Commission denies 1,166 acres over its own staff's reading

UPDATE, Oct. 1, 2026. The Oct. 6 agenda is posted and carries no written order for this denial, no enclave item at all, and not the Sept. 28 minutes. The 90-day certification on inaction remains in the statute unchanged and expires Jan. 1, 2028. See Three enclave denials, and not one written order on Tuesday’s agenda.

The county commission denied both Heritage Development certifications Monday morning, 3 to 2. It had approved both of them on Aug. 19, 3 to 2, the other way.

It also denied them over its own staff’s reading of the statute. Asked directly whether the application qualified, Deputy County Attorney Healy West told the board that the definition requires the county to look at its comprehensive plan, and that “looking at the comp plan and that definition, staff believes that it fits that category.”

That is the gap worth holding onto. About 1,166 acres either side of Interstate 95 turn on it, and as many as 15,000 homes, which is Jacksonville Today’s figure. Staff said it met the test. Three commissioners said it did not, and the county attorney now has to write the order explaining why.

Commissioner Ann Taylor moved to deny. Commissioner Krista Joseph seconded, and said while she was seconding it that she did not think it would pass. It passed. The third vote came from Commissioner Sarah Arnold, who had voted in August to certify both parcels and who said nothing Monday about why she had changed. Chair Clay Murphy and Commissioner Christian Whitehurst voted against the motion.

What was moved

Taylor’s motion ran about ninety seconds and was built on one clause.

She quoted West telling the board on Aug. 19 that under SB 686 the test is the state’s definition applied strictly. Then she applied it. “So this isn’t the comprehensive plan overriding SB 686,” she said. “It’s the state’s own definition applied exactly as council advised. And on this record, it hasn’t been met.”

“So I move to deny.”

The motion named both items. “The applicant has not carried his burden under section 163.3164. The property is not surrounded by a legally established urban service area, which is an area identified in the comprehensive plan with facilities in place or in the capital improvements elements.” Reliance on the development area boundary as a functional equivalent, she said, does not meet that standard, and staff had separately found services were not presently adequate for the site.

She drew one comparison, and it is the useful part of the record. Unlike ordinance 2015-4 for Durbin Creek, she said, no ordinance, comprehensive plan provision or future land use designation establishes an urban service area here. The county has done this the other way before, on paper, and the paper exists.

“Certification is not authorized. And I direct our county attorney to prepare the final written order with findings of fact and conclusions of the law.”

That last sentence is the same instruction the failed motions carried in August, and it is what the statute requires of a denial.

Joseph seconded it without optimism.

“I just finished saying that I don’t think we have a third vote,” she said. “I think we wasted our time here today, but I will second that. And I do think there’s issues with the perimeter also.”

What staff told them

Whitehurst spent the next several minutes putting the question to the county attorney in as many forms as he could find.

Is an agricultural enclave application required to be within an urban service area. Is it required to be within a development boundary, or are those two sides of the same coin. Does the statute carry its own definitions of what does and does not qualify.

West’s answer went to the comprehensive plan. The definition of an agricultural enclave in section 163.3164 uses the term as defined in the statute, she said, and that definition requires staff to look at the county’s own comp plan. Staff did, and believed it fit.

Whitehurst read it back to be sure. So staff’s assessment is that it does in fact fit the category of the statute, following the statute’s language back to the comprehensive plan and not the state’s language.

“Correct,” West said. “It’s incorporated in.”

He also asked about the services finding, which was half of Taylor’s motion. His understanding, he said, was that a lack of utilities on site can be mitigated by the applicant agreeing to bring them in later. West said that was correct, and that it is an express condition option under the same section.

Taylor came back to the microphone on the other side of it. The applicant is the one who invoked an urban service area, she said, and it was tied to the application. “So we can’t just ignore what a true urban service area is. That is what they used to bring this application forward.”

Later she defined a capital improvements element for the record: the list of big infrastructure the county has committed to build and actually budgeted money for, usually on a rolling five-year schedule. Not a wish list. Named, scheduled and funded.

That is the clause the whole thing turned on.

The meeting the meeting was about

Whitehurst asked for this meeting. He moved on Sept. 15, during commissioner comments, to bring both items back. A member of the prevailing side asking to reopen a decision is the ordinary procedural shape of a reconsideration, and it is the only reason these acres were on any agenda in September.

He then voted to approve them again.

“Not making the decision based on the evidence is inviting more and more state interference into our county government process, which we have been entrusted to run,” he said, in the quotation Jacksonville Today carried.

Joseph moved to censure him for it. Her argument was that calling a special meeting without intending to change his vote wasted everyone’s time. No one seconded.

Whitehurst, before any of that, had thanked the commissioner who moved against him. “I want to note a contrast here,” he said. One commissioner heard him ask that the decision be made on evidence and not politics “and then hauled off and made a political comment and made a political move to try and have me censured. And here we have another commissioner who brought me something of substance that I can consider, some evidence to consider. Thank you, Commissioner Taylor.”

He thanked her and voted the other way. Which is fine.

Who was in the room

Two of the five commissioners who voted Monday are under criminal charge.

On July 7 two of them were each charged with two misdemeanor counts of conspiracy and of misrepresenting a false voter guide as an official slate of endorsements from the county Republican Party, in connection with a mailer sent before the 2024 election. That account comes from Jacksonville Today’s reporting of the charging affidavit. This paper has not yet obtained the charging documents, has asked for them, and is not printing the names while the case is open.

A criminal charge is an accusation. All defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

This paper is tracking the case to its disposition and will publish the outcome, at the prominence of this story, whether that outcome is a conviction, an acquittal, a plea, or charges dropped.

On July 21 the board voted 3 to 2 to declare no confidence in those two members and to direct the County Attorney to ask the governor to remove them. The three who are not charged voted for it. The two who are voted against, and both declined to step down. One of their terms ends this year without a re-election bid; the other runs to 2028.

The governor has not acted. Seventy days later all five were in their seats, and the two the motion was about voted on opposite sides of the largest enclave in front of the county.

The record of it

The Clerk’s board records index gives every meeting three cells: Agenda, Approved Minutes, and Watch on GovTV. For Sept. 28 the agenda is a link and the other two are plain text. Both Sept. 15 rows are the same. The Sept. 3 special meeting has all three.

Minutes are approved at the next regular meeting, which is Oct. 6, so they are not late. The video needs no motion and no second.

The board voted by console. Push yes or no, the chair said, and then announced the result as three to two. No name was spoken. A vote taken that way leaves nothing in a recording for anyone to count, which is what minutes are for.

There was one more exchange after it. The chair asked Taylor, on the microphone because he said he was not allowed to ask her off it, whether her motion had covered both applications or only one.

Both, she said. 2026-05 and 2026-06.

Then the board adjourned, and the chair told the room it could clap.

The written order comes next, and it has to carry findings of fact and conclusions of law supporting a determination the county’s own staff did not reach.