In this week's episode of The Best of Johnston County Podcast, I speak with Bill Stovall, a candidate for Johnston County Commissioner. We discuss Bill's background in infrastructure development with the NC Department of Corrections, as well as his vision for balanced growth in Johnston County. Bill shares his thoughts on the recently approved county land use plan, the need for more commercial development, and his ideas for funding large capital projects like the proposed Cleveland Community Park. 

Whether you live in Cleveland, Flowers Plantation or elsewhere in District 6, tune in to hear more about Bill Stovall's goals if elected as County Commissioner.

Bill Stovall: Yes, I was pleased with the final plan. I had reservations important during the course of it, but I was pleased that they brought out features in there that represented the public's interest. We had multiple public engagement sessions to review the status of plan and where we were going with it.

And the thing that struck me probably the most was 72 percent of the public response was unfavorable toward the type of quality, quantity, and rate of development we've seen in this county for the past decade.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right.

Bill Stovall: They were concerned with traffic congestion. They were concerned with overcrowded schools, which has been a perplexing problem for better part of over 10 years, and they were seeing a quality of life that was changing much too rapidly for their viewpoint.

Welcome Bill.

Bill Stovall: Thank you, John.

Jonathan Bredeen: So let's start with just tell me what's your name, who you are, what you do, kind of a biographical background for the listeners.

Bill Stovall: Okay. Well, my name is Bill Stovall and as Jonathan mentioned, I'm running for County Commissioner out of residency district six, which is Tony Braswell's seat that's becoming vacant.

far as who I am a retired professional engineer. I had a 35 year career serving the Department of Correction and the Department of Public Safety. Basically I was responsible for building all the prisons in this state for the last 30 plus years.

Bill Stovall: Yes. And when Corrections merged with Public Safety, they created a mega agency that included not only Adult Corrections, but Juvenile Justice, State Highway Patrol, SBI, Emergency Management A number of smaller agencies and the NC National Guard.

Jonathan Bredeen: Oh, okay. I didn't know that. That's pretty interesting. So I guess, I'm from Laurenburg. So you worked on Scotland correctional.

Bill Stovall: Oh yeah. Yes.

Jonathan Bredeen: That's a massive facility down there.

These are habitual felons, violent crime perpetrators and so forth. And people of lesser offenses, property crimes, things like that, they were looking at how can we put them into diversion programs initially, so that they can still be productive members of society, support their families, etc. Then if they don't perform, then the sticking the carrot approach, then you put them into a prison and take away their freedom.

Bill Stovall: Yes. Yeah. It became a revolving door and there was a strong influx. We were gaining probably a thousand new inmates in terms of capacity every year that was needed.

So we were in an emergency building program for nearly 20 years. And I probably built close to 2 billion worth of correctional facilities.

Jonathan Bredeen: Oh man, okay. So what's your educational background?

Jonathan Bredeen: Oh, how about that? Okay.

Bill Stovall: Yes.

Jonathan Bredeen: Well, that's pretty cool. Yeah that's really neat to know. Now, as corrections has evolved, we've kind of gone the other way. And they're doing everything they can to try to keep people out of prisons and give them more chances at probation.

And it's much harder to revoke somebody's probation now. And I believe our prisoner population has started to go down.

Bill Stovall: Oh yes.

Jonathan Bredeen: In the last few years.

Yes, when I retired it was we were hovering right around 44, 000. I think we're down below in the mid 30s right now. We were seeing a steady decline.

And he attributed a lot of this to the closing of schools for COVID.

Bill Stovall: Correct.

Jonathan Bredeen: And he said they're seeing a tremendous influx of kids that are maladjusted and having mental health issues. And he characterized it as essentially a mental health tsunami. And I've been hearing that from criminal justice sides of some time now.

Law enforcement in particular says we're just not equipped to handle these mental health cases we're seeing out there and the community resource is really not there.

Bill Stovall: Right.

Jonathan Bredeen: I think in our county, there's only 18 beds actually dedicated to mental health crisis. And law enforcement are telling me they're having to be counselors and they don't have the skills or training or the resources to do that.

Now you're not an adult until 18, unless you commit certain crimes. And everything starts in the juvenile system prior to that. And then can be moved in certain, the more violent felonies can be moved into the criminal system. And you see in that with some of the, unfortunately, some of the, murders we saw in Raleigh where you had the young man going the shooting spree at Headingham about a year and a half ago and, you know, he's now being moved into the adult system.

And I thought the juvenile system was always better to help the juveniles. And I was hoping that North Carolina would do that. We were 1 of the last, there were only 2 states in America at the time, us in New York that treated 16 year olds as an adult. And I didn't like that because I'm representing these young people.

They're having to deal with that. And I don't know that the juvenile system has all the resources they need. And obviously you've talked to the director and he's saying he doesn't. And from what I've seen, they don't. And Holly Grow works for me now. And she was the contract juvenile failure in Hornet County until about a year ago. And so she saw that every day.

Bill Stovall: Yes. After we merged into the public safety agency and general justice came under our umbrella we did quite a bit of new construction and renovations, their facilities for them. They really have not had the resources they need. They're facing the same problems with hiring staff that we all are.

That either retiring or they come in and they get a better job somewhere else and they move on, that is a state employment in general is running about a 25 percent vacancies in all agencies. And, you know, quite frankly, it gets to the point you can't function.

Jonathan Bredeen: Well, it's not safe. It's, I mean, potentially in the corrections, you were in corrections. I've spent a lot of time when I was doing the criminal defense work, first part of my career in prison, central prison, the old Johnston County jail, Harnett correctional. Like I've spent some time in prisons and I was always glad to leave, even though I knew I would get to leave because I was visiting clients.

They're going to become their own society and they're going to do things as a society. And these aren't always people making the best decisions to start with. And you can have a real problem in a hurry and they know exactly where the guards are and they know exactly what they can get away with because they have nothing else to do, but sit around and study this every day because they're not doing anything else while they're in prison a lot of times, but sitting around and being bored.

And I mean, they do some jobs and some work training, but there's a lot of free time in prison and that can not always be good if you don't have the staff and the guards to supervise them.

So, but you decided, you've been involved in the community for a long time. I mean, you've been out there, talk about some of the things, some of the advisory boards and some of the volunteering you've been doing in this community over the last 25 years, cause you've been involved in stuff for a long time.

Bill Stovall: Yes, I have. And a big part of what my family's been involved in is the 4H program. My wife grew up in 4H She was recently inducted into the 4 H, State 4H Hall of Fame.

Jonathan Bredeen: Oh, that's awesome.

Bill Stovall: My son is a 4H alumni, and now he is a the leader of the Johnston County Target Sports Club, or Shooting Sports Club.

That's I think we're missing that somewhat or we're losing that in our community now because you're seeing so much change going on. It's rapidly changing the character of this county. You know, growth is inevitable. Is how you manage it is what really determines what your quality of life ultimately is going to be.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right. So, I mean, where did you grow up?

Bill Stovall: I grew up in Granville County.

Jonathan Bredeen: Okay.

Bill Stovall: Yeah. I want to farm Granville County. We raised tobacco. My mother was a public school teacher, retired from that, as was my mother in law. She was also a public school teacher. My father worked in the tobacco industry.

We farmed tobacco and small grains. We raised Tennessee walking horses. And love to ride.

Jonathan Bredeen: Oh, those are my wife's favorite kind of horses. She loves to see walking horses. So when did you move to Johnston County?

Jonathan Bredeen: Oh my goodness. That's way back.

Bill Stovall: It's still a working farm.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right. Well, what's your wife's maiden name?

Bill Stovall: Jones.

Jonathan Bredeen: Jones. Okay.

Bill Stovall: Yes. She grew up in Mount Olive. Southern Wayne County. She had a really large family. Her father had four brothers. They all live right there together. Yeah. So she had a lot of cousins growing up.

Jonathan Bredeen: Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. I was not too far from Johnston County. Not very far at all. Well, that's cool. So, you've been on some of the county you did 4H I know for a long time, you've also been on some of the county Advisory boards. I know you worked on the land use project. You know, talk about that.

Bill Stovall: Well, my most recent involvement was in the citizen steering committee for the new comprehensive land use plan.

But that was a very involved process and it gave me the opportunity to see in depth some of the challenges we're facing now, and that's really what motivated me to run for County Commissioner because it really mirrored my career in terms of Infrastructure development. That's what I did in the correctional side and public safety.

I managed probably 63 wastewater plants and 28 public water systems that these prisons have because they're basically like a small city anyway.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right.

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Bill Stovall: Yes, I was pleased with the final plan. I had reservations important during the course of it, but I was pleased that they brought out features in there that represented the public's interest. We had multiple public engagement sessions to review the status of plan and where we were going with it.

And the thing that struck me probably the most was 72 percent of the public response was unfavorable toward the type of quality, quantity, and rate of development we've seen in this county for the past decade.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right.

Bill Stovall: They were concerned with traffic congestion. They were concerned with overcrowded schools, which has been a perplexing problem for Better part of over 10 years, and they were seeing a quality of life that was changing much too rapidly for their viewpoint.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right. Right.

Bill Stovall: It's getting much more difficult for farmers to move the equipment over the congested highways And they're seeing land that they typically have farmed on a lease basis evaporate him because obviously it's much more attractive to an owner to sell that for a high value.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right so in basic terms that the listeners can listen to this new land use plan does what?

We've got situations now where over in the western part of the county, you've got a huge subdivision that is right next to one of the largest hog farms in the state of North Carolina. It's been there forever, but now the residents over there that bought in that subdivision are complaining about the odor.

Well, that's the reality when you move to the country.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right, well, you move next to a hog farm.

Bill Stovall: Yes, and those are the type of things that the plan is trying to avoid. It's also trying to avoid push development. To where the water and sewer is more readily available, which is within the municipal boundaries and the ETJs, extraterritorial jurisdictions.

Jonathan Bredeen: Okay.

Jonathan Bredeen: That's where I live. It's where I've lived for 23 years.

Bill Stovall: Within a five mile radius of Cleveland school. Historical Cleveland school, you've got close to 37, 000 residents, you know, essentially you've got a town, but it's a virtual town with no governance, no individual services being provided by that.

Jonathan Bredeen: Correct.

Bill Stovall: Flowers plantation is another one. That is a good example. It is growing in loops, leaps and bounds.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right.

Bill Stovall: 40, 42 has had you've got people now that say I wouldn't go there for anything because the traffic is horrendous.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right. Right. Well, they're doing the construction. Now, this road project is going to be done within the next year. And then Cleveland school road is going to have an exit and it has been zoned.

And so we're going to have more gas stations and more dollar generals and more of that along that corridor. Because that commercial was going to be coming off of that interstate and also to support the homes that are there.

It says we, we need more tax base. So we're putting water and sewer out there and that has unfortunately led to the growth rate that we've seen and we've essentially created an imbalance in the type of growth we've got. We've got more residential than anything else and we do not have commerce producing or job producing growth to the extent that we need to maintain a balance in our tax structure.

The

Bill Stovall: sewer been there for a couple of years now.

Jonathan Bredeen: Yeah, but I mean,

Bill Stovall: I mean,

Jonathan Bredeen: Amazon's business took a turn.

Bill Stovall: Yes, but our ability to continue attracting depends on having water and sewer available.

Jonathan Bredeen: Correct.

Bill Stovall: You know, right now our county's water production, they can treat and deliver up to 14 million gallons per day of water into the county's distribution system. Their average daily demand is 13. 92 million gallons per day. The only thing that gives them any flexibility beyond that is they've got purchase agreements I think it's either about 8 purchase agreements with other entities.

Some internal to the county like Smithfield, others like the town of Wilson. Raleigh and through Harnett County that are supplementing our water for another 10 million gallons per day. The concern with that is that is not a priority to these other suppliers. If they need that water or they come upon a shortage for drought, first thing they're going to do is they're going to stop selling water to Johnston County.

Jonathan Bredeen: So what should the county do?

Jonathan Bredeen: Right.

Bill Stovall: And water comes out predominantly out of the noose river, which is an overtaxed natural resource It's got some issues. So there's a whole lot of soda straws in that river running from raleigh to newborn and everybody's fighting over capacity out of it Yeah, right now our latest plan to expand our capacity is to go down to Richland Bridge Road at the Wayne County line where there's a few more tributaries coming into the noose and pump that water back to an old quarry.

That the county has bought in Princeton and stored in that cloric, then run it through our treatment process. But they've got to pipe it 12 miles to get it there.

Jonathan Bredeen: Okay.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right. Well, the county is about out of wastewater capacity, but they are building, I was by the dump the other day. And it's about to get done. It's going to be done soon. And that's going to be a new wastewater treatment facility there. You know, it's going to be right there at the Johnston County landfill right off of two 10.

And I think it is going to almost be full when it opens. Is that right? You know more about that.

Bill Stovall: It will only add a net. It'll have initial treatment capacity of 4 million gallons, but it'll only add a net 2 million gallons of additional daily capacity to the county system now. The plant that the county has now in Smithville along the river bank, unfortunately, it was completely flooded during Hurricane Matthew.

The cost of that I haven't seen any recent figures, but you know, I'm talking about water alone. That's a billion dollars. Sewer is probably going to be somewhere in the same neighborhood.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right. But now the citizens, the users pay for that. That's not just straight tax dollars. I mean, these things are supported by user fees. I pay a water bill every month. I pay a sewer bill every month. So yeah, it's going to be passed along to the users. This isn't like a school where the county has to provide it. And, you know, the users aren't having to pay for it by a person.

Bill Stovall: How are they paying for capital now? They're using bonds.

Jonathan Bredeen: Correct.

Bill Stovall: Well, the enterprise fund, you've got to issue revenue bonds, which means the user fees have got to pay off that debt.

Jonathan Bredeen: Okay.

The user fees only support the what it takes to operate the system. We got and to provide for limited amount of expansion. So you're looking at the the rates are going to have to go up considerably in my opinion, to borrow that money. Or otherwise, you're going to have to start supplementing it from your property tax base.

And it no longer becomes the enterprise fund. It becomes you're pledging the full taxing faith and credit of the county in order to do that.

Jonathan Bredeen: So if you win this race and you become a county commissioner, what would you do about the situation with the water and the sewer and the growth?

Bill Stovall: Water, sewer, and growth. The land use plan recognize it and they encouraged in the plan and there's, I asked for specifically be included that we need a formal cost of community services analysis that shows us what our true costs of these various development types are to the county based upon our current tax structure.

And locales that are experiencing high growth like Johnston County, that rate is generally higher. So that tells you right there that without having other land uses to balance it out, you look at commercial, industrial, they generally demand somewhere around 0. 35 per dollar of tax price they bring in.

Agricultural, depending on where you're at, runs anywhere from 0. 35 up to about 60%. But those are the ones that bring in you a net increase in revenue. That offsets what the public service cost is for your residential construction.

That's going to help and help keep these jobs here. And so it turns some of these cars around that are driving to Raleigh every day where they can live here and work here.

Bill Stovall: Well, I want to see our utility capacity be used and a certain amount reserved to get that job creation here. Because I want to see jobs within the county itself rather than people that are basically driving into Wake County and other triangle counties to work.

You know, we are known as basically a pharmaceutical giant. I didn't agree with the effort that several chamber of commerce came up with several years ago to say they want to brand us as Triangle East. I think that was a wrong decision. Johnston County has its own unique identity, and we need to brand ourselves based on the strengths of Johnston County.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right. Well, like I said, I could talk to Bill Stovall for hours, and we've been going now for a little bit. But I do want to ask you about parks. There is the Cleveland Community Park out here. They bought the 80 acres at at Polenta and Matthews. I know you and I were both at the public meeting they had with Adrian O'Neill the other night.

And she said maybe, and you know, the rest is sort of history with Denley and Michael dod and them going and purchasing that land and holding it until the county could buy it.

What are your thoughts on developing that park? The price on that park is somewhere between 30 and $50 million.

The Cleveland community is not incorporated. It is not going to incorporate, I don't believe anytime soon. Would you support a bond for the county to help build this 30 to 50 million dollar park out here in Cleveland?

Bill Stovall: Well, with amenities, the county's position has always been, and this is a conservative principle, the people who use it need to be the ones who are going to pay for it.

But usually, the citizens who are affected by that. Have to agree to it.

Jonathan Bredeen: Right? Well, they talked to about, you know, they had the thing where they were going to try to have a vote, but then the legislature says you can't have a vote that law, but the county commissioners do have the authority to create a tax, a special tax district like the fire tax district.

And you know, they talked about maybe making the Macklemore Fire tax district and it was going to be four cents and that's how they were going to do it. The county commissioners four years ago voted that down. I know that is still on the table. Would you support a fire tax special tax district for the Macklemore Fire District to build that park?

There's not enough coordination out there. I think that looking at what our mutual needs and how we can solve these problems together Makes more sense and makes it more palatable to the citizens who are ultimately going to have to pay for it Right now whether or not a special tax district in that case is going to be appropriate I'm not ready to say yes, no today, but I think special tax districts are certainly something that's going to have to be very thoughtfully considered and Marketed to our citizens because the reality is you've got really no other means to come up with that at this time.

Jonathan Bredeen: Well, and there are other areas that would like to be considered for that if they do it micro I think at one point was interested.

Bill Stovall: What I love most about Johnson County is and the reason we moved here, I mean, we like the people here. They're very warm and friendly. They have the same small town values that my wife and I grew up with. We think it's an excellent location to raise a family. I think the quality of life here has been excellent, but I think we've got to look at doing some things differently at the county level in order to preserve that quality of life and enhance it.

And actually fully enacting this land use plan is going to be the the primary step to achieving that. It's going to bring stability to our tax base, and it's going to open up more options in terms of how we fund these tremendous growing capital needs we have for infrastructure and utilities.

I think the people here is like, say are, what makes it the grant.

Well, we want to thank Bill Stovall for coming on to our podcast today. He will be on your Republican primary ballot on March the 5th for a county commissioner's seat. And you could listen to what he has to say. He can how would they find out more about your campaign?

Bill Stovall: Well, I have a Facebook page at Bill Stovall for Johnsont County Commissioner that they can go to.

And from there, also, I have a website with a link tree address where I put platform statements on that, and I'm constantly adding more information to that as I go. But if you want to learn more about my position on infrastructure and balanced growth and quality of life. Please go to that Link Tree site and also visit my webpage.

Jonathan Bredeen: What is the Link Tree site?

Bill Stovall: It is also Bill Stovall for cc. It's okay. I think.com.

So be free to check back. At this point, we have you know, a bunch of episodes on. You can go back and listen to some of the more popular episodes we've already had on, including with Adrian O'Neill, the Parks and Rec Director of Johnston County and Patrick Harris, one of our current County Commissioners.

So, if you've not listened to those, definitely go back and listen to those. Be sure to keep following us. If you would do us a favor of leaving us a 5 star review and thanking our guests and anything you have to say or questions you may have for Bill Stovall. We can leave them there and we'll try to get those to him as well.

The five star reviews help our visibility in the podcast world. So other people will find out about the Best of Johnston County podcasts. Till next time. I'm your host, Jonathan Breeden. Thanks a lot.

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