planning comish

The June 26th Planning
Commission meeting, held at the
County Courthouse in Kiowa,
was a study in just how confusing
local government can be. First, the
Bandera project which was slated
to be heard by the Planning
Commission Board was put off
until Aug. 28th, the third such
postponement in a row. Next on
the agenda was the Miller Gravel
Pit. The Miller Gravel Pit
application has been somewhat
contentious because of the
concerns expressed by local
residents whose homes are along
the truck route. When commercial
haulers are contracted to deliver
the materials they are paid by the
load, not by the hour. The price of

This decision was further complicated by the
fact that while the Planning Commission had a
quorum of five commissioners to meet, they had
no clear rule on whether they could actually
vote on the gravel pit because only three of the
nine commissioners were present at the initial
application hearing. Planning Director Richard
Miller researched whether a vote would be
legal and he found no rule to indicate that it was
or was not legal.

Planning Commission Chairman Grant Thayer
threw caution to the wind and decided that no
clear rule gave him a green light to proceed.
Planning Commissioner, Joe Neuman brought
up his concerns and made some compelling
arguments on why the approval was not going
to be well received by the people he
represented in district two. It seemed that he
was a no vote from the onset because of safety
concerns and unsatisfactory routing of trucks
through the neighborhoods. He even followed
a fully loaded, speeding gravel truck

diesel fuel has private haulers working as
subcontractors to the applicant scrambling for
shortcuts and the fastest route possible. This has
lead to some fairly serious complaints directed at
Planning Commissioners, specifically Joe Neuman,
who lives in, and represents District 2, where the
gravel pit is located. Speeding gravel trucks
carrying heavy loads are running fast and
furious at the same time that school buses are
picking up and dropping off children.

Before you get the impression that this is just a
simple decision that should be based on public
safety, you need to consider the legal complexities
of the matter. Rick Hunt is the owner of the
property where the Miller Gravel Pit is located.
The person who was making the application was
an employee of Schmidt Construction, which
operates the pit. The application before the Board
had Mr. Hunt's name on it, and yet Mr. Hunt was
not there. The people making the application had
no papers indicating that they had permission to
make the application for Mr. Hunt. The Planning

Commission was under the impression that the
people making the application presentation
were to receive the special use permit, not Mr.
Hunt. They had recommended twelve or
thirteen amendments for approval which would
directly impact Schmidt Construction because
they were based on concerns of the day to day
operations of their business. Schmidt does not
use its own trucks to haul materials from the
pit, but instead uses private contractors. The
private contractor would be most directly
impacted by the dozen or so operating
requirements and yet no private contractor was
in attendance. Confused yet?

What this breaks down to is that the contract
that Schmidt Construction has with its private
haulers needed to be reviewed before any
decisions on this matter were made. Some
record needed to be produced that would
indicate that the people making the
presentation had the legal right to act on behalf
of Rick Hunt.