On Monday, The Cumberland County Commission adopted a resolution that repealed previous resolutions regarding the County’s Health and Safety Codes in favor of adopting new codes that would be handled by the County Mayor Allen Foster, and the Building Codes Department rather than the Health and Safety Standards Board.

The resolution passed by a 15-3 vote, with 5th District Commissioner Terry Lowe being one of the resolution’s detractors, alongside the 1st District’s Wiley Potter and the 4th District’s Charles Seiber. Lowe said that he didn’t understand it and that the resolution seemed geared more towards beautifying rather than safety.

One part of the resolution in particular drew Owens’ attention, a section defining Junk motor vehicles. A term that excluded “items on the premises of an establishment constituting an automobile graveyard and operating in compliance with the requirements of that part or establishments having facilities for processing scrap metal; or farmers with tractors and implements sitting in fields or on farms that are not directly sitting next to the country road.”

Lowe said he was going to vote no because of the portion dealing with vehicles and tractors, although 2nd District Commissioner Tom Isham told him that tractors had since been removed. Wendell Wilson of the 6th District chimed in, saying the resolution was modeled after a similar resolution in Putnam County.

The idea behind the resolution is that it would take some pressure off of the board as well as neighbors.

With this resolution in place, a complaint made by a property owner will now require three nearby property owners to join in signing complaint forms.

When a petition is filed with the Codes Enforcement Officer by at least 1 homeowner within 500 yards of the property in question, or when the Codes Enforcement Officer can see a codes violation from a public road, the Officer will be able to issue a notice stating the violations and request the violation be addressed within 30 days.

With the new additional pressure on the codes department, Mayor Foster said a new person would need to be hired, with the codes department already doing more than 300 inspections. The new hire would be trained for both enforcement and inspections.