County Board of Health discusses ongoing conflict with Winchell property

At a special meeting Friday, the Hill County Board of Health discussed an ongoing conflict over alleged violations on a property managed by Lodestar Land and Home owner Mike Winchell, how to proceed with addressing them and the legal implications.

Clay Vincent, who continues to do sanitarian work for the county despite his retirement, said Winchell since 2020 has repeatedly and knowingly violated regulations with one of his properties which he initially refused to connect to the public sewer system despite being required to by law.

During previous meetings over the years, Winchell has said that hooking into the sewers would be economically infeasible based on how the property was built and that he should have been exempt from that requirement based on the circumstances that led to that.

The property was eventually connected to the sewer line earlier this year, but Vincent said Friday that that was done far later than agreed upon and done improperly.

After years of conflict and a lawsuit brought by Winchell, he and the county signed a settlement agreement, one that was at the core of the discussion Friday.

Vincent said that, between 2020 and when the settlement was reached, Winchell repeatedly violated codes and regulations including building without a permit, installing a septic tank and ignoring requirements set forth by the Hill County Planning Board.

He said these regulation are there for a reason, protecting public safety, public health and ensuring effective community development, and if they are ignored so blatantly, even after the county spent so much time "bending over backward" to accommodate, others will follow.

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson, also the chair of the Board of Health, said people in the area share similar worries, that if something isn't done then no one will respect the rules and building will be come a free-for-all.

"I believe that it's time we proceed with something to get this back in order," Peterson said. "If we don't, then I don't think we're going to have any order at all in future developments."

However, Hill County Attorney Lacey Lincoln, said the settlement signed by the county specifically states that they cannot bring claims or counterclaims on any of the violations that Vincent mentioned, nor any violations that may have been pointed out during that time period.

Vincent said Winchell has violated the terms of that agreement by hooking into the public sewer system without first sending the county plans outlining how he would go about that, and dug up part of the public right of way in the process, so the agreement should be null and void.

"He didn't even follow his own agreement," he said.

Lincoln said the matter is more complicated than that, especially because the county hasn't followed the agreement either, having paid the agreed upon amount to Winchell later than the agreed upon time.

She also said a hearing was required to address the alleged deficiencies on the properties in question and it's not clear to her if that has happened, either.

When asked after the meeting what the legal implications of one or both parties violating the agreement was, she said she doesn't really know at this point and needs to look into some of the specifics more before giving a legally informed answer.

Peterson asked on what date the county can legally start assessing potential violations, but Lincoln said the agreement signed by the county has no date on it so she doesn't know.

Hill County Public Health Director Kim Berg, also the county's health officer, said based on all of this information, it doesn't seem like anyone involved in this situation is completely in the right, and, in part because of that, she thinks they shouldn't be to aggressive right out of the gate.

"I don't think this paints a good picture of anybody at this point," Berg said. " ... We need to stop finger-pointing."

She suggested contacting Winchell and asking him for documentation regarding how he went about hooking into the public sewer and seeing what he sends them and going from there.

Health Board member Kyndra Hall agreed, as did Hill County Commissioner Jake Strissel, also a member of the Board of Health.

Vincent continued to bring up the pre-agreement violations and their severity, but Lincoln said that many of the things he's talking about have nothing to do with Board of Health and are instead handled by county planner so those need to be completely separate discussions with a different body.

The board eventually agreed to contact Winchell to see what he has to say about how he hooked into the sewer and to set up future meetings for ongoing discussion.