Navigating Growth and Education: A Vision for Johnston County

Jonathan Breeden: [00:00:00] If the enrollment in Johnston County Public Schools is largely. 

With the new charter schools and the homeschools, why has the funding gone up 25, 30 in just two budget cycles to a school system with a flat or maybe 1 growth model?

Butch Lawter: that’s a great question. 

One that took a lot of debate, 

On, and I will say there’s a lot of funding that is in place that became because of COVID. That is not there anymore. And so, so when you kinda get something there, and I’ll say it’s effective or needed, it’s hard to cut away from.

And then you’ve got, and that’s not counting inflation with the price of diesel fuel and the cost of buses and everything else going up, up, up, up. 

and we’re trying to, I will say this for the. The relationship between public schools and the commissioners, when I got on the board was probably not the best.

And I will say over those six years, 

We have seen the trust. Between the two boards, 

Increased dramatically.

Narrator: Welcome to another episode of Best of Johnston County, brought to you by [00:01:00] 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 Breeden: Hello and welcome to another edition of The Best of Johnston County podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden. And today, we have with us a special guest, Butch Lawter, the chairman of the Johnston County commissioners. 

This is our second episode with Butch. And if you missed the first one, please go back and listen to it, where he talked a little bit about Johnston Community College, his time on the Clayton town council, and some of his best accomplishments so far as a Johnston County commissioner over the last five and a half years. 

In this episode with the chairman, we’re going to talk a little bit about the Johnston County public school system, a little bit about the Sheriff’s Department, a little bit about land use, zoning, and the new parks that he has been spearheading here in Johnston County, an idea that he took from building a lot of the parks in Clayton. 

But before we get to that, I just want to remind everybody to like, follow, or subscribe this podcast wherever you’re seeing it, whether it be Spotify, Apple iTunes, LinkedIn, TikTok, or any of the other social media pages, [00:01:00] YouTube, that have The Best of Johnston County podcasts that you’ll be aware a future episodes of The Best of Johnston County podcast. And if you’d be so kind to go down and leave us a five star review down below where you’re seeing this podcast, it will help for our visibility so other citizens in the area will know about our podcast. 

Welcome butch.

Butch Lawter: Good to be here. 

Jonathan Breeden: All right, good. So we’ll start with not everybody listens to every episode. So we’ll say, just tell us, who you are? Where are you from? 

Butch Lawter: All right. Butch Lawter, born in Bat Cave, North Carolina. That is a real place. You can Google that and find out where that is. Lived next door in Chimney Rock for about 15 years, then moved to Spartanburg for about eight years. Lived there, went to Clemson while I was there. Got out of Clemson, came to Raleigh to go to graduate school at NC State. Got my master’s in civil engineering at the Geotechnical Concentration. And got out of there, and went to work in Raleigh for about six years. I was working with some people from Johnston County, who kept on telling me that I needed to move to God’s country.

And it took me about a year to listen to them. And I wound up moving to Clayton in 1993 with [00:02:00] my wife and two daughters. And been here ever since. Raised my family here. My current wife, Kim, she was born and raised here in Johnston County with her two sons. And between the five children we have and the seven grandsons and one more coming, they all live in Johnston County.

My mother lives in Johnston County. Kim’s parents live in Johnston County, her sister. So we’ve got everybody here in Johnston County. 

Jonathan Breeden: And I’m sure none of them have an opinion as to what the County Commissioner should do. 

Butch Lawter: Sometimes, I get some helpful advice on what county commissioners need to do. That is very true. 

Jonathan Breeden: You get some help advice for me too. I don’t know. Listen, but I give helpful advice.

Butch Lawter: But one of us thinks it’s helpful. 

Jonathan Breeden: So anyway, you’re an engineer by training, and for a period of time, you were with ST Wooten and y’all built some roads. 

Butch Lawter: We built a few roads. Matter of fact, the Clayton Bypass was one that the time that I was an estimator and helped out with the project management on that.

At the time, that was the largest project the company had ever had, about 150 million project. They’ve [00:03:00] since exceeded that tremendously on a couple of other products they’ve got, but they weren’t there for 17 years, from 99-2016. And the last eight years, I’ve been at WithersRavenel, an engineering consulting company based out of Cary.

Jonathan Breeden: So exactly, what does an engineering consultant do?

Butch Lawter: So we do a little bit of everything.

I’m called a senior delivery officer, which basically means I’ve managed multiple departments or practice areas, as we like to call them. I have utilities group that works with me. We have Stormwater group that works with me. And then we have our funding and asset management team that works with me. And when you think of your talents getting grants to do projects, that is what the funding piece of that does. And then of course the asset management is take a look at, whether it’s payment utilities, how do you plan and develop a program to spend money to maintain your infrastructure. So that’s the piece I have.

We’ve got another group that has surveying in it for a full gamut of surveying. They do construction admin and [00:04:00] observation work. And then we have the land development side who does subdivisions, industrial sites, commercial sites. And we’re from one end of North Carolina to the other from Nashville to Wilmington. 

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. That’s good. I know that keeps you busy. And then I think, being a county commissioner could be a full time job or probably is a full time job. It’s a lot of work. I don’t think people understand how much work it is. Y’all work all the time. 

Butch Lawter: I think I work about 40 hours a week, in addition to the 45 or 50 or so work. So I work a lot. If you ask my wife, how much I work as a county commissioner, she would probably tell you it’s more than that. I won’t say daylight to dark, but you’ve got people calling with questions, emails, and then the general things that we’re working on trying to make sure, you got a transportation plan, we’re trying to get ordinances. Moving forward, we just dealt with the landfill. We’re working at the fire service districts. So there’s just a lot of things.

And I say as chairman, you’ve got to make sure we’re advancing down the field and it seems slow. And I’ve got a list on my phone of your commissioner things [00:05:00] that we want to make sure that they’re moving forward.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, it’s a lot. And you have people like me who call and ask you questions, and text you, and all that stuff, because we all have our own opinions. And I think, that is helpful to the commissioners. I think all the commissioners like to hear from the public and consider it, and is not bothered by really any of it. 

Butch Lawter: I would 100% agree with that because I’ll say it’s biblical that iron sharpens iron.

So when you text me or call me with a tough question, a lot of times, I may not know the answer, but I’ve got to go find out. So when you ask hard questions, that makes me go look for answers. And so I’ve become better educated on things. So it is helpful when you get questions. And I don’t know of any commissioners that say, I don’t want to hear from the constituents because there are questions you got to answer. And that’s how we got an office to get voted in. 

Jonathan Breeden: That’s true. So let’s talk about the Johnston County Public Schools. It is the single largest part of the county commissioner’s budget every year.

Butch Lawter: Nearly half. 

Jonathan Breeden: It’s nearly half. I think, the budget issue was 270 million? 

Butch Lawter: 370

Jonathan Breeden: [00:06:00] 370 million. Golly. 

I remember when it was a hundred million. I remember when it got a hundred million, I think that was a big deal. Now it’s 370 million. The school system is largely, the majority of the school system funding for people that don’t know comes from state and federal, but the county does put in a pretty good chunk.

And the county’s part, I believe, pays for the buildings themselves, the maintenance of the buildings, the custodians, getting the grass mowed, and the buses, that’s mainly, and then any additional positions, like principals and stuff that are not allocated by the state based on average daily attendance, am I right about that?

Butch Lawter: Yeah. It’s very complicated. Really, what we’re obligated to do is school construction and that’s it. But throughout North Carolina, it is very common. I’ll say, I don’t know of any counties that doesn’t provide supplements. And then, so that’s for all the other things that you mentioned. And we were at 104 million on that. We’ve gone from 70 ish [00:07:00] million when I first got on there, to now we’re at 104. 

And we hear about growth. But for the Johnston County Public Schools, that growth has flattened and a lot of that is due to homeschooling, but also charter schools.

Jonathan Breeden: And so my question, and I asked all the commissioners this, I’ve asked you this before. If the enrollment in Johnston County Public Schools is largely, with the new charter schools and the homeschools, why has the funding gone up 25, 30% in just two budget cycles to a school system with a flat or maybe 1% growth model?

Butch Lawter: That’s a great question. One that took a lot of debate on, and there’s a lot of funding that is in place that became because of COVID that is not there anymore. So when you get something there, I’ll say it’s effective or needed, it’s hard to cut away from.

And that’s not counting inflation with the price of diesel fuel and the cost of buses and everything else going up. I will say [00:08:00] this, the relationship between public schools and the commissioners, when I got on the board was probably not the best.

And over those six years, we have seen the trust between the two boards increased dramatically. A lot of conversations between the two boards, a lot of things I know that commissioners, even though it’s not our job, since it’s half the money we spend is like the new schools, historically that’s been a one story. School sprawled out. And now, they’re building multi story school, less land, which is already getting more and more expensive, but less land. And considering, I think they’re going to redraw the district lines. 

So a lot of things that we’re working together on to try to do things more efficiently, because they originally asked for, I think for 111. Actually, I think they asked for more than that. And so, we paired it back because we balanced the same thing is, how do you ask for an increase of 20% when enrollment increase is flat? 

Jonathan Breeden: I could be wrong, but it went [00:09:00] from 78 or 79 million two years ago, to 90 or 91 million last year, to 104 million this year, while the enrollment didn’t really change. 20 million, $25 million in 24 months. It’s a lot. 

Butch Lawter: Yeah. And some of that is teacher supplements. 

Again, it’s reality that we’re losing teachers to Wake County or other places that are paying more. So we can’t make up all that difference, but we do want to just like we did for the county employees. And we did a pay study. We adjusted. I think the 1st adjustment was like $8 million additional funding that we needed for employees the first go around. We’re doing that every year now, half the employees every year, so it’s not quite as dramatic, but the school system is the same lately. We want to keep the good people. And to do that, you’ve got to pay them. 

Jonathan Breeden: So do you know what the county supplement is for the teachers now?

Butch Lawter: Hey, I don’t remember off the top. I want to say, it’s near 23. I have it in the spreadsheet somewhere I looked at it, because one of the things we’re trying to move towards to [00:10:00] make it a little bit easier for both sides is some sort of formula and kind of in this a little bit in the weeds here, but what we try to do is look at what was the per pupil spending from the county side last year. And then we say, okay, what is the projected increase in students? What is the reasonable inflation rate? So we apply that to the average per student number, multiply it by the new number of students, here’s the budget. 

And so we’re trying to get to that with coming off of Esther and losing a lot of money, this is that. So hopefully next year, we can go to something that’s, here’s the percent inflation we’re going to factor in. And it does include charter students now. So even though you separate them out, the numbers charter schools are public schools. 

Jonathan Breeden: Right. They are, absolutely. 

Butch Lawter: A lot of people think they’re not, but they are public schools. And the way a system works is the County gets the money, and they pay whatever that per student number is to the charter schools. And there’s 40 something charter schools throughout North Carolina that they have to send the money. And I [00:11:00] think they paid out, I think it was $8 million that they paid out last year to charter schools, and that’s going to go up.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. ALA just opened here last year in Johnston County. And of course, news charter has been there forever. And I forget the name of the charter school behind the Walmart and Clayton, but it’s still there. 

Butch Lawter: Johnston charter. 

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. It’s still there. And there’s talk of other charter schools. I keep hearing about one coming to Clayton, near the 70 where 70 Bypass 70 Business meet. That one hasn’t been built yet. And I don’t know who’s going to do it, but I still think it might happen. 

Butch Lawter: I think there’s one somewhere in the boroughs area as well. 

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. But one of the topics is, we’re going to run.

There’s a school bond this fall. And I don’t know how much it is or what it’s for. I know, Cleveland High School gets a new wing out of it, if it passes. 

Butch Lawter: Yeah. Actually, the Cleveland wing is separate. 

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, separate. Okay. 

Butch Lawter: Yeah. So that was separate from the bond. In this year’s bond, there are four additions to elementary schools.

And I don’t want to say a good thing because we’re still catching up. And people was like, what are you trying to catch? Are you catching up? And I’m like, I’m trying to get less behind. If I can get less behind first that I can catch up. But with [00:12:00] the student enrollment in the Johnston County public schools flattening, we’re looking at going from 187 mobile units down to losing 120 of those over the next two years. That’s the new school construction. And then this bond, we’ve got four elementary school expansions planned. And then there’s some other catching up to do on chillers and other maintenance issues and things. So there’s a lot in there. 

I feel like we can almost see a flattening out where we’re not 17 schools behind, that we’re getting to a point that, maybe with another school in a few years, we’ll get there and some expansions, and then some maintenance on the existing schools. 

Jonathan Breeden: And I know Cleveland High School is going to get a new wing. 

Butch Lawter: It’s away with 20 something mobile units.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. And I know they’re going to do a Swift. Is it Swift Creek Elementary? That’s going to be a two story elementary school on Cleveland School Road. And if you’ve not driven down there lately, you can start to see it coming together where they have the center blocks of where [00:13:00] the elevators are going to be.

And I guess, they’ve started building Wilson’s Mills High School. 

Butch Lawter: I think the groundbreaking is in about three or four weeks out there. I think it’s the 13th. 

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. So there’s going to be a new high school in Wilson’s Mills. I know, that’s much needed. And there’s been some debate about among the school board about whether it should have Astroturf or grass football fields. I don’t know ultimately what they decided there. 

So, do you believe the commissioners should chip in through bonds or general fund to pay for charter school construction? They are public schools. We have not done that so far, but should we?

Butch Lawter: So I don’t know the answer to that one yet. But I do know, with the legislation as it exists today, it says that counties may do that. And so with news charter may came to us and made an ask of us this year, and it’s like mostly, we don’t know if we want to be the first one in, but we were working through the, what does it mean, if something were to happen, who would own the building if they were to sell it. So we’re working through some of that.

And I don’t know what the future [00:14:00] holds, but if I were a betting man, I would probably say, it’s not too far down the road that there will be money spent on charter schools. And I know there’s other states where lawsuits have already happened where kind of same situation the charter schools came in filed a lawsuit and it became shale.

So the counties provide capital cost. And it’s really a interest because some of them are for profit, some are not. And so, are you providing money for somebody to build a school and they’re going to make a profit off of it? So there’s a lot of things to work through, but bottom line, they are public schools, people are choosing to go.

And as you mentioned off air, we’re talking about opportunity scholarships and as that increases, I think the likelihood, that there’ll be more charter schools. So I think, that’s likely in the future, whether we want it or support it or not, I think that’s probably going to be where we go.

Jonathan Breeden: And the Johnston charter there behind Walmart and Clayton is a for profit, as is ALA, which is on Highway 70 Business across from St. Ann’s Church, before you get [00:15:00] to Smithfield, is for profit. But Noose is not. Noose is a nonprofit, started by local people. The other two charter schools are run by national corporations.

I know L.A. is out of Arizona, I believe. Not sure where Johnston Charter is out of. Maybe Alabama, but I could be wrong. I think that’s where that company’s from, so it is a different thing, but yet they are still educating kids that need to be educated. They are receiving 7, $8,000 per student that the other students are getting.

I get it’s for profit, but they’re still educating kids and that’s the school building, but the taxpayers aren’t paying for. So there is that too. So, I think that’s something to look into. 

Butch Lawter: Yes. And I know the Johnston County public schools, they’re things they do, the transportation and meals that they provide.

And I’m just going to pick a number, if they get $2,500 for John, not all of that goes to the charter schools where they hold some back, but I don’t know what that percentage is, but I think, that’s probably again where we’re headed up. But I think, since it’s the first time it’s on been on the [00:16:00] table, like I said, being the first one in, sometimes it’s heroic, and sometimes it’s not.

Jonathan Breeden: I understand. Another big thing that the county commissioners do is they fund the sheriff’s department. Now, we have an elected sheriff, Steve Bizzell. He’s been sheriff in Johnston County since 1998. I think he’s one of the best sheriffs in North Carolina. But what role other than funding sheriff, it’s a huge part of your budget.

Y’all do anything else with it or just hand him a check? You just build him a jail. 

Butch Lawter: Yeah, I hate to say, we handed the check. But we do have the financial checks and balances with Chad McClain, our chief financial officer and deputy manager. He handles. As you said, we have one of the best ones in the state.

So that saves us, I won’t say saves us a lot of work, but we trust what he does. And we do look through the budget, ask questions, and he’s been really good about coming to us with new programs or why he needs money. And if you listen to our meetings, there’s not a month goes by, our meeting goes by where there’s typically not an adjustment [00:17:00] to his budget for money from a different source or something like that. But we did recently fund the detention center, much needed as you well know, the cramp people do way too many people in the old one. So it’s a great facility. We did the 911 communication center next door to it too.

But I think, that moved us way down the road and should last us for decades. 

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, did we signed an agreement with the feds this time to where we got to where we have to give the fed inmates of beds for some money or not?

Butch Lawter: So I think, that contract is up and we did not renew. 

Jonathan Breeden: That’s good because I would have clients in the jail, and I would go and they’d be on the floor because the federal inmates showed up in transit or something. And the federal inmate was guaranteed a bed. And our citizen, while he was in jail, had to sleep on the floor. And I just didn’t think that was right.

Butch Lawter: Yeah, that was fit in the last month or six weeks.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. That’s great. We do have a good sheriff’s department. You know how much approximately sheriff’s department, cause you got a jail, you got all the deputies, all that. You remember approximately what it is in the budget?

Butch Lawter: No, I don’t remember [00:18:00] that one. 

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. All right. That’s cool.

Next thing I want to talk to you about is the new land use plan. Everybody talks about the growth in Johnston County. And a lot of people have this sort of drawbridge thing where they moved here, and now they want to roll up the drawbridge and I want everybody else to come to Johnston County.

Explain why that is not possible, and what the county commissioners are trying to do to manage the growth that they cannot stop?

Butch Lawter: So I think you’re right, that being able to stop it is not something that we can, even if we said, we’re shutting off water and sewer, there’s still a well in septic. If people want to sell their land, they can sell it. And so, it’s going to happen.

What we did with the land use plan was, let’s look at how we can better manage that. And to me, the biggest part of it is less direct, the more dense development towards the towns. I’m gonna pick on Cleveland and McGee’s and then it flowers instead of having it spread out in places that aren’t towns, let’s push it towards the [00:19:00] town so they can grow, they can manage that. And so that was the biggest thing. 

But we’re also looking a lot of the farmland preservation, open space preservation, because the agricultural history in Johnston County is important. And when we did the land use plan, 70, 75% of the people, that was their top priority was preservation of farmland and open space.

But again, if somebody wants to sell their property, there’s not a whole lot the county can step in and say no. 

Jonathan Breeden: I don’t disagree with the plan of trying to push it towards the towns. The towns cannot annex without a vote. So how exactly are the towns supposed to be, you former town council member in Clayton for a long time, supposed to absorb this density that you want to be built on its borders, when it can’t really annex unless the people agree to it?

Butch Lawter: So that is all voluntary annexation now. So typically the way that’s done is, if you want that density, you need water and sewer. So that is the care is, if you want the [00:20:00] density, you go to where you can get the water and sewer, and that will be the towns.

Jonathan Breeden: And so the town would annex these developments before they are built, extend the water and sewer, and then they would be town residents as the houses get built.

Butch Lawter: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. All right. And Clayton has got a new water treatment plant that is almost done. 

Butch Lawter: Almost done. 

Jonathan Breeden: And so that’s gonna be nice. And the county has a new water treatment. 

Butch Lawter: Yeah. Actually, our new one has been operational for a few weeks now. That one is been open, so that expanded us a net of 2 million gallons. And I think that our next meeting will award a contract to build the next 4 million.

Again, getting less behind on the sewers at the water, that is the news. River is a very limited resource. We’ve got a project coming up that should get started in 2026, and maybe be finished in 2029, the 1st phase of it. But it’s half a billion dollar project, but it should provide us water through 2050.

But again, we’re limited to the news. We know one of the things we’re looking at [00:21:00] is regionalization. All the towns have come together, been meeting for over a year, looking at how we can do things better and what regionalization would look like.

It mean, we’re looking at Harnett County, and the Cape Fear is an option. We’re looking at Wilson County. We’ve talked with Goldsboro. So we’re looking at ways to how we can work regionally to provide the water, which is a very limited resource. Matter of fact, the most limiting resource.

I think most people get tired of me saying this, but sewer is a big issue, but you got to have water to flush your toilet. So, 

Jonathan Breeden: that’s true. 

Butch Lawter: The water is the critical. 

Jonathan Breeden: So where did the commissioners end up with the lot size? And because it bounced around, and I think it ended up a little bigger than the initial plan, but maybe not as big as some other people want.

Butch Lawter: Yeah. So I was trying to say, that’s been a while since we got that. I can’t remember that number. I know, it was not an acre. I want to say it’s 25,000. But if you’re in an environmentally sensitive area, it’s more, but I can’t remember those numbers. 

Jonathan Breeden: I think it’s gotta be at least a quarter acre.

Butch Lawter: Yeah, I think, if you [00:22:00] have sewer, if you’re in the residential, which is mainly Cleveland and McGee’s, you can get the more dense quarter acre or whatever the lot is. When you go out in the County, I think that I want to say it was 25,000 square feet or maybe 30,000 square feet. If you’re in environmentally sensitive area, it goes to 40. 

Jonathan Breeden: How many 30,000 square feet as it relates to an acre? Cause I don’t.

Butch Lawter: 40, that’s a three quarter. That’s about three quarters. 

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. I got you. 

Butch Lawter: Join it for this 40 something. So it’s about that.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. I know, if you look at a lot of those lots in Wellesley or 0.2, 0.25, there might be some lots in Wellesley. There are 0.19, particularly the ones on, 

Butch Lawter: but they got sewer. 

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, they have sewer right on Raleigh Road. 

Butch Lawter: The other thing with the land use plan too is trying to get more mixed use, it is not all houses that you have something so somebody could walk to a retail or a grocery store or something like that to make communities walkable.

So I think, you’ll see that change rather than just be houses. And Cleveland, you got houses and you got a node along 42, where everything is that this will be more sprinkled out, where you’ve got that more mixed use development. 

Jonathan Breeden: [00:23:00] I got you. One of the things will be the last topic we cover in this episode.

Butch Lawter: Can I add something to that? 

Jonathan Breeden: Sure. Go ahead. 

Butch Lawter: The next piece, we’ve got the land use plan, which is a nice picture, but the ordinances, which we just started that contract developing that, which would probably be a 12-14 month process, that’s where the teeth are. So that’s when you’ll get into the lots. I’ve got years on that. You’ll get into different lot sizes and all that. So that’ll be where the teeth are. And so, that’ll be when things kind of start solidifying and people understand what the real impact of that. 

Like I said, the land use is the picture, and then you’re going to get into the details on the ordinance.

Jonathan Breeden: All right. Cool. 

The last subject we’ll cover in today’s episode is parks. You were probably the number one cheerleader for creating a county park system, creating a county parks and rec department, the hiring of Adrian O’Neal, a former guest on The Best of Johnston County podcast, and the helping get the land.

We got the land from the private citizens who bought it to preserve it, out here in Cleveland for the [00:24:00] county’s first community park. Tell me a little bit about, why you’re a believer in parks, and how you think this is going to develop realistically around the county, as most of these towns have run big bonds to build these parks?

How’s this going to go? 

Butch Lawter: Yeah. So in Clayton, I did realize that the addition to the quality of life that the parks provide for families to go to for people my age and older to be able to just to go out and walk are doing something a lot more active than me. So go out and participate in whatever form of the recreation they want to. But I saw, that’s the difference that made in the quality of life for the people. 

And so, when I became on the county commissioners, that was one of the things I wanted to bring to the County was doing that. Because what happened in the County is, people would get together, they have some great ideas that get a plan together, and then they would all say, Oh, this is a great idea, great plan. And they would walk away, and nobody was left to connect the dots. 

And so the thing that Adrian brought to the table was, and now Austin, in [00:25:00] addition to him working with Adrian is, you have somebody at the table when people walk away that they continue to connect dots on the Mountain Sea Trail, East Coast Greenway, develop plans, and do all that.

The parking in Cleveland is that’s now somebody’s job to say, what do we do with this next? Let’s do a master plan, and keep things moving rather than it build up, and just go away. So I think that’s the biggest piece. And I’ll say a regret that I have an early on in my commissioner career, we had the opportunity for the special tax district for recreation.

And at the time I thought, there may be a different, better way. Four years later and look back, that probably should have been the mechanism we use to fund the park because it’s really hard to sell the county wide bond for a park in Cleveland to the folks in Four Oaks or Princeton or Pine Level. 

So the other thing we got to do is look at how do we develop this park system and then make sure that it’s spread around the county, so everybody [00:26:00] benefits from it. But I think, the Cleveland, it would probably be some bond. It’s going to be in pieces. It’s not going to be from nothing. 

Jonathan Breeden: I know, you’ve just put out the first $3 million for bids.

And Adrian O’Neal taught us about that. It’s going to be some of the parking lot, some of the drainage, I think there’s gonna be a drainage pond, and maybe a basketball court. And this initial thing that’s going to take a couple of years to get done. And then we’ll go from there eventually, when it’s finished, which could be, 10, 15 years from now, it would take over the original GCA land behind the old school, the gym gets replaced, those fields get redone, the Clayton Park will have multi use fields, an Amphitheater. It’s going to be really nice. I just know the price tag. I saw was $50 million. And at this point, if you don’t go back to the special use district, I’m not sure how Cleveland gets $50 million.

Butch Lawter: Yeah. So I think that’s the thing that we’re looking at is, because they’re going to be people come just [00:27:00] like people go to Clayton now or Smithfield now from here, there are going to be people that actually come. So it’s how much needs to be a local pay versus the county bond system because the Cleveland park is not going to be 100% used by Cleveland people.

There’s going to be other, I don’t know if that’s 80 or 70, but somehow we need to figure that math out and figure out, okay, it makes sense for Cleveland to pay for this percent and the rest of the county to pick up this percent, and wherever we go and the same thing. 

But the other thing we need to do is, and we’re still working on with the schools is how do we take advantage of the ball fields? Do we add lighting to the ball fields? So that GCA or some other organization, the Meadow Athletic Association can use the facilities more than they’re using them now. So we’ve got parks, and I know people talk about it all the time. So that’s one of those things that people think, nothing’s happening, but there still is, there’s conversations going on, how do we fund lights for existing ball fields, wherever they are in the County, so that organizations can make use [00:28:00] of them. 

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. And that’s the biggest thing is most of the middle school and elementary school fields in Johnston County are not lighted. And the high school fields get used so much by the high schools. They’re not really available for the community organizations, like the Greater Cleveland Athletic Association, like McGee’s Crossroads Athletic Association, like Archer’s Large Parks and Rec, like The Meadow Group, and South Johnston Baseball and all of that stuff. And I’ve been in the middle of this at being on the board of the Greater Cleveland Athletic Association for a long time.

I just came off that board, but I do appreciate everything that you’ve done to try to at least get you, and particularly Patrick Harris have done about, to at least getting us having this discussion so that we can move forward. And for people that don’t know, a special use tax district would act like a fire tax on your property tax bill.

The proposal that was voted down a few years ago by the commissioners would have added 4 cents on the $100. I think our tax rate this year is, y’all cut it to 69, 70, 

Butch Lawter: 67. 

Jonathan Breeden: Right. Yeah. 

So it would be 4 cents on top of that. And then of course, you have the fire tax, which is now [00:29:00] 15 cents county wide. So 14 cents county wide.

Anyway, so that would be $80 on a $200,000 house. And that money would be used to fund a Cleveland park, if the commissioners decide to go back and do that. I don’t know if they will, but it is definitely on the table as the chairman just said. 

So I guess the last question we have for everybody on this podcast, what do you love most about Johnston County?

Butch Lawter: I’m a people person. So I moved here because of the people, and the relationships, and have developed many more. And it’s one thing when you go out and you hear people talk about Johnston County. And what it’s meant to them and whether they’ve been here forever, or they just been here and the people moving here, just what an opportunity to have affordable housing, and have a place to raise their family.

And the thing that really impressed me, and I feel good about from Clayton is when I first got here, if you graduated from a high school in Johnston County, your next move was somewhere else. And now, like I said, all my [00:30:00] family is here. The kids that went to school with my kids are living in Johnston County, raising their families. A lot of them are working in Johnston County.

So to me, that is the success is when your children, grandchildren, they don’t have to move somewhere else to accomplish what they want to accomplish. So that is the measuring stick for me. 

Jonathan Breeden: I would agree 100%. And like I said, we’d like to thank Butch Lawter for being our guest here on The Best of Johnston County podcast.

This is the second episode that he is on. Go back three or four episodes and listen to his previous one, where he answer some other questions about what he did on the Clayton Town Council, and some of his greatest accomplishments as a county commissioner so far, and Johnston Community College. 

As we mentioned earlier, if this is your first time listening, please like, subscribe, or follow this podcast, wherever you’re seeing it, whether it’s on LinkedIn, YouTube, Apple, iTunes, Spotify, TikTok, or any of the other social media pages of The Best of Johnston County podcast, so that you’ll be aware of future episodes of The Best of Johnston County podcast. The [00:31:00] Best of Johnston County podcast comes out every Monday, so be checking back. Until next time. I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden.

Narrator: That’s the end of today’s episode of Best of Johnston County, a show brought to you by [00:36:00] 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.