Randolph County Sued by Maxwell

Three Randolph County farmers who were turned down for building permits under Randolph County’s CAFO moratorium have sued the county, along with North Carolina super hogs producer, Maxwell Foods.

There is a piece in today’s Pal-Item by Gannett wire writer Joy Leiker: County Sued Over CAFO.

The suit was brought Wednesday in Randolph County Circuit Court and is against the County Commissioners: 68C01-0802-PL-006. Maxwell is represented by Daniel McInerny of Bose, McKinney.

The suit seeks to have the moratorium  invalidated as an improperly enacted zoning ordinance. The assertion is that, as the ban impacts land use, it must go through the same process as any other zoning ordinance, which would include being passed by the local planning commission before adoption by the county commissioners.

The article also notes concerns expressed about the fact that Aaron Chalfant is the son of county commissioner Ron, claiming that this is a conflict of interest for the father to be making decisions on CAFO zoning issues when his son’s in the business (actually, Aaron’s farm started out in the father’s name). I do not see a conflict under Indiana’s zoning code.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 10th, 2008 at 10:08 am and is filed under CAFO, CAFOs!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.