In just over half a year, Megan Garner has worked with the county through its budget season, community concerns with the animal shelter, local protests to coal ash and the expansion of the county’s economic development, among other projects.
Garner started as the county manager on Jan. 4, filling the seat previously held by Lawrence Gatewood — who retired nearly a year before Garner was hired.
Since then, she has continued to work on projects that came up both before she was hired and since.
Garner currently lives in Moore County outside of Vass, though she is looking for a home in Anson County. She has two children, a four-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy.
She grew up in Harnett County and received her bachelor’s degree in political science in 2005 and her master’s in public administration in 2007, both from East Carolina University. When Garner completed graduate school, she began work as the clerk to the Moore County Board of Commissioners, then did grant writing in the public works department. She gradually took on more responsibilities during her time with Moore County.
She believes her time there prepared her for becoming the Anson County manager.
“I dealt with a lot of citizens in that job, which I think helped a lot in coming here,” Garner said. “Just the citizen interaction, the community involvement.”
ANIMAL SHELTER
The Anson County Animal Shelter is only about two years old, though it’s had a rough start.
The shelter failed a surprise state inspection on April 26. Garner and shelter staff worked with the inspector, Jay Blatche, and passed the next inspection on June 22.
“We’ve got a lot of room for improvement down there,” Garner said. “We know we’ve got some issues. We’re working through them.”
Although failing an inspection is discouraging, Garner said the process has been positive overall.
“The state inspector has been tremendous in helping us identify areas for improvement,” Garner said. “They’ve worked with us on a lot of our forms to make sure they’re complete and accurate in everything that we bring in. We’re doing a more thorough inspection of documentation that does come in, to make sure it’s completely filled out, we don’t have any questions.”
Paperwork played the biggest role in the shelter’s inspection failure, Garner said. The shelter now has improved intake forms, medication logs, health records and other documents for each animal the shelter takes.
Although the shelter has made improvements, Garner has goals in mind for the future. She wants to increase the shelter’s volunteer base, expand shelter adoption hours, adopt or rescue as many animals as possible and implement a volunteer orientation program to find out what volunteers are comfortable with doing and to let them learn what the shelter’s expectations are.
“I’m sure there’s going to be more, but until then, that’s more than enough to keep us busy,” Garner said.
Ultimately, she wants there to be clear dialogue between the community, the county and the shelter.
“Get feedback from the employees, the volunteers, the citizens, the rescue groups, and just find out what they think we could be doing differently and have more open communication between us and them,” she said. “Where it’s not necessarily negativity, where people just want to blast the shelter for certain things, but say, ‘We think this is an issue. Let’s talk about it and figure out a better way we can do this.’”
She said she hopes to meet these goals as soon as possible, but that the process will be made easier when the shelter fills its three open positions, one of which is the director’s seat. She hopes to fill at least a couple of the positions within the next few weeks.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
The county has also bumped up its financial commitment to increasing economic development.
Previously, the county gave $15,000 towards economic development, working with the Anson Economic Development Corporation. This year, the commitment increased to $85,000. The county will still give $15,000 to the Anson County Chamber of Commerce, but the rest of the money will be used to help pay for an economic developer, though that person will not be a county employee.
“We hope to have some different results,” Garner said. “We have, in the past, gotten quite a bit of grant money where the economic developer’s officer had written grants in the past.”
But the county wants to also bring in more businesses and jobs.
“I think that’s something everybody here wants,” she said. “We want to see Anson County grow in a positive way. We want more jobs, we want a more skilled workforce. It’s one thing getting jobs here, but you have to have people to fill them.”
The economic development corporation is “actively recruiting” for the position, Garner said. The individual will be overseen by the corporation.
Promoting economic development goes beyond simply hiring a developer. Garner said the county is also working on bettering its infrastructure to make it more attractive to businesses, with improvements planned for its water filtration plant and other areas.
The commissioners are also looking into county-wide zoning, which could take up to 18 months or longer. It will take a similar amount of time for the county to update its comprehensive transportation plan.
Garner said the county also needs to update its capital improvement plan, and plans to apply for grant funding to develop one. The plan would list the county’s assets — as well as a replacement schedule — giving an idea of its current and future needs and how it could prepare for them financially.
COUNTY FACILITY IMPROVEMENT
A study has recently been completed on the needs of the county’s health and social services departments, according to Garner
“Ideally, it would be nice to have them in the same building, to have a sort of health and human services building,” she said. “So we’re looking at how can we make that happen. Does it need to be together, does it need to be office space, just sort of the logistics of it.”
The Anson County Jail also has its share of problems. Built in 1983, it had plumbing repairs and painting done last year, as well as the addition of shatter-proof mirrors.
Garner said she is waiting to receive a list of improvements the jail currently needs.
LANDFILL CONTROVERSY
After environmental groups Pee Dee WALL and the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League went to the commissioners with concerns about the Polkton landfill being listed as a backup location to receive coal ash from Duke Energy, the groups asked the commissioners about the status of the citizens advisory board.
The board is intended to benefit citizens and the landfill, but no minutes had been sent to the commissioners in an unspecified amount of time, and members had not been reappointed in “a number of years,” Garner said.
During its meeting earlier this month, the board of commissioners reappointed the current members and appointed several new ones to join the board.
“Since they’ve taken the action the other night, it’s back in effect,” Garner said.
The board has been directed to write or revise a new resolution on coal ash and make its recommendations to commissioners, she added. The board’s next meeting will be at 6 p.m. July 28 at the landfill.
LONG-TERM GOALS
Garner has plans to benefit both county employees and residents.
In addition to the aforementioned capital improvement plan, increasing the amount of employee training is also on Garner’s list. What that looks like will vary by department and position, but South Piedmont Community College has helped to come up with training solutions, she said.
Garner wants to update the personnel ordinance, implement an employee wellness program and improve human resources.
Reach reporter Imari Scarbrough at 704-994-5471 and follow her on Twitter @ImariScarbrough.
