from county attorneys that relayed changes in the draft ordinance raised at a meeting involving Chairman Bill Sharp, Vice Chairman Daniel Brown, and staff members, with the proposed changes later being approved by at least one other commissioner.
As the commissioner at the center of the STR issue, Foster thought he should have been involved, strongly suggesting some behind-the-scenes flip-flopping on earlier agreements have taken place.
The second was the grandfathering of 65 STRs in the R-1R zone. Foster had wanted an outright ban on commercial activities in the R-1R zone. The third issue was raising the cap on total STRs allowed from 300 to 400.
In a telephone interview Tuesday morning from a family gathering in Tennessee, Sharp said he received no communication with Foster about a resignation.
“I don’t understand why he would resign. I would encourage him to remain,” he said. “Nothing is chiseled in stone until the hearings and a vote is taken.”
And, according to County Attorney Adam Nelson’s reading of the state law governing resignations of local and state elected officials, Foster’s email to Van Haute is probably not valid. In short, the governor’s office is the proper recipient of such letters. As of 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, the governor’s office had not received any such notification from Foster. Eventually, the local board of elections also gets involved.
Meanwhile, Sharp’s take on the events of the past week included the meeting referenced in Foster’s letter and the rationale for the changes. The meeting, he said, was the usual monthly huddle with staff members and the commission chairman and chairman pro-tem to work on the agenda for the commission’s August 4 meeting.
The grandfathering of the 65 current STRs in the R-1R zone (with the continued exception for the current 10 or so permits having more than 12 occupants at any given location) came up as a legal issue recommended by the county attorney’s office.
Sharp also claimed the expansion of the cap on the number of STRs from 300 total permits to 400 was more of a political/ financial question. If Foster leans more toward conserving the family residential character of the lakeside properties, Sharp leans more pro-growth.
“There are two points,” Sharp said. “One, with 300 (as a cap on the number of permits), there is no growth anywhere. Two, it’s got to pay for itself.”
The STR debate ramped up this spring following a string of neighborhood complaints ranging from loud parties to intrusions on neighboring properties to clogged parking on narrow streets. Every commission meeting during the early summer featured large crowds with speakers pushing either for tighter controls or the protection of property rights.
After that came five open-door work sessions for the commissioners and staff. As the new draft ordinance took shape, it appeared to tilt toward neighborhood interests with a cap on the total number of STRs permitted, a gradual reduction in the total number, limits on capacity, and tighter regulations.
Foster had appeared satisfied with both the process and the direction of the ordinance, as well as the seeming consensus among the commissioners. Now, not so much.