MOUNT VERNON — When Mount Vernon and Knox County passed their 2025 budgets last December, the Regional Planning Commission funding was absent.
Mount Vernon Mayor Matt Starr said the city relies on its Municipal Planning Commission, Board of Zoning Appeals, and other boards and commissions to regulate the planning and zoning decisions it needs to make.
“Because Regional Planning Commission doesn’t regulate these issues in the city, ending our membership allows us to focus on the planning tools that impact the city’s residents,” Starr said.
“Our decision not to rejoin RPC has nothing to do with the value that the organization offers Knox County’s townships. We also felt it was more appropriate for the city not to decide what happens in the townships.
“Obviously, we will work with the townships and RPC on matters if asked, but making the commitment to continued membership did not seem warranted, nor was it supported by City Council.”
In December, former County Commissioner Teresa Bemiller told Knox Pages the new Board of Commissioners would decide funding.
“I think personally a county planning commission would be more effective,” she said.
Bemiller said the county board would comprise the three commissioners and five other representatives.
“It’s something that needs to be looked at to make sure it’s still relevant,” she said of the RPC.
County Commissioner Bill Pursel said in December that RPC has “plenty of money to function without additional taxpayer money for several years.”
“It does not make sense to keep putting money in their coffers when they don’t need it,” he said.
Former Commissioner Thom Collier also noted the commissioners provide RPC with internet, office space, cleaning services, and everything needed for an office.
Commissioners restore funding to the planning commission
On March 13, the Board of Commissioners approved funding RPC with $26,000, the same amount as in previous years.
“We felt that if we’re going to have representation there that we probably ought to put the funding there,” Pursel said last week.
“I still think that there’s some things that we’re going to be doing to shore up that area that are not currently being done right now. So that’ll be up to Barry [Lester] and Drenda [Keesee] to see those things take place.”
Commissioner Lester is the board’s RPC representative. Darrel Severns is RPC’s secretary.
“I have an agenda I’m going to talk to Darryl about that I think we need to address, but we did approve their funding,” Lester said.
The agenda revolves around redoing the county subdivision regulations.
Severns acknowledged that much of the former Board of Commissioners’ disgruntlement was because RPC had not “torn into” revising the subdivision regulations.
“The primary reason why I did not fully dive in is because I knew some things in the comprehensive plan would be different,” Severns said.
“I didn’t want to dive in without knowing what those things might be.”
RPC members approved the comprehensive plan at their March 20 meeting. It now goes to the commissioners, who will schedule two public hearings.
Severns also announced that Wendy Moeller of Compass Pointe Planning will provide a quote for revising, updating, and “beefing up” the regulations.
A smaller county commission
Lester said a county commission is on hold from the Board of Commissioners’ perspective.
“Townships are an important voice in our government,” Commissioner Keesee said. “We want them all to stay involved as much as possible.”
“It’s not a matter of stay involved, it’s get involved,” Pursel said. “They canceled the township association meeting because of lack of interest for the March meeting.”
Severns opposes the idea of a board comprised of the three commissioners and five appointees.
“It’s really taking the voice away from the township folks,” he said. “Even if you do put a couple of township people on the county board, it’s only two voices.”
Severns recognizes that a larger commission takes longer to do things.
“But I know the townships are already feeling pushed aside when decisions are being made,” he said.
Mount Vernon’s on board with a county commission
Starr supports the idea of a county commission. He believes it would serve the community more effectively because of its size and county population.
“There are broader responsibilities for the county commission as opposed to the RPC, which really serves as an advisory role,” Starr said.
“The county commission would have more authority and be able to conduct business efficiently. Also, the county commission would have fiscal control and set fiscal priorities.”
Starr said that, from a practical perspective, bringing a smaller group of people together is much easier than bringing a large one together. He referenced previous Knox Pages reports about the difficulty RPC has obtaining a meeting quorum.
“A county planning commission would in all likelihood be adequate and less complex to manage than a regional planning commission. In my opinion, the county commission makes sense for us right now because Knox County is going to have to be more proactive and adaptive while being able to enforce policies,” Starr said.
“This would be a major help to the update and execution of the subdivision regulations for Knox County, something that could dramatically help our townships and protect those priorities community stakeholders identified in the recent update of the comprehensive plan.”
Regarding the city’s membership in RPC, Severns said, “The city comes to the county commission, but the city has never allowed the county to sit on its Municipal Planning Commission, even as a non-voting member.
“The city has a say what happens in the county, but nobody from the county has a say in what the city does.”
Loss of membership dues
The city paid $4,247.5 in RPC membership dues. Severns said losing the money will not affect RPC.
“We have had a pretty substantial carryover for quite a while,” he said.
“The comprehensive plan update took a pretty good chunk of that, but we still are in pretty good shape.”
RPC, the city, and the county commissioners funded the comprehensive plan update known as Together Knox.
