Yes, there are Fannin County residents who would deliberately cause hardships on other citizens of the county. A recent example of this occurred in Commissioners Court on February 4, 2025. An exchange occurred between a Fannin County citizen and the Fannin County Judge. The exchange can be viewed and listened to on the “Commissioners Court Recordings” on the Fannin County website (the link to the recording is located at the bottom of this letter). I urge you to listen to the recording to obtain a full account of the exchange and the identity of the citizen involved. The following is a summary of the exchange:
Citizen to the Court: “You're fully aware that a business has built a bridge on private property there in Ravenna, at the north end of County Road 1135, without a permit over the creek, and it's also in the FEMA flood plain, and it's too low. They did it without a permit, and it's in violation of FEMA requirements and our floodplain requirements."
County Judge to Citizen: (summary) Letters have been sent to the offending party(s). The bridge is in an isolated part of the county. There are county issues with higher priorities that require the county’s attention.
Citizen to the Court: The citizen continues to make his case for the county to take a more proactive stand on this issue. At some point in his argument, he makes the following statement, and I quote, “So it's an issue. I'm to the point now, if we can't get nothing done, I'm just going to contact FEMA and see if we cannot just get Fannin County denied any FEMA. You take care of it, because I've been patiently waiting.”
The exchange continues on. This issue appears to be a pet peeve of the citizen. The citizen appears to be more interested in getting his way, even if it causes the citizens of the county to lose FEMA flood insurance funding.
My opinion: Fannin County cannot afford to chase down issues that have little-to-no impact on our citizens. It’s time to stop bullying the commissioners and County Judge to address pet peeves. Many important regulations have been put into place over the past two years that will have a positive impact for generations, if we keep them in place and continue to enforce them. Generally speaking, our elected officials are doing a good job of governance and have the county headed in the right direction. Let’s all do our parts to stop the negative and destructive manipulation of the commissioners and County Judge. Encourage them to continue to work on the county’s behalf to improve the quality of life in Fannin County.
The exchange begins at 1:17:30 into the recording. If you have copy of the Leader, this article contains a QR code link to the Commissioners Court Recordings.
Mike Nejtek
