Commissioners Circle Wagons to Sugar Coat Grandfather-Gate Zoning Ordinance Debacle

Public Irate With Commissioners' Ordinance Designed to Terminate Grandfathered Business Land Uses

“The law…says that a government has an opportunity to phase out legal non-conforming or grandfathered uses over what’s called a “reasonable period of time.”...You tasked me to come up with some language that might begin to peel back some of the legal non-conforming uses that we have in the county.” — Forsyth County Attorney Ken Jarrard, August 7, 2025, speaking directly to the Forsyth County Commission explaining the purpose of an ordinance they passed later that evening

The above statement was spoken into the record by Forsyth County Attorney Ken Jarrard as he began to describe certain proposed ordinance provisions he authored at the request of the Forsyth County Commission and presented on August 7. The commission passed those provisions later in the evening, and they now reside on the books, ready to execute. Those are the same ordinance provisions I discussed in my recent Substack article entitled, “Forsyth County Commission Enacts Ground-Breaking Ordinance to Terminate Property Rights Associated with Grandfathered Businesses and Land Uses - Your Land May Be Affected.” Since publishing that article, public opinion of the new ordinance, and the board of commissioners in general, has been overwhelmingly, and increasingly negative.

Obviously alarmed by such public sentiments, three commissioners, Laura Semanson, Alfred John, and Mendy Moore soon posted social media statements, each portraying a similar manufactured defense of their August decision. The commissioners expressed, each in his or her own way, that somehow the ordinance provisions in question do not concern the purposes County Attorney Ken Jarrard explained to them on August 7, but are instead about “businesses who continuously violate our county or state codes” (Semanson), and “serial offenders who continue to ignore the ordinances or the law” (Alfred John), and “bad actors” (Mendy Moore). There is no language in the new ordinance provisions, nor in County Attorney Ken Jarrard’s August 7 explanation, that describes the intentions the three commissioners would like you to believe. And because we know from its author that, “phasing out non-conforming land uses,” is the singular purpose of the ordinance the county commission tasked Mr. Jarrard to write, it is no far stretch to reckon that the commissioners intend to apply those provisions to accomplish that very purpose.

Last week I cautioned the public that in my experience, laws should never be judged by what a lawmaker says, but rather by the authorities the laws convey. Once on the books, laws will generally be applied following the latter, and not the former.

Today, I renew that warning, and further observe that Commissioners John, Semanson and Moore, appear to be “circling the wagons,” choreographing their messaging such that each delivers the same or a similar excuse for enacting ordinance provisions, the real purpose of which, according to the attorney who wrote then, is to phase out grandfathered business land uses. That is not a winning issue with the voters, as the poll taken a few days after news of this ordinance circulated, plainly indicates.

What Else Did the Three Commissioners Say?

In addition to the characterizations issued by the three commissioners above, Commissioner Mendy Moore wrote:

“This change ONLY applies to businesses who are guilty of code violations or legal offenses committed in the course of operating their business. Being non-conforming is not a code violation, so that is not the trigger. Our Code Compliance department will issue warnings and allow ample time to address the violation before issuing a citation. Citations are handled by Magistrate Court.”

Admittedly, the ordinance is a ball of yarn difficult to untangle. But no one should be misled. Its provisions are designed to provide Forsyth County a tool with which to terminate grandfathered land uses. That is all. Referencing the new ordinance, Mr. Jarrard described a sequence of events that start when a citation is served to a legal non-conforming (grandfathered) business. In order to qualify to terminate a grandfathered land use, that citation must deal in some respect with an operation of the business outside of its grandfathered zoning permissions. Contrary to what Commissioner Moore wrote, there are no new provisions requiring the Code Compliance Department to “issue warnings and allow ample time to address the violation before issuing a citation.”

Once such a citation is issued, if in the opinion of Planning and Community Development Director Tom Brown, the alleged code violation arises “from a non-conforming use that is the principal use on the property or a substantive ancillary use on the property,” a notice will also be sent from Forsyth County to the business or land owner/user, advising that within 18 months of that notice the business’ grandfathered land use will be deemed by the county to be terminated.

According to Commissioner Moore, however:

“Once this new code is triggered, the business owner has 18 months to come to the county and bring their business into compliance with current zoning ordinances. If you are a law-abiding business, you have nothing to worry about. However, if you are not a good actor, this new code could come into play.”

Commissioner Moore claims that a grandfathered business would somehow have the power to “come to the county and bring their business into compliance with current zoning ordinances.” Her remarks might sound reasonable and forgiving. However, given that the true purpose of the new ordinance, as stated clearly by the county attorney immediately prior to the commission vote, is to phase out legal non-conforming (or grandfathered) businesses, for all practical purposes the only way any existing business would possess the power to do as she suggests would be to suddenly become a different business, operating under a different purpose, one which could thereby “bring their business into compliance with current zoning ordinances,” and do all that within 18 months. A retail operation, therefore, might have to become a heavy industrial operation to, “bring their business into compliance with current zoning ordinances.” That is what Commissioner Moore would apparently like the public to believe is possible. Obviously, nothing she describes in her remarks is likely to ever happen. And, given the very purpose of these new code provisions, it is hardly conceivable that the commissioners would ignore the ordinance’s prime objective, in essence turning that objective upside-down, and modify a subjected property’s land use permissions to allow the original business operations instead.

For the reasons I provide, businesses who are not “good actors,” as Commissioner Moore describes, are not simply those “businesses who continuously violate our county or state codes” (Semanson), or “serial offenders who continue to ignore the ordinances or the law” (Alfred John). The set of businesses targeted by the new ordinance necessarily include every legal non-conforming (grandfathered) business in the county.

Below you will find Commissioner Moore’s published remarks in their entirety:

Next let’s look at Commissioner Semanson’s Remarks:

Notwithstanding various insults directed at me, and regarding only the ordinance provisions passed on August 7, Commissioner Semanson’s first unsupportable remark is that Planning Director Tom Brown has “nothing to do with how the ordinance works.” As I demonstrated above and in my previous article on this ordinance, Tom Brown, the Planning Director, is the very individual tasked under the new provisions to opine whether the activity cited is either a “primary use or substantial ancillary use” of a property operating as a legal non-conforming (grandfathered) business. That is what County Attorney Ken Jarrard told the commissioners, twice, during his explanation of the ordinance on August 7. Thus, under this ordinance the Planning Director is the key player in the entire set of events. Unless the Planning Director issues an administrative opinion that the activity under citation is a “primary use or substantial ancillary use” of the grandfathered property, that grandfathered land use cannot be terminated. That Commissioner Semanson could have published such a statement defies any basic understanding of the provisions she voted to approve that evening.

The commissioner’s second unsupportable remark (other than personal insults directed at me) is the one stating, “The ordinance addresses ONLY businesses who continuously violate other county or state codes.” Again, there is nothing in the new provisions that justify that statement. Those words are simply not there. And Commissioner Semanson’s statements appear to coordinate with the sugarcoated assessments provided by Commissioner Moore. Semanson simply defines Commissioner Moore’s term, “bad actors,” to mean, “businesses who continuously violate other county or state codes.” Do you think those commissioners might have spoken prior to publishing their statements?

And finally, agreeing once more with Commissioner Moore’s statements, Commissioner Semanson wrote, “that business STILL has the opportunity to get the zoning and/or permit they need.” Commissioner Semanson would apparently like the public to believe that the commission enacted an ordinance with a sole purpose of phasing out grandfathered land uses, but that once the ordinance requirements have been completely satisfied and a grandfathered business land use is ripe for terminating, the commissioners might instead revert the zoning of subjected property back to how it had been previously, and allow a grandfathered business to continue operating as it had, essentially letting the fish off the hook in the process. Imagine the constitutional case of the next business coming before the commission, asking to be treated equally under the 14th Amendment and being turned down on such a request. The commissioners’ narratives are more than sugarcoating, they are a constitutional fairy tale simply designed to placate the public in hopes this issue will soon go away.

Finally, let’s look at the remarks of Chairman Alfred John, remarks apparently never offered to the general public for full consumption, but only delivered to a private social media echo chamber, populated with mostly like-minded members. Because the Chairman’s remarks are so thoroughly laced with demagoguery, I believe my best path forward is to respond to each paragraph as he published it.

Paragraph 1:

“There has been a lot of disinformation on social media about County government shutting down businesses because they were grandfathered in with an older use that is no longer in compliance. Disinformation is defined as false information spread deliberately to deceive people for political or economic gain and what is being shared on social media is disinformation.

I will give the chairman credit. His first paragraph is clever, so clever that in my opinion, it could have been written by a professional speech writer. Perhaps it was.

In those remarks, the chairman establishes a premise on which to base his remaining thesis. In it, he immediately discredits any opinion other than his own as, “disinformation.” According to the chairman, any contention that “County government would shut down businesses because they were grandfathered in with an older use that is no longer in compliance” can only be “disinformation.” The task for the reader is therefore to determine whether the disinformation noted by Chairman John disseminates from my fingertips, or perhaps his own.

Paragraph 2:

“County government doesn’t randomly prosecute businesses; on the contrary, it tries to encourage businesses to grow and thrive while balancing the needs of the surrounding community.”

Basing the remainder of his remarks on the notion that any opinion other than his can only be, “disinformation,” the chairman then establishes a rule for the reader to consider, presenting that county government is your friend, would never randomly prosecute businesses, and only wants to help businesses “grow and thrive,” while working diligently to decipher and “balance the needs of the surround community.” Perhaps my best response to the chairman’s sentiments would be to dispose of them invoking one offered by President Ronald Reagan in the following clip:

Paragraph 3:

“The county frequently receives code enforcement complaints from residents and based on the ordinances, our code enforcement personnel have to take action. Usually it is a conversation, asking them to fix the issue, giving them a chance to address the problem. Sometimes 2 or 3 chances are given to fix the issue. When they cite someone, whether business or resident, it then goes to Magistrate Court where it is “evaluated” by the Judge based on the merits. This is a similar process to someone who runs a stop sign or speeds; there is a process to address or mitigate the issue. The Judge usually gives them the opportunity to fix the issue and the problem is solved.”

This is the paragraph where the chairman begins to blend his point of view to agree with sentiments previously expressed by commissioners Semanson and Moore above, supposing that the only businesses who will be affected by the August 7 code provisions are those about whom the county receives code enforcement complaints from residents thereby requiring code enforcement personnel to “take action.” Those businesses to whom the chairman refers are those “bad actors” (Commissioner Moore) and “businesses who continuously violate county and state codes,” and who are in “constant violation” (Commissioner Semanson). Quoting Ms. Semanson, county government must somehow “work with” those businesses to “bring them into compliance.” Whenever I hear those kinds of sentiments, I am prompted to recall a famous quote written by Mary Shelley, author of the Frankenstein novel:

If you are recall the story, the Frankenstein monster murders his creator, Dr. Frankenstein, who fought the monster’s will to control. The monster then and sets out to control the world, to “bring the world into compliance.” The monster expects that if he can accomplish that purpose, he might find peace in his existence. Sound familiar? I submit that our county government under the tutelage of the present regime, has it all backwards. It is the government which should comply with the will of the people, not the people who should comply with the will of the government. In America, there is no authoritative “will of government.” Government, itself, is an expression of the will of the people, and has no power to overrule that expression.

Forsyth Citizens Living in Fear

Before finishing my responses to Chairman John, I ask you to notice how your friends and neighbors down the street, given a modicum of government power, are speaking to you. You, and others just like you, are the owners or employees of businesses your county commissioners, your “neighbors,” seek to terminate. You are the ones who are “not in compliance.” You and others just like you are the ones your friends and neighbors elected to power in Forsyth County Government seek to “bring into compliance.” There is something very wrong about all of this. What I describe is backwards, perhaps inverted or upside-down. County elected officials answer to you. They must comply with the will of the people, and not the other way around.

During a series of debates on socialism published in 1914, anti-socialist John Basil Barnhill issued a quotable axiom, “Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.” I cannot tell you how many people, some I have known and some I did not know, who have contacted me over the past two years, to say they live in certain fear of various politicians, political associates and elected officials involved in Forsyth County politics. Political fear finds its source in various forms of tyranny. According to our founding fathers, tyranny is the unauthoritative use of the power of government. As we learned last week, the powers underwriting the ordinance in question, enacted by your friendly county commissioners on August 7th, find no authority in the expressed will of the people of Georgia. And apparently, no other county in Georgia has taken the steps Forsyth County has taken to codify methods to terminate long-standing, grandfathered business land uses. Only your commissioners here in Forsyth County, your friends down the street, each who calls him or herself a “conservative Republican,” have done this.

The August 7 ordinance enacted by the Forsyth County Commission must be repealed, at which point we must begin repairing ordinance provisions abolishing the rights of grandfathered enterprises to improve their properties, such that the decay of those long-standing businesses is no longer inevitable with time.

Paragraph 4:

What happens when you have a serial offender who continues to ignore the ordinances or the law? Do they just get a free pass while others follow it? Hank Sullivan will have you believe that anarchy is best for the county and that no rules should apply.

Here, the chairman uses another rhetorical device, this time not so clever, equating anyone’s disagreement with Forsyth County policy, with promoting anarchy. Thus, according to Chairman John, anyone who does not believe as the county commissioners believe, is an anarchist. The layers of false logic in the chairman’s statement are more numerous than either I, or you, have the patience to consider.

Paragraph 5:

When a massage facility offers “additional services” and is cited multiple times, we should just turn a blind eye.

Next, the chairman wants you believe I am for prostitution, as if prostitution is not already against the law, with its own consequences, and justifiably so. The August 7 ordinance has nothing to do with prostitution. And if the commissioners believe terminating a grandfathered land use is going to stop the “oldest profession on earth,” I have news for them.

Paragraph 6:

When a package store sells to minors multiple times, let’s just shrug and pretend like it’s no big deal.

Next, the chairman wants you believe that I think selling alcohol to minors is just fine. The chairman obviously has no other arguments to make, so he resorts to hyperbole and addressing straw men.

Paragraph 7:

When auto establishments put up multiple banners and signs, inflatable wavy man, parking their vehicles on the grassy areas along the road, we should just ignore it and turn Forsyth County into an inner city hell hole!

I doubt that anyone arriving in such a hole of Hell will see “multiple banners and signs, inflatable wavy man, parking their vehicles on the grassy areas along the road.” Perhaps I am wrong in my notions of Hell. But we know that in this world, if an appropriately tailored ordinance prohibits those activities, those businesses can certainly be issued a citation, and if convicted of succeeding violations be fined to pay ever-increasing sums until the penalties are more substantial than the potential gains from violating the ordinance. Even so, the activities the chairman postulates are no reason to take away a business’ ability to operate.

Paragraph 8:

Hank probably also believes that out-of-State investors can buy property and leave it to rot causing great distress to adjacent property owners and breeding vermin. Hank hasn’t been involved in anything county related but for asking us to ban voting machines - even when he knew that it was governed by the Secretary of State and we would get sued or fined heavily if we did so.

Ordinances presently on the books disallow the kinds of activities the chairman describes. A temporary health-related “Stop Work Order” could be issued and any matter the chairman imagines would quickly resolve.

Paragraph 9:

His word salad posts are mind numbing and it comes across as rambling diatribes and much of it based on imagined opinions. But he will have you believe that the county government will shut down every business and is engaging in the worst form of fear-mongering, scaring good people and good business owners who are trying to eke out a living.

I take it that the chairman does not like my writing style. More than that, however, I expect he does not like the activities of the county commission, performed without, or perhaps even against the will of the people of Forsyth County, to be so effectively scrutinized in front of the voters.

Paragraph 10:

Anyone who runs for office needs to be serious about community and serious about policy and not align themselves with every liberal ideology which will destroy our county.”

Finally, Chairman John wrote a true statement.

Where is Commissioner Kerry Hill?

I hope the people of Forsyth County, and especially those in District 1, will note that I have not shied from answering any and all challenges and statements by the three commissioners. And to the contrary, I hope that voters in District 1 will note the conspicuous absence from this discussion from incumbent Commissioner Kerry Hill. At the outset, I wrote that the commissioners were figuratively “circling the wagons.” At the center of their fortification sits Commissioner Hill. Commissioners John, Semanson and Moore obviously want to save her seat. They do not want me in the room, potentially asking questions and expecting answers. I am told by many of her constituents that Commissioner Hill rarely answers their efforts to engage on various concerns. Apparently, Commissioner Hill’s absence on this issue is in keeping with the manner she conducts her public responsibilities.

Please know that if I am elected to represent District 1 on the Forsyth County Commission, I will conduct my public affairs just as I have right here. I will answer every question, discuss any topic, including the decisions I make as commissioner. I am not above criticism. I will not swear to please everyone with decisions and votes I make. But, I will be honest with you, likely learn from you, and humbly represent the interests of District 1 to the best of my ability. For these reasons, I ask for your support and your vote in the May primary.

Signs Are Available

I would be honored for residents of District 1 to place a campaign sign in their yards. To request a sign, please email me at hank@votehanksullivan.com.

Thank You for Your Support

To support my candidacy, I humbly ask that you contribute to my campaign. To do so, please click on the following link: