In a post on social media Tuesday, Chattooga County Commissioner Blake Elsberry said that his reason for implementing a land use ordinance without a vote by Chattooga County residents was due to an emergency situation.

Elsberry said that earlier yesterday, someone had posted the video of a Republican Primary Runoff debate in 2020 between Elsberry and former Commissioner Jason Winters in which both Elsberry and Winters agreed that any land use ordinance should be voted on by the citizens.

The Chattooga Concerned Citizens group stated, “Both candidates agreed that it was something that, if implemented, should be brought before the people for a vote. Why then did the Commissioner put the current Land Development Ordinance in place before putting it in front of the people for a vote?”.

In the video posted yesterday Commissioner Elsberry said, “In 2020 I agreed with the then Commissioner Jason Winters that as the county grew we would eventually need some sort of development ordinance, but that the citizens should vote on it.  I stand by that statement.  However, sometimes as an elected official you have to make hard decisions.  Decisions that you really don’t want to make, or decisions that have to be made sooner than you planned on, or not in the way you want to make them.  The subdivision ordinance is one of those decisions”.

Elsberry cited a development in Teloga known as Lakes of Summerville, as the emergency situation that prompted him to make the decision for a land use ordinance without a vote.  Last year, Chattooga County Sheriff Mark Schrader has launched a criminal investigation after an Atlanta-based developer was accused of selling fake deeds on land she didn’t own. Several investors of the Lakes of Summerville project say the whole scheme was a ripoff.