Adult business board gets first appointees

An Adult Oriented Business Board, created in 2004 at the request of then-County Executive Kenneth Rogers and approved by the Warren County Commission, apparently never had anyone appointed to serve on it.

The board was established after county officials were contacted by individuals expressing an interest in starting an adult oriented business here, similar to one that had been established in DeKalb County.

County Executive John Pelham recently discovered the discrepancy while going through county records, and acted to correct it by appointing five local individuals to serve on the board, and presenting the appointments to the County Commission for its approval Monday night.

The five people appointed to the board are Earl Barr, Charles Bogle, Marvin Lusk, Linda Partin and Tommy Savage.

?We came across the resolution and we started checking into it, making contacts,? Pelham said. ?And through the contacts we made, we were told that one individual had been asked to serve on this, and I followed up with him, and he said no, he had never been contacted. We continued making contacts, and finally determined it had never been established.

?The resolution had been passed,? Pelham continued, ?but no one had been picked to serve on it.?

Pelham said it was possible between the time the original request was made and the resolution was passed through committee and then the full commission, the interest in bringing in such a business had waned, and thus the board was never formally established.

Pelham said his decision to follow up with the board wasn?t necessarily just to complete the measures the resolution set forth, but that he feels such a board is a good idea and he supports it.

?I fear that without this board in place, without a set of guidelines in place, that our county is open to something coming into our community that might not be beneficial to us,? Pelham said. ?I feel we do need some type of regulation on this. We need guidelines. The city has guidelines on this.?

Pelham said he has contacted the individuals by letter thanking them for their willingness to serve, and providing them with pertinent information.

?I sent them a copy of the city?s guidelines, which I have on file, and I asked each of the members to be studying these guidelines to see, in fact, if we want to just adopt those same guidelines, or if we want to change them a little bit. It may be a little different in the county, so there may be some things we want to change.

Pelham says it may take several meetings to accomplish this, but after the guidelines are in place, the board should only be required to meet in order to act on any applications to establish adult-oriented businesses in Warren County. Otherwise, the board would only have to convene once or twice a year to update regulations if necessary and to keep current with what?s happening in other communities around the area.