After an hour of discussion during Thursday’s Lyon County commission meeting, a decision still wasn’t reached regarding fees related to the Lyon County Sanitation Code.
Lyon County commissioners decided to table the issue another week to give everybody more time to think about the fee structure.
Before the discussion was tabled, commissioners discussed a simplified fee structure which includes a $395 fee for new sanitation system construction and a $495 fee for alternative or experimental systems; and applying a flat $150 to $250 fee to other inspections such as real estate transactions and reconstructions. Under this suggestion, there would be no fee applied to cycle inspections, as it was decided last fall.
The fees were done away with in January this year following a request from former Commissioner Myron VanGundy. Commissioners voted to eliminate all fees relating to inspections, including real-estate transactions. During Thursday’s meeting, commissioners discussed the fees related to real estate transactions. Commissioner Bob Davis said he didn’t realize the motion made in January did away with those fees.
“The intent was to leave that $150 on real estate,” Davis said after Commission Chairman Marshall Miller questioned him.
Davis told Lougene Marsh and Ann Mayo, of the Lyon County Health Department, that the proposal they presented Wednesday confused things more. The proposal had another fee schedule attached to it. The proposal calls for various fees depending on the type and amount of work that needs to be done to a system.
“We felt that we (had) done the right thing in cleaning up the confusion,” Davis said. “But I say in this proposal that they have brought to us now that we are adding more confusion. That is a total nightmare.”
Davis said the controversy has shed a bad light on Lyon County.
“The image that we have portrayed to the public is that we have a county in dire need of correction,” he said. “And that isn’t true.”
Earlier in the discussion, Miller explained his views relating to the fee structure.
“If we substantially reduce the fees in that department, tax dollars will have to be moved into that department and I don’t think that’s fair,” Miller said. “...We either need to have a code and enforce it or throw it out. We are not a third-world county, we are in modern times.”
Commissioner Scott Briggs also shared his views. Briggs agreed that the $150 should remain for real-estate transactions, but if a system fails, the landowner or the buyer should not be charged an additional fee, he said.
“If it was just a $150 fee the public would accept it a lot better,” Briggs said.