MANSFIELD — Booming thunder and pouring rain Thursday morning provided the perfect backdrop for Stephen Risser to assume some new duties for Richland County.
County commissioners approved an agreement allowing Risser, the county’s building department director, to also handle commercial stormwater reviews for the Richland Soil & Water Conservation District.
Risser and Erica Thomas, director of RSWCD, told commissioners the district recently lost of the services of a local engineer who had taken a position in another state and was doing reviews remotely.
Risser, who returned to his Richland County role in January, said he would assist in commercial reviews that have an engineering component attached. It’s similar to work he had done when he worked for the county from 2003 to 2016.
“They approached us about coming back and giving them some assistance,” said Risser. “As a registered engineer, I could provide that work.”
“We did it before. The offices are coordinated together as it is just for assistance with the storm water regulations, assistance with building code enforcement throughout the county. I’ve got some experience doing that. We did it before. It was a great relationship,” Risser told commissioners.
Risser’s office is in the Longview Center, which is also home to RSWCD.
“It strengthens our relationship and, and more so importantly, it benefits our county residents and our contractors and our people that are looking to develop in the county,” Risser said.
“It streamlines the process a little bit more. We’re right down the hall in the same building. We’ve got very good rapport. We’ve got very good communication between the offices and that provides a little more accessibility,” he said.
Risser’s office will be paid $300 per review and $50 per hour for the work. He said the money would go into his department’s capital funds for future equipment purchases.
“This doesn’t necessarily give us raises. This isn’t any additional salary for myself. I’ll be the only one in the office that really handles this type of work. It’s a way for us to have a little bit extra money in the equipment line item that we can use to buy computers and tablets and technology,” he said.
Risser said the review work revolves around the engineering portion of site development with regard to storm water.
“Estimating rainfall, calculating how much water’s gonna be generated by that rainfall. What does the proposed site plan have for how that storm water runoff will be routed?
“If you’ve got a large parking lot, if you’ve got grass, if you’ve got catch basins and pipes, how do we control all that and properly discharge that so we’re not creating an adverse effect to adjacent property owners? There’s some engineering work and some calculations that go behind that,” Risser said.
Thomas said the amount of work being channeled to Risser will depend on the number of commercial permit applications filed. She said there were about 20 such reviews in 2023.
“I can’t see any downside to this arrangement,” Commissioner Cliff Mears said. “You’re local. You can have that face-to-face dialogue and it’s an advantage to the taxpayers, the residents, our customers (with) the one-stop shop.”
Commissioner Darrell Banks agreed.
“I think moving forward this would be very good because contractors, people building things, it’s still the same steps, but I think it’ll be a little bit easier on them. That’s the most important part,” Banks said.
