Navigating Growth in Johnston County: Patrick Harris’ Visionary Leadership

Patrick Harris: [00:00:00] So, I’m actually not originally

from Johnston County.

I always jokingly say I got

here as fast as I could.

Right.

But I grew up in a place

called Hendersonville, North Carolina,

near Asheville.

And I was a forest

ranger at the time,

and so I moved here to work

for the Forest Service.

And I worked at

Griffith Forestry Center in Clayton.

And then I worked

in the Raleigh office

in downtown Raleigh.

Jonathan Breeden: What year did you

move to Johnston County?

Patrick Harris: I, you know, I was trying

to think about that

when I was driving up here.

It’s been close to

40 years ago.

It’s been about 38, maybe.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh my goodness.

Patrick Harris: Oh yeah,

I’ve been here a long time.

I’ve lived here longer

than anywhere else,

and Johnston County

it’s home to me.

My daughter was born here.

And so, it’s just one of

the most fantastic places

I’ve ever been.

I love it here.

Narrator: Welcome to another episode of Best of Johnston County, brought to you 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 [00:01:00] 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 episode of the Best in Johnston County podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden, and today we have a special guest with us in Patrick Harris, who’s one of the Johnston County Commissioners and the former fire chief in Smithfield. So I’m looking forward to having this conversation with him about how he sort of Got here his role is a county commissioner and where he sees the county going if you’ve been following this podcast we had Adrian O’Neill the Parks and Rec director on and some other people talking about the county where it’s going We’ve talked about the copper district on this podcast so we’re talking to him a little bit about all of these things in the time we have because Patrick and I can talk for hours and get his vision for where this county is going.

Welcome Patrick.

Patrick Harris: Well, thank you. I appreciate the invitation to

Jonathan Breeden: be here. No problem. Well, let’s start with Who you are, what you do. [00:02:00] We’ll

Patrick Harris: get into the rest of it. So I I’m actually not originally from Johnston County. I always jokingly say I got here as fast as I could. Right. But I grew up in a place called Hendersonville, North Carolina, near Asheville.

And I was a forest ranger at the time, and so I moved here to work for the Forest Service. And I worked at Griffith Forestry Center in Clayton. And then I worked in the Raleigh office in downtown Raleigh.

Jonathan Breeden: What year did you move to Johnston County?

Patrick Harris: I, you know, I was trying to think about that when I was driving up here.

It’s been close to 40 years ago. It’s been about 38 maybe.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh my goodness.

Patrick Harris: Oh yeah, I’ve been here a long time. I’ve lived here longer than anywhere else and Johnston County. It’s home to me. My daughter was born here. And so,

It’s just one of the most fantastic places I’ve ever been.

I,

I love it here.

So,

Jonathan Breeden: did you go to school for forestry?

Or did you go to

Patrick Harris: school? I actually went to school at a bunch of different things. I went to the Institute of Government. I went to the National Fire Academy. I graduated from the Justice Academy in Salemburg. Okay. So, I was a, I was a fire [00:03:00] inspector, fire investigator, and a fire marshal.

And then I ended up promoting up to assistant chief, and then chief. And then I retired as Director of Emergency Services for Smithfield after about 25 years with them.

Jonathan Breeden: So, when did you get in, I mean, so, while you were working in forestry, you decided to be, like, maybe a volunteer firefighter, a part time firefighter?

That’s how most firefighters start. Well, so I did start

Patrick Harris: out as a volunteer, and the other thing that happened was the Hamlet Chicken plant fight, which triggered an entire set of regulations all over North Carolina. And so I sort of saw that and at the time I was working all 100 counties of North Carolina with the Forest Service.

I was traveling around doing with the interpretive forester, doing exhibits, designing, building and doing voiceovers. I’ve, my voice has been a talking tree and a talking rock and all that kind of thing. So, but so I was doing that, but my daughter was born and I was really missing out on a lot of things.

So I wanted to. be closer to home. So I applied for the Smithfield Fire Department and my office was two blocks from my house. I could go home for lunch. And [00:04:00] so I went there as a fire inspector.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, okay. You know what year that was?

Patrick Harris: That was 1992,

Jonathan Breeden: I think. Okay.

Patrick Harris: All right. Yeah. And so it’s been a, it’s been a quite a transition.

Jonathan Breeden: I, I can imagine. I can imagine. So, you know, and I remember, I mean, growing up in Laurinburg, I remember the Hamlet fire. I knew people that were there that worked there. and I tangentially knew some people that passed away in that fire. And you know, the, the doors were. Locked. I mean, and the people basically couldn’t get out.

And, and that’s, that’s horrible. I’m fortunate. I did not know anybody directly, but, you know, Laurinburg Hamlet, Scotland and Richmond County, not that big. And you know, I knew people that, that knew people had family there and it was really, really sad that, that, that it was that way. And they locked the doors because they thought people were stealing the chickens and that’s.

horrible. It’s a horrible, horrible thing. And anyway, and, and, and, but I do think it led to some changes to where we haven’t had anything like that since.

Patrick Harris: [00:05:00] There were sweeping legislation all over North Carolina to, eliminate that from ever happening again. And I think that’s one of the things that motivated me to take that turn and go into the code enforcement part and the fire service, it was a way I could make a difference.

I’ve always had this thing about. I want to leave it better than I found it. And so whether it’s politics or as a firefighter or even as a forest ranger, I always, I’ve always had that need to try to improve things as best I can. Right.

Jonathan Breeden: So when you go, when you joined Smithville as a fire inspector, were you, are we riding the truck?

Were you fighting fires, kicking down doors? I don’t know what fires, but I know the fire inspectors look for dangers of business, but were you doing the other parts of the

Patrick Harris: job too? Well, back then it was a small department. So when I was a forest ranger, I was also a volunteer fireman. Okay. And so that sort of started that transition and then when I went there as a paid employee it was a small department.

We did everything. So you might be riding the truck now and you might be doing a fire inspection this afternoon. Right. But it was a, it was a good transition. It was the [00:06:00] first fire inspection program that Smithfield had ever had. Okay, we started that in and developed it over a period of time to the point We had a fire marshal’s office.

We took over investigations

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Well, that’s cool. So at some point you became the fire chief, right? I

Patrick Harris: did my I was promoted up to Assistant director assistant chief and then our chief retired and then upon his retirement. I was appointed the new Chief and Director of Emergency Services. Back then we had fire and EMS together.

Okay. So we were, I was the EMS Chief Officer for Smithfield. Okay,

Jonathan Breeden: did you know anything about EMS? I did, I did. I was an EMT and Okay, you were an EMT too? I didn’t

Patrick Harris: know that. Okay. Yeah, there’s a whole list of certifications that go along with this property. They don’t just let you in the door without it.

But it was a lot of fun. And I actually taught in the Fire Academy at Johnston Community College for many years. And so it was it was a good transition. I

Jonathan Breeden: remember one time you and I were touring the they built the new fire training buildings [00:07:00] there and you and I were taking that tour and I was, I was looking at going, I don’t quite get it.

You were trying to explain to me how they would like the fires in these things from your training experience. And you said to me, you train, I want to say, I get this right. Firefighters trained to where they, they, they don’t get it wrong. Or you said that they, they keep training till it’s almost 2nd nature what to do when they come into a building like this.

And this building can be set up like a hotel with several rooms. I think about a hotel being on fire, but. But what was it? What was that statement? You said you trained, you can’t get it

wrong or

Patrick Harris: well, something along that line. I have a lot of sayings right? But that’s,

You know, that’s one of the things that we did.

We would,

we would train and drill over until it just became second nature that way in the event of a, you know, three o’clock in the morning and you just rolled out of bed and you’ve got to pull up in front of a burning building that, it just comes naturally that you don’t have to think about it other than just your calculations for loads of [00:08:00] that nature.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. Cause I mean, it’s I mean, it’s a tremendous job, I guess. So it’s the Smithfield fire department. Most of these fire departments, they still have some volunteers, but some of them have a lot of paid staff to as as that is sort of transition, even since I’ve been here, because I mean, I think the Cleveland fire department runs.

I don’t know, I don’t know how many calls it is a day, but it’s a lot to where you can’t just rely on volunteers. They have a lot of professional firefighters

Patrick Harris: now. Well, that’s what’s happened is the county has grown. The call volumes have increased dramatically. When I first became a volunteer fireman with Smithfield, we were running about 350 calls a year.

When I retired with Fire and EMS together, we were running about 5, So it was a dramatic increase. And so, you know, to expect volunteers to be able to leave their workplace that many times a day, I mean, we’ve gone out as many as 12, 13 times a day and you just can’t, you can’t leave your business that many times.

So we had to hire

Jonathan Breeden: a paid staff. Right. Well, and Cleveland now has largely a [00:09:00] paid staff as does 5210 and some of the bigger departments. But I think some of the smaller departments in the county still have volunteers.

Patrick Harris: Well, you know, a lot of departments still do rely on their volunteers. And we’ve got a great group of dedicated people that are there to, you know, do as much as they possibly can.

But a lot of the departments are hiring. Some paid staff just to take care of the day-to-day paperwork and the hydrant testing and the hose testing, all the things that have to be done to be prepared for that emergency. And then they utilize the volunteers when the alarm actually sounds.

Jonathan Breeden: So when did the Fire change from, fire departments now get sent out to everything, whether it’s a fire or not.

When did that start to change and why did it change?

Patrick Harris: Well, our 911 center is nationally accredited in fire, law enforcement, and EMS. And so part of that national accreditation is that they use a computer-aided dispatcher, CAD system [00:10:00] that dictates who goes on what call. And typically, I always jokingly said that whatever doesn’t fit another category, the fire department gets lumped into it.

So, if it’s not a law enforcement call, or if it’s not an EMS call, or if it’s not a whatever, then the fire department is going to get sent. And so, and a lot of the calls we run simultaneously.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Patrick Harris: With first responders, we

Backup EMS on medical calls.

We,

we go on motor vehicle accidents. I say we, I’m out of the service.

Jonathan Breeden: Right, right.

Patrick Harris: But,

It’s,

An old habit, but it’s,

There’s just a lot of activity in the county. I was on my way here today and there was a,

An accident, a vehicle accident on 210 right at Cleveland Road. And so I sat in the traffic for a good 10 minutes waiting, you know,

to get,

to get through.

So, you know, any time of the day daylight, there’s something going on in this county.

Jonathan Breeden: No, there’s no doubt. There’s no doubt. But I know that, you know, now, I mean, the fire department goes to everything. And when I was a kid, that was not the way it was, but that is the way it is now. That, I mean, if there’s, I mean, the fire department goes to car wrecks.[00:11:00]

I mean, and I would say, I don’t know. And hopefully we’ll have a couple of fire chiefs on here in the next few weeks. But I mean, it’s 10 percent of the calls actual fires could be even less. It depends on

Patrick Harris: the department. It depends on how much code enforcement has been done. I can say that when we started the inspection program over a period of 10 years we saw a reduction in the number of structure fires just because of the amount of prevention work we got.

And the other thing is, is it depends on the age of the community. You know, in an area like Cleveland where it’s growing dramatically with a lot of new homes, you know that the likelihood of having a catastrophic fire in a brand new home is a lot slimmer, right? It doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, but it’s it’s certainly less than an older.

Hold that may have wiring issues or things like

Jonathan Breeden: that. Oh, that’s true. Good point. Good point. Yeah. Well, and then these newer commercial buildings that you see around Clayton and Cleveland have sprinklers. The hotels have sprinklers. I was on the JCC board for a long time. All the new buildings we’ve built there.

The [00:12:00] sprinklers are one of the most, most expensive parts of the building and, and having to upgrade the sprinklers on the buildings that have been there since the seventies. I mean, I, I learned a lot more sprinklers, but I tell you what you want to, if there’s a fire, you want to, because a lot of times they’ll put the fire out for the fire department even gets there.

And that’s, that’s excellent. Well, that’s cool. That’s cool. So you ended up I guess you retired, you retired, right? So when did you retire? Yeah. I retired about nine years

Patrick Harris: ago, I guess. Okay. And then I, I went to work in, in our my wife and I owned a urgent care and a primary care office and a cardiology center.

And so I, I had, was serving as their CEO and chief financial Officer. And so we worked in that up until we sold those practices to Med First. Right. So then I retired again, and got the idea that I wanted to have a retail store and a restaurant. Not sure what came over me there. It was

Jonathan Breeden: a barbecue restaurant.

It was a barbecue restaurant. It was very good. It was, it was, it was the,

Patrick Harris: The pottery. Yeah, it was, it was. We had a good time. And you [00:13:00] know, honestly, I enjoyed it. It’s a lot of work. I, I have great respect for those who work in the restaurant industry every day. But it’s very difficult to find help and with food prices as they were and you know, just changes in life.

We decided to sell about a year ago this month. And you know, we wish the new folks a great success in what they’re doing. And

Jonathan Breeden: so, well, they’ve done a nice job. I’ve been there. I think they call it low and slow. No, this one is from the ashes, from the ashes. That’s right. Right. From the ashes. And They were originally at the airport.

Right. That restaurant and then they’ve come over there and I ate it from the ashes a few weeks ago. It was good. Yeah, they do, they do a nice job. Yeah, they’re

Patrick Harris: super nice people. They do a good job and so. Community

Jonathan Breeden: supporters, they do fundraisers for baseball teams and stuff like that. They really have done a nice job there.

Because you also had the restaurant and then you were selling barbecue sauces and barbecue grill equipment and that kind of stuff.

Patrick Harris: Yeah, we had a store that was adjoining a similar we call it the company store and that you [00:14:00] could buy grills and sauces and rubs and all the kind of barbecue equipment It was kind of a it was kind of a neat concept covid took a big hit on that because the outlet center actually shut down for so many months.

And so we ended up Just concentrating on the restaurant. The restaurant was very successful. It was just a it’s just a tough business and really hard to find Employees right stay and you know do that type of

Jonathan Breeden: work. So right well and Somewhere along the way you became the head of the Johns County Republican Party.

I was

Patrick Harris: party chairman before I ever ran as a commissioner. I did that for two terms and enjoyed it. It was fun. And then when I decided that I was going to run for county commissioner, I stepped down as party chairman.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. So you were party chairman from like 14 to 18, 14 was in that timeframe, I think.

Patrick Harris: Yeah, perhaps

Jonathan Breeden: you were the party chairman when, when, when Trump ended up winning the first time, 2016, I remember that for sure. And then you ran for county, well you ran for county commissioner. [00:15:00] The first time in 2014, I think that’s correct, right? And you lost by like a hundred votes. It was very close.

Yeah. Well, it may not have been a hundred, but it was a very close race. And then you came back in 2018 and you won that race. And And and so then you became a county commissioner and you had no idea what you were getting yourself into.

Patrick Harris: Well, I, you know, I had a little bit of background in it because I had spent my entire career in state and local government.

So, I kind of knew how things operated. And you know, so it wasn’t a total surprise. But it’s been a lot of fun, you know, I’ve really enjoyed it. There’s a lot of challenges. But this is such an amazing county and the people. We’re just fantastic. I mean, it’s just a great place to be and so I’ve, I’ve really been honored to serve in that, in that position and thankful to the people who put me there.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and the citizens reelected you and I mean, I mean, you got 90 of the vote. I think when you re-ran for reelection in 2022 in the primary, you did not have a general election in [00:16:00] 2022, so you must have done something right. Because the citizens voted for you overwhelmingly in that race. Well, let’s talk about some of the things you have done because one of the things you’ve done and one of the things you and I’ve talked about, and I have harassed you and harassed you, is parks.

And we’ve talked about parks on this podcast. And for those listening, if you’ve not listened to the episode that came out before this one with Adrian O’Neill, the County Parks and Rec Director, I ask you to go back. And find that episode because he does a very good job of laying out how his position came to be what he does and all the different types of parks that we have here in our county.

It is absolutely fascinating. I would definitely encourage you to go back and listen to that. We’re not going to have time to go through all of the park stuff with Patrick Harris today, but I want to talk about it a little bit in general. You and Butch Lauder were largely the impetus for the creation of.

a Parks and Rec director which allowed Adrian O’Neill to be elect, be hired,

Patrick Harris: correct? Yes, that is true. Of course, you know, the entire board, you know, came on board [00:17:00] with us and, you know, we kind of pushed for that when we first started because, you know, up until that point, really the county had, had not gotten involved in Parks and Recreation at all, and we just felt like that it was just an important process to get involved in, the county needed to take the lead.

You know, we have to set aside open space for quality of life. We’ve got to provide people, you know, places to have recreation and as the county continues to grow, I think it’s going to become more and more important that we have the foresight to set aside these areas and and maintain them. For, you know, for future generations,

Jonathan Breeden: right?

And so one of the things the board did was they bought the land that is now going to be the community park at Palenta and Matthews Road out here in the Cleveland community. Behind the old DR well store behind the Cleveland fire department for those who are listening and may not know where Matthews and Palenta meet.

There’s 80 acres there, and then there’s another 12 acres across the street from that. We talked to Adrian O’Neill a little bit about [00:18:00] that on that previous podcast as well, but it also you know, with part of that plan would be taking over the main GCAA campus behind the old Cleveland school across from the fire department where GCAA has most of its programs and sort of redoing that too, right?

Patrick Harris: Yeah, we actually sanctioned a study, a master plan, if you will of parks and recreation in, in this area and really in other parts of the county. And it’s, it’s really important to have a plan moving forward so that as we implement, you know, we’re not duplicating services or, or not using the money as effectively as we, as we should.

And so, yeah, the GCAA area is, is a vital part of that planning for the Cleveland area

Jonathan Breeden: parks. Right, and so that, and y’all have adopted a, a master plan for the, for the main park and people can go online um, To the Johnson County website and look at that. The plan is there. You know, the question we asked him and he didn’t know the answer because it’s not his job.

It’s more yours. That part built out [00:19:00] 50M. It was the price tag. I saw where does Johnson County get 50M to build this? State of the art, beautiful park with soccer fields, baseball fields, walking trails, pickleball, dog parks. I mean, it’s got everything. I, I mean, it may even have an aquatic, there’s talk of maybe an aquatic center.

Where does that come from?

Patrick Harris: Well, it’ll, it’ll, it will come in time. You know, we’ll just have to work on it piece by piece. I mean, we’re doing a lot of grant writing. At this point there, there has been some discussion about the possibility of a, a bond referendum at some point. bond. I’m not sure ab we’re still working throu these things are is the c this with all the other n You know, we’ve got, we’v We just built a detention center.

We just built a public safety building. They’re getting ready to start moving in that in January, the public safety building. And then we’ve [00:20:00] got to renovate the courthouse. I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of needs in the county. And so while this is very important, it also has to be balanced. Our debt service has to be balanced with the other needs as well.

So we, the, the, the key is we have to be able to do these things and think of the future, but we don’t want to put the County in a, a financial difficult times.

Jonathan Breeden: Right, right. And the County now has a. It has a triple A bond rating, which it had been after for a very long time. And the commissioners and I would say Rick Hester and everybody gets to get an A plus for that because you can’t borrow money any cheaper than Johnson County can borrow money because we have such a high bond

Patrick Harris: rating.

We were really excited about that. And that’s something that. Previous boards have worked on for years and we, we just happened to be the board that was in place when, and we’ve all put a lot of effort into it, but we were really happy to do that. You know, we had a good year. We got a triple a bond rating and we lowered the tax rate by 4 cents all in the same year, [00:21:00] which is pretty phenomenal for compared

Jonathan Breeden: to other counties.

Yeah. Well, I mean, if you look at Wake County where Wake County raises taxes. More years than not. City of Raleigh has been raising taxes. Garner just had the largest tax increase in the history of Garner. I think last year I think that’s another reason why people continue to come towards Johnston County is that they see a well run government that’s not raising taxes every year.

That’s providing services. I mean, we have what I consider to be the best sheriff’s department in North Carolina. We have a phenomenal sheriff and y’all are responsible for

Patrick Harris: funding him as well. Yeah, we have a great sheriff. All our community services are public safety. It’s just really phenomenal. I mean our EMS division, emergency services our law enforcement folks.

They just do such a great job And it is our responsibility to make sure that they’re well funded and that they have what they need to protect the citizens of the county

Jonathan Breeden: Right, and there’s a lot of money. I mean the county’s budget is it’s over 200 million dollars. It’s about 360 million Yeah, [00:22:00] 360 million dollars and it’s keeps getting bigger.

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Jonathan Breeden: Now we’re getting ready to go through. The commissioners a few years ago decided that they were going to shorten the re evaluation period. And the law says you have to do it every eight years, and forever, that’s what Johnson County did. But now y’all have changed that. So explain that and what the citizens can look forward to

Patrick Harris: with that.

So we did, and you know, every eight years, it’s such a dramatic change. Change and so what we decided to do is, is that we would shorten that to six years and then in every year, every time after that, it would be every four years. And that way, it’s also in fairness that as the economy changes, you know, it could be that there’s, that the value, the [00:23:00] values drop, you know, that hasn’t happened, but.

It could be that possibility. So we just want to make sure that it’s, it’s fair to the citizens that we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing. And that the values are, are fair of what the market is. So

Jonathan Breeden: when is the next reevaluation

Patrick Harris: period? We are they are starting to gear up for it now. So I think 2026 maybe is when the next one or 2025 2025

Jonathan Breeden: yes, right and they take some a year I think to go around because they look at each individual house.

They look at the neighborhood and they look at comparable sales I think they even try to see what do they think there’s New windows, like I mean, I think there’s more involved than just, oh, let’s just look at Zillow. Right. And I don’t know if the citizens realize that. Yeah, they

Patrick Harris: actually go around and do assessments.

They go through neighborhoods and make sure that, you know, because we want to, we want to be fair about it, you know, and we, we don’t want to collect more than we should. And certainly not less than we should. We just want to make sure that it’s correct. [00:24:00] And then you have an, you have an opportunity to appeal that.

If you, if you’re not satisfied with it or you feel like it’s not. You know, I’ve always looked at it this way. You know, if I’ve got an asset that I, I paid 200, 000 for. And now it’s worth 300, 000 in my world. That’s a good thing, you know, now, yes, it requires me to pay some more taxes, but look at that asset, how it’s appreciated.

So it’s all how you look at it.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and, and, and Johnston County, I mean, you know, I mean, the houses have gone up so fast as, as there’s a, I mean, I know people complain about the growth, but I mean, we still have a housing shortage in Johnston County. And I think the people listening to this podcast have to recognize that I see it.

As an attorney every day, you see it as a county commissioner. We do not have enough housing for the demand right now. We don’t have enough apartments. We don’t have enough rental places. We don’t have enough mobile homes. We don’t have enough single family homes. I mean, we just don’t. And that is going to drive the price up in a straight supply and demand [00:25:00] capitalistic economy where we’re at.

And. It’s not stopping anytime soon. No,

Patrick Harris: absolutely not. It’s important that we have a variety. I happened to be in the grocery store about two weeks ago and I was listening I just overheard a conversation between the cashier and the young lady that was ahead of me in line and she was purchasing, she was buying groceries for the first time for her new home and she was so excited about that and she was she was telling the cashier all about it that they had been able to afford this certain size house, you know.

And it really hit me on how important it is to have, you know, affordable housing for everybody because everybody deserves the opportunity to have a home. And not everybody can live in a million dollar house. Right. We need to have a variety. And so I think it’s fantastic that we’re, you know, giving opportunities to people like that to to let them grow and be a part of the community.

And you’re right. I mean, this is a desirable place to be. And it’s there’s no way to stop people from wanting to come and be a part of What we all enjoy,

Jonathan Breeden: right? And we [00:26:00] can’t do we can’t do the whole drawbridge thing, right? We can’t like roll the drawbridge up because we got here and it’s and the roads a little more crowded and and stuff like that.

And people people want to live here and and as they should. I love this county. You love this county. I mean, they, they, they want to live here and and they’re going to, they’re going to continue to move here. It’s just sort of how we manage that growth. Yeah. So, the last sort of substantive question about some of what you’re doing as a county commissioner, and then we’ll talk some about what you love about Johnson County is sewer capacity, you know, that is an issue and and the commissioners for those of y’all who listen to this podcast Paul Flaherty was 1 of the very 1st guests that was on.

And he talked about how what a good job the commissioners had done at sort of trying to push the growth back into the cities. And part of that has to do with the wastewater management. Can you tell the citizens that we said today, do we have, because I just assume we’re out and that we don’t have enough sewer capacity, wastewater treatment capacity?

Do we, what are we doing? What does that look like? Well, [00:27:00]

Patrick Harris: we, you know, we, we are in the process of building more. And so we’ve got a new sewer plant that will be coming online that will create more gallons per, per day of capacity. One of the things that we you know, sort of discussed early on a few years ago is that, you know, we wanted to try to slow down allocating sewer capacity for rooftops and try to maintain enough for industry that wants to come here and create jobs and, and, you know, things, things of that nature.

That’s one of the things that we did. We kind of tried to do that and we tried to push the growth toward the, the, the municipalities. You know, if, if you continue to just put growth anywhere your muni, your municipalities never get a chance to grow. And so we really wanted to try to help them along the, along the way.

And I think that some, and some, somehow it has worked, so. People that live in the Cleveland

Jonathan Breeden: community might be like, I don’t know what group you pushed to the municipalities looking at all the houses on Cleveland School Road, but, but so do you, does the county, does it have the capacity it needs? I mean, I’ve heard that maybe this new plan is going to be [00:28:00] over capacity before it opens.

I don’t know if that’s true. That,

Patrick Harris: that, that is not. We do you know, it depends on how fast we grow, I guess, but we are, we are developing more and more capacity. We’re, we’re going to, when we open the new plant we’re also going to continue to maintain the old plant and use some of the capacity there.

There is a 5 year, 10 year, and 20 year plan. Chandra Farmer is our public utilities director, and she has done Extraordinary job in managing this and managing the growth and the allocations. It’s just a matter of, you know, we just have to build it and continue to be diligent in trying to create more you know, it’s, it’s all about nitrogen credits.

It’s how much can you pull out of the news river? We are looking at some regionalization opportunities. There’s a lot of discussion about having the opportunity to maybe discharge into the Cape Fear. And so all that takes, you know, takes a lot of time to pull together. But I, I will tell you that the county and the towns their [00:29:00] mayors and managers, we’re all coming together around the table and we’re meeting regularly.

And our chairman, Butch Lauder, has largely been the author of that, getting everybody together and let’s talk about what can we do to, to manage the growth and to look into the future so that we can have the capacity that we need. To create jobs and to bring the other industry in and, you know, for people to be able to come to work and

Jonathan Breeden: live here.

Yeah, and I know that the towns have started, I mean, the towns have tried to work to get me to think about what’s happening with Pine Level. I think they had to put in a moratorium a couple of years ago because they had so many houses on the books. And they were trying to figure out where they were going to get the sewer and the police and the fire protection for Pine Level, which was going to I mean, 50 percent in 10 years or something, that Pine Level has just been Pine Level forever.

I mean, so, you know, and I know that Benson and Four Oaks and Dunn were talking about making some sort of regional partnership, and then maybe Benson was going to pull out, but then maybe Benson got back in. But I mean, at least the concept of it, I think, [00:30:00] is

Patrick Harris: positive. Yes, and that’s one of the reasons we’re having the meetings.

We just brought all the players together. We’ve actually had some conversations with Harnett County you know, to try to work cooperatively just to see what the options are and see what we can do to move forward with that. You know, I think it’s important to have all the players together and, you know, let’s, let’s figure out a way to get this done and be able to provide the capacity.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and you have to break down the silos, you know, I’ve been around government a long time and it worked in the legislature and all that stuff. And, and it was on the board of the community college for 4 years. And really, that’s the thing is everybody has to see it as a, as a more of a global problem, not a, an individual problem.

And I think it’s gotten with this kind of growth and this kind of pressure on the towns. They don’t have any choice. Yeah, you know, I mean, I mean, any more the mayor Smithfield, he has to work with the county now and, and, and the mayor Selma and, and, and they’ve all got, everybody’s got to work together because it is beyond any individual government [00:31:00] entities ability to manage the kind of growth.

And this group is going all the way across the county, whether it’s Princeton, whether it’s. Whether it’s Benson, I mean, Wilson’s Mills, Pine Level, like, like, like, you know, just because you live in a community, it is

Patrick Harris: everywhere. Yes, yes. And I really want to commend the mayors and the town leaders for coming to the table.

They’ve really been great to work with, and we’re trying to put together some plans. You know, part of the issue is not necessarily capacity. For the plant, but it’s also the transmission line capacity. So that’s something that we’re having to work through as well. And you know, we’ve got a plan in place to be able to continue to do the expansion and growth that we need to do.

It’s just trying to think outside the box and see what the options are.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. Cool. All right. Well, we’ve talked a lot and, and Patrick Harris and I, we’ll get on the phone and we’ll talk for two hours and we won’t even realize it’s been two hours. So we will not do that on this podcast. But I guess I will ask you.

What has you excited about Johnston County moving forward over the next 6, [00:32:00] 12, 18, 24 months? I mean, you’ve got your pulse on everything. You’re in the middle of a lot of decisions. What has you the most excited?

Patrick Harris: I think just the, the excitement of the county itself. And the people, the people that are coming in, they’re excited to be here.

You know, Johnston County is in good shape financially. We’re sound. Our practices are in good shape. Our finance department does an extraordinary job. We’ve got a lot of good people doing a lot of good work. One of the priorities that the Board of Commissioners set was, you know, certainly public safety and those things.

We also put a priority on our county employees because they’re the ones that are delivering the service out to the people. And we can sit and make policies. We can adopt budgets. We can do all those things that we do, and none of it is effective if we don’t have good people in the field delivering the services.

So we’re in the midst of talking about things like expanding the health department and building a new DSS building. And, you know, Medicaid expansion came along. And so, you know, we’re, we’re getting geared up for that. And so there’s just an exciting time. [00:33:00] There’s a lot of Good things going on. When I look at parks and recreation and I look at Adrian O’Neill’s work around the county you know, our county manager does an extraordinary job and be so personable and I think he, he’s one of the reasons that we just have such a a great relationship with the community and with the, with the public.

So, you know, I’m excited about all of it. It’s just such a great day to get up every morning. I wake up here. I’m just thankful to be here. I,

Jonathan Breeden: Me too, me too. Well, that’s great. I want to thank Patrick Harris. If people want to reach out to you, how can they reach out to you? Absolutely.

Patrick Harris: You can go to the county’s website.

There is a page that says, meet the commissioners. You can look up each one of us and read about our background. There’s contact information, phone numbers, email addresses. We also have public comments at every single meeting we have, and so any citizen is welcome to come. You know, we, I love to hear from the people.

I can’t represent you if I don’t hear from you. And so, you know, feel free to pick up the phone and call and let’s talk and we’ll come out and sit down and if I don’t need to talk to a church group or or just talk in somebody’s living [00:34:00] room, I’m happy to do that and I know the other commissioners are as well.

Well,

Jonathan Breeden: that’s great. That’s great. Well, that’ll be it for this episode of the best of Johnson County. If you would do us a favor of liking or subscribing or following this podcast on whichever format you’re seeing it, whether it be YouTube whether you’re seeing it on one of our social media pages Apple podcast, Spotify, so that you’ll be notified when the next episode of the best of Johnson County podcast.

comes out. They come out every Monday and we have a lot of great guests that have already been on and that are going to be on in the next few weeks. And I don’t want you to miss it. If you would be as kind enough to give us a five star review and comments and, and, and anything you want to say about Patrick Harris and what he had to say on the podcast today, we’ll make sure we get those comments to him and be sure to reach out to him and the other commissioners.

You have any questions about that until next time, this is Jonathan Breeden with the best of Johnson County podcast. Thanks for listening.

That’s the end of today’s episode of Best of Johnston County, a show brought to you by the trusted team at Breeden Law [00:35:00] 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.