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20 <br /> 1 NONE <br /> 2 <br /> 3 10. County Attorney's Report <br /> 4 John Roberts said the legislature does not have any damaging, or otherwise locally <br /> 5 relevant, legislation scheduled this week, thus far. He said the recycling bill was sent to the <br /> 6 Rules Committee last week, and he has heard it will not come out intact. He said the County's <br /> 7 hope for specific authority to impose mandatory fees for recycling will likely not succeed. He <br /> 8 added, however, that this will have no impact on the County for practical purposes. <br /> 9 <br /> 10 11. Appointments <br /> 11 <br /> 12 a. Agricultural Preservation Board —Appointments <br /> 13 The Board considered making appointments to the Agricultural Preservation Board. <br /> 14 Commissioner Jacobs referred to email he had sent to the Clerk, seeking clarification on <br /> 15 the Agricultural Preservation Board and the Voluntary Agricultural District Seats. His email <br /> 16 question is below: <br /> 17 <br /> 18 The Ag Preservation Board used to be the Voluntary Ag District Board. While we clearly <br /> 19 broadened its scope, what is the underlying premise regarding automatic memberships by <br /> 20 VAD? What is guaranteed for VAD adoptees? Are they essentially zoned by area (as High <br /> 21 Rock/Efland) in joining this board, or is the definition of that seat simply a function of a previous <br /> 22 VAD application? If the latter is the case, why does past VAD interest define an ongoing seat? <br /> 23 <br /> 24 Dave Stancil's response: <br /> 25 <br /> 26 The state's general statutes (NCGS) on Voluntary Ag Districts (VAD) and VAD boards are part <br /> 27 of the complicating factor on the Ag Board, but I'll try to provide a short version of the situation. <br /> 28 <br /> 29 State law requires that if a county engages in the Voluntary Agricultural District program, it must <br /> 30 have an Agricultural Districts Advisory Board. It also provides that each Voluntary Agricultural <br /> 31 District in a County must have a seat on the board. (Many years ago, we expanded our board <br /> 32 into an Agricultural Preservation Board that has the charges laid out in the statutes, but also an <br /> 33 expanded role to provide advice on agricultural matters to the BOCC, for example.) <br /> 34 <br /> 35 When we first started our VAD program in the early-90's, each farm was its own VAD district. <br /> 36 But by the early part of last decade, we began to see that farms enrolling in VAD could get <br /> 37 numerous, and if each farm had a seat on the board we could have a board of 40-50 people or <br /> 38 more. We saw a few other ordinances that set up a "Voluntary Agricultural District" as a <br /> 39 geographic sub-region of the county rather than an individual farm, and we changed our <br /> 40 ordinance to that model. Now we have seven geographic area "agricultural districts," within <br /> 41 which we have participating farms in the VAD program. Owners of the participating farms are <br /> 42 eligible to apply for the VAD seats on the Ag Board. The NCGS "promised" seats on the board <br /> 43 in this manner come from one of the farm owners in the larger district. (I can provide a map of <br /> 44 the seven VAD geographic "districts" if desired — it was part of what was approved back 10 <br /> 45 years ago or so). <br /> 46 <br /> 47 Initially, these VAD seats were semi-permanent, as there was no provision in the NCGS <br /> 48 regarding terms, but with the advisory board changes a few years ago, these now conform to <br /> 49 our two three-year term rules. So there are no automatic or permanent seats any more. <br /> 50 <br />