Johnston County Commission Candidate Discusses Managing Growth and Infrastructure

Jonathan Bredeen: [00:00:00] Did you ultimately like the plan that the county commissioners adopted? I know you didn’t agree with all of it, but did you ultimately like the plan?

Bill Stovall: Yes, I was pleased with the final plan. I had reservations important during the course of it, but I was pleased that they brought out features in there that represented the public’s interest. We had multiple public engagement sessions to review the status of plan and where we were going with it.

And the thing that struck me probably the most was 72 percent of the public response was unfavorable toward the type of quality, quantity, and rate of development we’ve seen in this county for the past decade.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right.

Bill Stovall: They were concerned with traffic congestion. They were concerned with overcrowded schools, which has been a perplexing problem for better part of over 10 years, and they were seeing a quality of life that was changing much too rapidly for their viewpoint.

Narrator: Welcome to another episode of Best of Johnston County, brought to you [00:01:00] by Breeden Law Office. Our host, Jonathan Breeden, an experienced family lawyer with a deep connection to the community, is ready to take you on a journey through the area that he has called home for over 20 years. Whether it’s a deep dive into the love locals have for the county or unraveling the complexities of family law, Best of Johnston County presents an authentic slice of this unique community.

Jonathan Bredeen: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Best of Johnston County Podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden. And today we have a guest with us, Bill Stovall, who is a candidate for the Johnson County commissioner. He is going to be on the ballot on March the 5th in a primary versus man named Tim Little, and this is an open seat. So one of the two of these people is going to win and they’re going to be a brand new county commissioner for Johnson County for a four year term that’s going to start in December of 2023 and go for four years.

And one of these [00:02:00] two men is going to replace Tony Braswell who has been a county commissioner for a very long time in Johnston County who decided not to seek reelection. So we’re going to talk today about, we’re going to learn about Bill. I don’t really know Bill Stovall really at all. We’re going to talk to him today about his background and sort of his vision for Johnston County and what he loves about Johnston County because that’s what we always want to talk about on this podcast is why do people love Johnston County?

Welcome Bill.

Bill Stovall: Thank you, John.

Jonathan Bredeen: So let’s start with just tell me what’s your name, who you are, what you do, kind of a biographical background for the listeners.

Bill Stovall: Okay. Well, my name is Bill Stovall and as Jonathan mentioned, I’m running for County Commissioner out of residency district six, which is Tony Braswell’s seat that’s becoming vacant.

far as who I am a retired professional engineer. I had a 35 year career serving the Department of Correction and the Department of Public Safety. Basically I was responsible for building all the prisons in this state for the last 30 plus years.

Jonathan Bredeen: Oh, [00:03:00] how about that?

Bill Stovall: Yes. And when Corrections merged with Public Safety, they created a mega agency that included not only Adult Corrections, but Juvenile Justice, State Highway Patrol, SBI, Emergency Management A number of smaller agencies and the NC National Guard.

So it was a tremendous undertaking. And then I steered the capital plans for those respected entities through the balance of my career until I retired in 2017.

Jonathan Bredeen: Oh, okay. I didn’t know that. That’s pretty interesting. So I guess, I’m from Laurenburg. So you worked on Scotland correctional.

Bill Stovall: Oh yeah. Yes.

Jonathan Bredeen: That’s a massive facility down there.

Bill Stovall: Yeah. We were, went through a massive building phase after the Sunstein laws changed in 1994. The state, went from what was called fair sentencing to structured sentencing. And the whole intent of that law was to reserve expensive prison space for those who needed it most, that needed to [00:04:00] be removed from society and separated for a lengthy period of time.

These are habitual felons, violent crime perpetrators and so forth. And people of lesser offenses, property crimes, things like that, they were looking at how can we put them into diversion programs initially, so that they can still be productive members of society, support their families, etc. Then if they don’t perform, then the sticking the carrot approach, then you put them into a prison and take away their freedom.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right, right. Well, and I’ve done Criminal defense. When I first came to Johnston County in 2000, I was a criminal defense attorney, primarily now since 2007, my office almost only does family law but and so I worked under, I was on the court appointed list, I represented people that couldn’t afford attorneys for seven or eight years and they had gone to structured sentencing by the time I got here.

And so, I only really dealt with the fair sentencing on people that were coming back on motions for appropriate [00:05:00] relief you know, having their sentences reviewed that had been done prior to 94. So, I know it’s a much different system. You know, I learned about fair sentencing a little bit in law school, but I only, you know, the structure sentencing was the thing and I think prisoners did more time and we’re separated more from society and some of them probably needed to do a little more time than they were doing under their previous system.

Bill Stovall: Yes. Yeah. It became a revolving door and there was a strong influx. We were gaining probably a thousand new inmates in terms of capacity every year that was needed.

So we were in an emergency building program for nearly 20 years. And I probably built close to 2 billion worth of correctional facilities.

Jonathan Bredeen: Oh man, okay. So what’s your educational background?

Bill Stovall: I’m a civil engineer. I went to NC State University. That’s where I met my wife there. She was also at NC State. had a 35 year career. 28 of those years were in executive leadership positions, either as director of [00:06:00] engineering for these two respective entities that I mentioned, and also as a deputy secretary in corrections before the merger with Public Safety. Okay. So I work basically in at will positions for at least six different governors, two Republicans, four Democrats.

Jonathan Bredeen: Oh, how about that? Okay.

Bill Stovall: Yes.

Jonathan Bredeen: Well, that’s pretty cool. Yeah that’s really neat to know. Now, as corrections has evolved, we’ve kind of gone the other way. And they’re doing everything they can to try to keep people out of prisons and give them more chances at probation.

And it’s much harder to revoke somebody’s probation now. And I believe our prisoner population has started to go down.

Bill Stovall: Oh yes.

Jonathan Bredeen: In the last few years.

Yes, when I retired it was we were hovering right around 44, 000. I think we’re down below in the mid 30s right now. We were seeing a steady decline.

Also in the juvenile numbers, unfortunately, we’re seeing the juvenile numbers go up dramatically. Right now I saw an interview not recently by Billy [00:07:00] Laster, who’s head of the juvenile division. I worked with Billy quite a few years and he was indicating that juvenile crime, violent crime is up 19 percent since 2021.

And he attributed a lot of this to the closing of schools for COVID.

Bill Stovall: Correct.

Jonathan Bredeen: And he said they’re seeing a tremendous influx of kids that are maladjusted and having mental health issues. And he characterized it as essentially a mental health tsunami. And I’ve been hearing that from criminal justice sides of some time now.

Law enforcement in particular says we’re just not equipped to handle these mental health cases we’re seeing out there and the community resource is really not there.

Bill Stovall: Right.

Jonathan Bredeen: I think in our county, there’s only 18 beds actually dedicated to mental health crisis. And law enforcement are telling me they’re having to be counselors and they don’t have the skills or training or the resources to do that.

Right. And there’s a lot of mental health issues and you’re seeing the juveniles and then North Carolina changed the law, within the [00:08:00] last 10 years to where now, when I was representing juveniles on the juvenile defender list anybody 16 over was treated as an adult, North Carolina changed the law within the last, I don’t exactly remember the last 10 years.

Now you’re not an adult until 18, unless you commit certain crimes. And everything starts in the juvenile system prior to that. And then can be moved in certain, the more violent felonies can be moved into the criminal system. And you see in that with some of the, unfortunately, some of the, murders we saw in Raleigh where you had the young man going the shooting spree at Headingham about a year and a half ago and, you know, he’s now being moved into the adult system.

And I thought the juvenile system was always better to help the juveniles. And I was hoping that North Carolina would do that. We were 1 of the last, there were only 2 states in America at the time, us in New York that treated 16 year olds as an adult. And I didn’t like that because I’m representing these young people.

They’re charged with often low level felonies and they’re going to get a felony conviction that’s going to follow them for the rest of their life. And I [00:09:00] was like, they’re just too young. And so I was happy to see North Carolina move that age up to 18. But that does put a lot more children in the juvenile system and the juvenile system is having to deal with a lot more, even some of the violent crimes that aren’t being moved to the adult system.

They’re having to deal with that. And I don’t know that the juvenile system has all the resources they need. And obviously you’ve talked to the director and he’s saying he doesn’t. And from what I’ve seen, they don’t. And Holly Grow works for me now. And she was the contract juvenile failure in Hornet County until about a year ago. And so she saw that every day.

Bill Stovall: Yes. After we merged into the public safety agency and general justice came under our umbrella we did quite a bit of new construction and renovations, their facilities for them. They really have not had the resources they need. They’re facing the same problems with hiring staff that we all are.

When I left the vacancy rate in custody positions both in adult corrections and juvenile justice are running about 20 to 25 percent. It’s as high as [00:10:00] 40 percent now. Law enforcement is running into the same thing. The patrol is seeing a tremendous amount of attrition. I think they were losing somewhere between 10 to 12 troopers a month.

That either retiring or they come in and they get a better job somewhere else and they move on, that is a state employment in general is running about a 25 percent vacancies in all agencies. And, you know, quite frankly, it gets to the point you can’t function.

Jonathan Bredeen: Well, it’s not safe. It’s, I mean, potentially in the corrections, you were in corrections. I’ve spent a lot of time when I was doing the criminal defense work, first part of my career in prison, central prison, the old Johnston County jail, Harnett correctional. Like I’ve spent some time in prisons and I was always glad to leave, even though I knew I would get to leave because I was visiting clients.

But if you don’t have staff that can get out of hand in a hurry, I mean, cause its own society. And if anybody out there listening to this has ever watched the show, big brother [00:11:00] that CBS has been running for 25 years, prison is basically like big brother. You take a group of people and you cut them off from society.

They’re going to become their own society and they’re going to do things as a society. And these aren’t always people making the best decisions to start with. And you can have a real problem in a hurry and they know exactly where the guards are and they know exactly what they can get away with because they have nothing else to do, but sit around and study this every day because they’re not doing anything else while they’re in prison a lot of times, but sitting around and being bored.

And I mean, they do some jobs and some work training, but there’s a lot of free time in prison and that can not always be good if you don’t have the staff and the guards to supervise them.

So, well, let’s talk a little bit more about no, you were an engineer. I went to NC state, a big Wolfpack fan. It was they’re having a good, at least when we record this, we’re having a pretty good basketball season here in the middle of January for the [00:12:00] Wolfpack excited for that. And you know, love the Wolfpack at NC state and my family’s gone there for generations.

So, but you decided, you’ve been involved in the community for a long time. I mean, you’ve been out there, talk about some of the things, some of the advisory boards and some of the volunteering you’ve been doing in this community over the last 25 years, cause you’ve been involved in stuff for a long time.

Bill Stovall: Yes, I have. And a big part of what my family’s been involved in is the 4H program. My wife grew up in 4H She was recently inducted into the 4 H, State 4H Hall of Fame.

Jonathan Bredeen:Oh, that’s awesome.

Bill Stovall: My son is a 4H alumni, and now he is a the leader of the Johnston County Target Sports Club, or Shooting Sports Club.

I have been an instructor in that program for over 20 years now, and we also had our own club that we started here, the Four Leaf Flyers. It was club of the year for two years. So we strongly believe in these programs like 4-H FFA. Because we both grew up with a farm [00:13:00] background, you know, we saw the value of it what it teaches you in terms of life’s lessons virtues, values, et cetera.

That’s I think we’re missing that somewhat or we’re losing that in our community now because you’re seeing so much change going on. It’s rapidly changing the character of this county. You know, growth is inevitable. Is how you manage it is what really determines what your quality of life ultimately is going to be.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right. So, I mean, where did you grow up?

Bill Stovall: I grew up in Granville County.

Jonathan Bredeen: Okay.

Bill Stovall: Yeah. I want to farm Granville County. We raised tobacco. My mother was a public school teacher, retired from that, as was my mother in law. She was also a public school teacher. My father worked in the tobacco industry.

We farmed tobacco and small grains. We raised Tennessee walking horses. And love to ride.

Jonathan Bredeen: Oh, those are my wife’s favorite kind of horses. She loves to see walking horses. So when did you move to Johnston County?

Bill Stovall: My family moved down here in 1996. I’ve been here for 27 years. We moved down here to get closer to my wife’s [00:14:00] family.

My parents had passed away. And her folks her wife, her mother’s people have lived in the Princeton area and have a farm there since the 1700s.

Jonathan Bredeen: Oh my goodness. That’s way back.

Bill Stovall: It’s still a working farm.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right. Well, what’s your wife’s maiden name?

Bill Stovall: Jones.

Jonathan Bredeen: Jones. Okay.

Bill Stovall: Yes. She grew up in Mount Olive. Southern Wayne County. She had a really large family. Her father had four brothers. They all live right there together. Yeah. So she had a lot of cousins growing up.

Jonathan Bredeen: Oh, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. I was not too far from Johnston County. Not very far at all. Well, that’s cool. So, you’ve been on some of the county you did 4H I know for a long time, you’ve also been on some of the county Advisory boards. I know you worked on the land use project. You know, talk about that.

Bill Stovall: Well, my most recent involvement was in the citizen steering committee for the new comprehensive land use plan.

That’s a process that took a couple of years. That plan was completed, was sent up to the county commissioners and they adopted about the middle of this year, I think June and [00:15:00] July. And the next process is to actually write a new. Land development code to support what’s in that plan.

But that was a very involved process and it gave me the opportunity to see in depth some of the challenges we’re facing now, and that’s really what motivated me to run for County Commissioner because it really mirrored my career in terms of Infrastructure development. That’s what I did in the correctional side and public safety.

I managed probably 63 wastewater plants and 28 public water systems that these prisons have because they’re basically like a small city anyway.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right.

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Jonathan Bredeen: So, Did you ultimately like the plan that the county [00:16:00] commissioners adopted? I know you didn’t agree with all of it, but did you ultimately like the plan?

Bill Stovall: Yes, I was pleased with the final plan. I had reservations important during the course of it, but I was pleased that they brought out features in there that represented the public’s interest. We had multiple public engagement sessions to review the status of plan and where we were going with it.

And the thing that struck me probably the most was 72 percent of the public response was unfavorable toward the type of quality, quantity, and rate of development we’ve seen in this county for the past decade.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right.

Bill Stovall: They were concerned with traffic congestion. They were concerned with overcrowded schools, which has been a perplexing problem for Better part of over 10 years, and they were seeing a quality of life that was changing much too rapidly for their viewpoint.

Johnston county has made two top 10 lists. I think they are the [00:17:00] ninth fastest growing county in the country in terms of population growth, right? And I think they’re number two in the loss of farmland and that’s very concerning because farmland just the crops alone bring in up to 200 million dollars of commerce this county just in the point of sale of the crops themselves Then you get all the businesses that support agriculture.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right. Right.

Bill Stovall: It’s getting much more difficult for farmers to move the equipment over the congested highways And they’re seeing land that they typically have farmed on a lease basis evaporate him because obviously it’s much more attractive to an owner to sell that for a high value.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right so in basic terms that the listeners can listen to this new land use plan does what?

Bill Stovall: It brings more structure to the development. We need more granularity in our zoning. Right now everything that’s not commercial or business is zoned agricultural residential. You need more [00:18:00] granularity in that so that you’ve got more input in terms of what the county can dictate to ensure that we’ve got compatible adjacent land uses.

We’ve got situations now where over in the western part of the county, you’ve got a huge subdivision that is right next to one of the largest hog farms in the state of North Carolina. It’s been there forever, but now the residents over there that bought in that subdivision are complaining about the odor.

Well, that’s the reality when you move to the country.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right, well, you move next to a hog farm.

Bill Stovall: Yes, and those are the type of things that the plan is trying to avoid. It’s also trying to avoid push development. To where the water and sewer is more readily available, which is within the municipal boundaries and the ETJs, extraterritorial jurisdictions.

Jonathan Bredeen: Okay.

Bill Stovall: We’ve got a lot of areas, pockets that are tremendous population density that really have no governance, local governance. Look at the Cleveland community. Well, that’s where we’re sitting right [00:19:00] now.

Jonathan Bredeen: That’s where I live. It’s where I’ve lived for 23 years.

Bill Stovall: Within a five mile radius of Cleveland school. Historical Cleveland school, you’ve got close to 37, 000 residents, you know, essentially you’ve got a town, but it’s a virtual town with no governance, no individual services being provided by that.

Jonathan Bredeen: Correct.

Bill Stovall: Flowers plantation is another one. That is a good example. It is growing in loops, leaps and bounds.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right.

Bill Stovall: 40, 42 has had you’ve got people now that say I wouldn’t go there for anything because the traffic is horrendous.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right. Right. Well, they’re doing the construction. Now, this road project is going to be done within the next year. And then Cleveland school road is going to have an exit and it has been zoned.

Whether people realize it or not, listen to this podcast and most of the listeners podcast or Cleveland residents you know, Cleveland school road is now zoned commercial all the way down. And so, people were upset about the hardies a few years ago. But you’re going to see a lot more commercial development on Cleveland school road, because there’s going to be an exit in just a few months [00:20:00] off of one of the number one interstates in America.

And so we’re going to have more gas stations and more dollar generals and more of that along that corridor. Because that commercial was going to be coming off of that interstate and also to support the homes that are there.

Bill Stovall: Well, one of the reasons it’s coming to that area as well as others is that the county after the real estate crash of 2008, you know, they extended water and sewer in the area.

It says we, we need more tax base. So we’re putting water and sewer out there and that has unfortunately led to the growth rate that we’ve seen and we’ve essentially created an imbalance in the type of growth we’ve got. We’ve got more residential than anything else and we do not have commerce producing or job producing growth to the extent that we need to maintain a balance in our tax structure.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right. Well, but we have seen a lot of growth. I mean, the Amazon is about to [00:21:00] start hiring with their new plant. You know.

The

Bill Stovall: sewer been there for a couple of years now.

Jonathan Bredeen: Yeah, but I mean,

Bill Stovall: I mean,

Jonathan Bredeen: Amazon’s business took a turn.

Bill Stovall: Yes, but our ability to continue attracting depends on having water and sewer available.

Jonathan Bredeen: Correct.

Bill Stovall: You know, right now our county’s water production, they can treat and deliver up to 14 million gallons per day of water into the county’s distribution system. Their average daily demand is 13. 92 million gallons per day. The only thing that gives them any flexibility beyond that is they’ve got purchase agreements I think it’s either about 8 purchase agreements with other entities.

Some internal to the county like Smithfield, others like the town of Wilson. Raleigh and through Harnett County that are supplementing our water for another 10 million gallons per day. The concern with that is that is not a priority to these other suppliers. If they need that water or they come upon a shortage for drought, first thing they’re going to do is they’re going to stop selling water to Johnston County.

Jonathan Bredeen: So what should the county do?

Bill Stovall: Well, the county has a [00:22:00] plan to develop water capacity over the next 20 years. They have the growth projections, which is, is astronomical but they’re going to need close to 30 million gallons per day capacity in 20 years. And they’ve estimated that cost in the days terms dollar value over a billion dollars that’s going to have to be put into place, that’s just water alone.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right.

Bill Stovall: And water comes out predominantly out of the noose river, which is an overtaxed natural resource It’s got some issues. So there’s a whole lot of soda straws in that river running from raleigh to newborn and everybody’s fighting over capacity out of it Yeah, right now our latest plan to expand our capacity is to go down to Richland Bridge Road at the Wayne County line where there’s a few more tributaries coming into the noose and pump that water back to an old quarry.

That the county has bought in Princeton and stored in that cloric, then run it through our treatment process. But they’ve got to pipe it 12 miles to get it there.

Jonathan Bredeen: Okay.

Bill Stovall: It’s still coming out of the noose, like, there’s a lot of [00:23:00] competition for a limited amount of capacity in that river.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right. Well, the county is about out of wastewater capacity, but they are building, I was by the dump the other day. And it’s about to get done. It’s going to be done soon. And that’s going to be a new wastewater treatment facility there. You know, it’s going to be right there at the Johnston County landfill right off of two 10.

And I think it is going to almost be full when it opens. Is that right? You know more about that.

Bill Stovall: It will only add a net. It’ll have initial treatment capacity of 4 million gallons, but it’ll only add a net 2 million gallons of additional daily capacity to the county system now. The plant that the county has now in Smithville along the river bank, unfortunately, it was completely flooded during Hurricane Matthew.

There it’s dyked around that plant. But what we’ve seen in recent years, because we’ve got so much impervious service being put into place with development, the floodplains are changing rapidly. What [00:24:00] used to be the the limit for floods is now going up. So, their plans are to abandon that plant and move everything out to the landfill and build that in expandable stages to meet our needs for the future.

The cost of that I haven’t seen any recent figures, but you know, I’m talking about water alone. That’s a billion dollars. Sewer is probably going to be somewhere in the same neighborhood.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right. But now the citizens, the users pay for that. That’s not just straight tax dollars. I mean, these things are supported by user fees. I pay a water bill every month. I pay a sewer bill every month. So yeah, it’s going to be passed along to the users. This isn’t like a school where the county has to provide it. And, you know, the users aren’t having to pay for it by a person.

Bill Stovall: How are they paying for capital now? They’re using bonds.

Jonathan Bredeen: Correct.

Bill Stovall: Well, the enterprise fund, you’ve got to issue revenue bonds, which means the user fees have got to pay off that debt.

Jonathan Bredeen: Okay.

Bill Stovall: Now you’re talking about borrowing a billion dollars. Over the next 20 years for water alone, [00:25:00] that’s going to be paid back in terms of user fees right now.

The user fees only support the what it takes to operate the system. We got and to provide for limited amount of expansion. So you’re looking at the the rates are going to have to go up considerably in my opinion, to borrow that money. Or otherwise, you’re going to have to start supplementing it from your property tax base.

And it no longer becomes the enterprise fund. It becomes you’re pledging the full taxing faith and credit of the county in order to do that.

Jonathan Bredeen: So if you win this race and you become a county commissioner, what would you do about the situation with the water and the sewer and the growth?

Bill Stovall: Water, sewer, and growth. The land use plan recognize it and they encouraged in the plan and there’s, I asked for specifically be included that we need a formal cost of community services analysis that shows us what our true costs of these various development types are to the county based upon our current tax structure.

Every cost of community service [00:26:00] analysis done in the last four years has shown consistently that on average nationwide, residential construction and public demand for public services, it costs you $1. 16 per household for every dollar they bring in property taxes. In North Carolina, that average is $1. 25.

And locales that are experiencing high growth like Johnston County, that rate is generally higher. So that tells you right there that without having other land uses to balance it out, you look at commercial, industrial, they generally demand somewhere around 0. 35 per dollar of tax price they bring in.

Agricultural, depending on where you’re at, runs anywhere from 0. 35 up to about 60%. But those are the ones that bring in you a net increase in revenue. That offsets what the public service cost is for your residential construction.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right? And commercial growth is what you need in North Carolina because the counties are largely funded by a [00:27:00] property tax, and the Novo expansion doesn’t go to school and it doesn’t need welfare services from DSS, and it doesn’t need food stamps and stuff like that And so if you can grow your commercial base and we’ve done a really good job of biopharma in this county with griffles and Novo, and I think we’re gonna have more of that coming over the next 5 to 10 years.

That’s going to help and help keep these jobs here. And so it turns some of these cars around that are driving to Raleigh every day where they can live here and work here.

Bill Stovall: Well, I want to see our utility capacity be used and a certain amount reserved to get that job creation here. Because I want to see jobs within the county itself rather than people that are basically driving into Wake County and other triangle counties to work.

We’re rapidly becoming more than a bedroom community to the triangle. And that’s not helping our resources here. We need to be able to provide job opportunities in the county for our citizens. And with that job [00:28:00] opportunity, we’re going to have a table state more stable tax structure. And that gives us more regional clout in terms of what happens not only in Johnston County, but in eastern North Carolina.

You know, we are known as basically a pharmaceutical giant. I didn’t agree with the effort that several chamber of commerce came up with several years ago to say they want to brand us as Triangle East. I think that was a wrong decision. Johnston County has its own unique identity, and we need to brand ourselves based on the strengths of Johnston County.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right. Well, like I said, I could talk to Bill Stovall for hours, and we’ve been going now for a little bit. But I do want to ask you about parks. There is the Cleveland Community Park out here. They bought the 80 acres at at Polenta and Matthews. I know you and I were both at the public meeting they had with Adrian O’Neill the other night.

So you saw the plans there if you’ve not seen them before. I’ve been working on that park since the very first call with [00:29:00] Rick Hester to the lady that had the land that was trying to give us the 13 acres across the street. And we knew she owned the 80 acres across the street. And we were like, well, we’d like to have the 13 acres, but would you be willing to sell us the 80 acres?

And she said maybe, and you know, the rest is sort of history with Denley and Michael dod and them going and purchasing that land and holding it until the county could buy it.

What are your thoughts on developing that park? The price on that park is somewhere between 30 and $50 million.

The Cleveland community is not incorporated. It is not going to incorporate, I don’t believe anytime soon. Would you support a bond for the county to help build this 30 to 50 million dollar park out here in Cleveland?

Bill Stovall: Well, with amenities, the county’s position has always been, and this is a conservative principle, the people who use it need to be the ones who are going to pay for it.

You’re not going to have enough cash to build this park at the end. It’s a grand plan. I think it’s definitely a need in that community as well as other communities. But you [00:30:00] know, the devil’s in the details, are you going to pay for. A bond referendum is probably going to be the most logical way to do something like that, but you’ve got to be able to look at what is going to be your source to pay that back special task districts are one way of doing that.

But usually, the citizens who are affected by that. Have to agree to it.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right? Well, they talked to about, you know, they had the thing where they were going to try to have a vote, but then the legislature says you can’t have a vote that law, but the county commissioners do have the authority to create a tax, a special tax district like the fire tax district.

And you know, they talked about maybe making the Macklemore Fire tax district and it was going to be four cents and that’s how they were going to do it. The county commissioners four years ago voted that down. I know that is still on the table. Would you support a fire tax special tax district for the Macklemore Fire District to build that park?

Bill Stovall: think it has to be considered. But I think that when you’re looking at parks, it’s going to be used by [00:31:00] all citizens. You need to look at how you can distribute that cost out accordingly. I have observed, I think a lot of our local governments, as well as county are operating in their own little silos.

There’s not enough coordination out there. I think that looking at what our mutual needs and how we can solve these problems together Makes more sense and makes it more palatable to the citizens who are ultimately going to have to pay for it Right now whether or not a special tax district in that case is going to be appropriate I’m not ready to say yes, no today, but I think special tax districts are certainly something that’s going to have to be very thoughtfully considered and Marketed to our citizens because the reality is you’ve got really no other means to come up with that at this time.

Jonathan Bredeen: Well, and there are other areas that would like to be considered for that if they do it micro I think at one point was interested.

I know Archer’s Lodge has been interested. I know there’s a town there there are other areas this county that are being served, you know by these sort [00:32:00] of Nonprofits like the Greater Cleveland Athletic Association, the Maurice Crossroads Athletic Association that, needs space and need facilities for all these, you know, kids who are coming here to play.

Bill Stovall: What I love most about Johnson County is and the reason we moved here, I mean, we like the people here. They’re very warm and friendly. They have the same small town values that my wife and I grew up with. We think it’s an excellent location to raise a family. I think the quality of life here has been excellent, but I think we’ve got to look at doing some things differently at the county level in order to preserve that quality of life and enhance it.

And actually fully enacting this land use plan is going to be the the primary step to achieving that. It’s going to bring stability to our tax base, and it’s going to open up more options in terms of how we fund these tremendous growing capital needs we have for infrastructure and utilities.

I think the people here is like, say are, what makes it the grant.

Jonathan Bredeen: Well, I agree. And that’s what almost everybody that’s been on this podcast has said. And that’s what [00:33:00] I think. I think these are the Some of the best people there are. I’ve lived here for 23 years. I love it. I have no plans to leave.

Well, we want to thank Bill Stovall for coming on to our podcast today. He will be on your Republican primary ballot on March the 5th for a county commissioner’s seat. And you could listen to what he has to say. He can how would they find out more about your campaign?

Bill Stovall: Well, I have a Facebook page at Bill Stovall for Johnsont County Commissioner that they can go to.

And from there, also, I have a website with a link tree address where I put platform statements on that, and I’m constantly adding more information to that as I go. But if you want to learn more about my position on infrastructure and balanced growth and quality of life. Please go to that Link Tree site and also visit my webpage.

Jonathan Bredeen: What is the Link Tree site?

Bill Stovall: It is also Bill Stovall for cc. It’s okay. I think.com.

Jonathan Bredeen: Okay. Alright. Cool. Cool. Well anyway, we’ll thank Bill Stovall for coming on today. If this is your first time listening to the best of Johnston County [00:34:00] podcast please do us the favor of liking or following or subscribing to this podcast, wherever you’re seeing it on whether you’re seeing it on Spotify, Apple podcasts, YouTube Instagram, Facebook, all the different places that we have this podcast, new episodes come out every Monday.

So be free to check back. At this point, we have you know, a bunch of episodes on. You can go back and listen to some of the more popular episodes we’ve already had on, including with Adrian O’Neill, the Parks and Rec Director of Johnston County and Patrick Harris, one of our current County Commissioners.

So, if you’ve not listened to those, definitely go back and listen to those. Be sure to keep following us. If you would do us a favor of leaving us a 5 star review and thanking our guests and anything you have to say or questions you may have for Bill Stovall. We can leave them there and we’ll try to get those to him as well.

The five star reviews help our visibility in the podcast world. So other people will find out about the Best of Johnston County podcasts. Till next time. I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden. Thanks a lot.

That’s the end of today’s [00:35:00] episode of Best of Johnston County, a show brought to you by the trusted team at Breeden Law Office. We thank you for joining us today and we look forward to sharing more interesting facets of this community next week. Every story, every viewpoint adds another thread to the rich tapestry of Johnston County.

If the legal aspects highlighted raised some questions, help is just around the corner at www. breedenfirm. com.