Did Enigma city hall have a ruckus or a nothing burger?

By T.S. Carter

ENIGMA, Berrien County, Georgia – A lingering mobile-home zoning dispute turned uncivil at Enigma City Hall on Monday, May 12, but accounts of what happened differ depending on the person talking.

Enigma native and South Georgia Tree Company owner Charlie Barnes said he came to city hall to get a copy of the city’s mobile home ordinance, having been instructed in writing by City Clerk Tasha Luke early last week to return in three days for a copy. Barnes said that is what he was doing when a hullabaloo started.

After she passed through the open doorway to her office, Luke told Barnes he’d have to come back in three days – again. “She opened the door where it said ‘Employees Only.’ I just put my arm up on the door jam.”

After telling him to come back later, said Barnes, “She slammed the door on my head.”

Next came a threat “to call the law,” Barnes said. He said he replied he would walk across the street to the police station and get the new police chief, Tony Perkins, if she liked.

Barnes said he gave up and left city hall after that.

Luke did not answer calls from The Lanier County News to city hall in the two days following the incident with Barnes.

Mayor Pro Tem Doug Webb said he has been telling Luke she must answer calls that come into city hall. “They are supposed to answer, but they never do,” Webb said. “We’ve told them and told them.”

Webb said the report he got from Luke is far different from Barnes’ version of things.

In Webb’s telling, Barnes “barged into” city hall “and got after one of the girls.”

A woman on her first day as clerk of court for Enigma came between Luke and Barnes and managed to get Barmes to back away and leave the building, according to Webb.

The door that Barnes said Luke slammed his head on has a hole in it put there by Barnes, claimed Webb.

Barnes said he is the one who left city hall with damage, and it was to his head.

But Webb said he has been told, “The guy ran across the road crying ‘she slammed the door on me.’”

Webb said he expects that Perkins, the new police chief, will write Barnes up for disorderly conduct. Perkins’ phone at the police station has not been connected. He did not return a call to his mobile phone on Wednesday.

Webb said Barnes is upset with the city for a number of reasons relating to his efforts to put a second mobile home on a nine-acre parcel he owns on Melody Lane.

He wants to rent the second mobile home out to a worker at his tree company.

That is the rub, said Webb.

The second mobile home situated on a separate half acre from the older mobile home would constitute a “trailer park,” insisted Webb.

He emphasized the city’s mobile home ordinance classifies such an arrangement as a mobile home park, because Barnes intends to rent out the home.

Barnes received a $500 fine from the city for putting the mobile home on Melody Lane property without a permit, said Webb, adding the fine has not been paid.

Webb said the city ordinance is clear about what is allowed and how a mobile park is defined.  And since Barnes put the mobile home on the half acre without a permit, hecan’t get utilities connected to it, according to Webb.

Barnes, for his part, said his understanding is that the city ordinance allows one mobile home on each half acre and makes no distinction on its intended use.

He said he could prove it if he could ever get a copy of the city’s mobile home ordinance.