County Commissioners Meeting
January 18, 2005

Personal Minutes Written by Dave Sobota

1 – The first item was the second reading of re-zoning request. I did not get the vote on this one as the next item brought a standing room only crowd to the court house.

2- The second item discussed was the possible CCA contract for building and running a new county jail. This filled the entire meeting room (roomers stated as early as 5:30) and left probably 100+ people standing in the hallway. This issue even brought channel 5 and channel 2 news (must be a slow news day for Nashville). After the many discussions and meetings (many of them heated up by the citizens) the commissioners voted 5 yes and 7 no for the CCA contract thus defeating this measure. Jewel Loggins then disbanded the group put together to study the jail issue. In return for this action he appointed all 12 commissioners as the new group to study the jail issue as this vote did not solve any of the problems brought to the county by the sheriff. It will now be the commissioner’s responsibility to find a solution to the jail problem.

From this point the meeting mostly followed the schedule as shown.

Quarterly reports: - non issue – reports were accepted as given and approved.

Resolutions:

1- Resolution to approve the filming of the commissioner meetings and broadcast them on the public access channel. This motion was approved 11 yes, 1 no with the provision added that it be done with NO cost to the county. The currently proposed time slots for broadcast would be Mondays at 1pm, Tuesdays at 8am, and Thursdays at 8pm. I do not currently have any more information (like when it will start or what channel it will be on) but I will try to find that out.

2- Resolution to approve an application for Fasttrack Industrial Development Program Funds for MetriCan Stamping Co. This money comes from a state level grant whose source is the department of economic and industrial development. This resolution passed with 12 yes votes

3- Request for the Tennessee Legislature to strengthen our stalking laws and increase penalties for stalking. This was approved with 12 yes votes.

4- allocation of funds from the Landfill reserves – approved 12 yes votes

5- Annual adjustment to the financial assurance with the state on landfill permits – approved 12 yes votes

6- County Roads list – a list of county maintained roads – 11 yes, 1 abstain due to lack of proper information.

7- CCA contract – see item #2 on this page

8- this was added to the agenda with a rules suspension – resolution to approve moving forward with the program to extend the water lines into the area where the dump contaminated residence’s wells. This resolution approval allows the Mayor to sign the necessary paperwork to start the bidding process and move forward with the funding allocated for this project (about $575,000 total). This was approved with 12 yes votes.

9- this item was also added to the agenda with a rules suspension – resolution to approve the dollar amount allocated for the library’s maintenance of effort contract. This figure currently stands at $470,130 for the budget year. Mr. Suggs noted that this amount has been increasing each year and he wanted to know when the increases would stop. The figures he gave were approximately $370,000, $440,000, and then this $470,000. This resolution passed with a 5 no and 7 yes vote. The answer to Mr. Suggs’ question appeared to be that someone was working on it at the state level.

The next item was another suspension of the rules to allow Jeri Dugan to speak about the special census. She is the one who took out ads in the paper asking for donations on the county’s behalf so the county could pay for the special census. She spoke briefly about why she took this effort and how she appreciated the support she did get but she stated that she did not collect enough money to cover the projected bill. She collected approximately $2150 total and will be returning this money as promised in her ads.

Appointments:

All suggested appointments were approved.

Budget discussions:

This discussion was prefaced by the Mayor adding what has been done for the budget so far. One item cut was the $485,000 that was to be spent on the county court house building. These items will be put off until they can be funded or they have to be done by requirements of the state or necessity (as in the case of a roof leak or HVAC failure). She also stated that cuts have been made, people have been laid off, some have been moved to part time, and no new hires have come on board, all in an effort to keep things running as they currently are. She also gave a small update on the nursing home stating that the inspection went well and the only thing left is the final approval of the paperwork to complete the sale.

With all of that said a motion was made to decide nothing with this budget discussion. Mr. Suggs brought up his concern that something need to be done before people wind up not getting paid as a result of no budget decisions. He also questioned the sales tax projection that was used to calculate the revenue for this budget. It was projected to increase about 30% but did not. The motion to end this discussion and finish the meeting was voted on and passed with 9 yes votes and 3 no so there were no further budget discussions.

Announcements:

The next working session will be 2/7/05, next regular meeting 2/22/05.

[ view meeting agenda ]