[0:26] public access for the protection of the health safety

[0:28] and welfare of the public due to the ongoing covenant team pandemic

[0:32] so with that being said madame clark call the roll please willie campbell

[0:36] here mark blevins here robert aka anthony brown mike hill

[0:44] here nancy brown

[0:49] julie quinn hi bradley johnson here mark kester

[0:57] here charles von cannon president isaiah grindstaff here jerry prophet

[1:04] here austin james

[1:11] austin james ross garland here layla ward

[1:18] what is that ginger holden here randall jenkins

[1:24] here gary bailey here travis hill here sanja culler

[1:32] where's that daniel mcintyre here aaron frazier here robin mckamey

[1:39] here kelly collins here thomas prophet here austin james

[1:48] madam clerk i think austin said he may not make it tonight

[1:51] okay foreign

[1:59] thank you next time agenda is approval of the agenda

[2:03] for deletions mr chairman yes sir mr bailey

[2:08] is there any way that i could address the commission before committee reports

[2:13] uh for about five minutes yes i don't think that'll be a problem

[2:17] unless anybody has an objection to that will pencil in commissioner bailey uh

[2:22] after the mayoral report if that's okay with everybody

[2:30] nobody has anything else i'll accept the motion for the amended agenda

[2:34] motion to prove the agenda mark blevins first district

[2:38] second thank you motion by mr blevins second by miss brown any discussion

[2:45] hearing none madam clerk call the roll please willie campbell

[2:48] uh mark blevins uh robert a cub yes auntie brown yes

[2:56] mike hill yes julie gwen yes bradley johnson

[3:04] mark tester yes charles von cannon aye isaiah grindstaff yes

[3:11] jerry prophet austin james ross garland yes lady award yes

[3:19] ginger holden yes randall jenkins yes gary bailey yes travis hill

[3:27] yes jonathan keller yes daniel mcintyre yes aaron frazier

[3:34] yes robin mckamey yes kelly collins yes i was profit

[3:41] yes thank you before we move into opening prayer i

[3:46] just need to make a quick announcement uh

[3:47] to let anybody know who may be here for a public hearing for a rezoning request

[3:52] that has been moved to may i believe we've failed to

[3:55] uh publicize that for the public hearing so that will be in may of 2021

[4:00] so now we'll move on to the opening prayer with commissioner willie campbell

[4:03] and then that will be followed by the pledge of allegiance by commissioner

[4:05] kelly collins heavenly father god of lords about our

[4:09] heads today lord and giving you honor and thanks for this day that you've

[4:12] given us lord god we just thank you today lord that we

[4:17] had the privilege lord to bow our heads and call upon the

[4:20] precious savior lord tonight we do pray lord for each

[4:23] thing is said and done lord that we do it in your will

[4:26] god we do pray for each commissioner lord it says on these boards

[4:30] god that you just blessed them lord tonight we pray for those who are on the

[4:34] front line of this covenant 19 lord and the ones that have lost family

[4:38] members god we pray lord god that you comfort their hearts lord

[4:42] you said if they call upon you god you've come for that heart

[4:45] lord we know that there's trouble on every hand this day lord

[4:48] and and all of our world god we just pray today lord that you have your hands

[4:52] upon each one have your anointing upon them

[4:55] god we could never give you enough praise and honor lord for the prayers

[4:58] that you've answered the miracles that you've worked in each

[5:01] one of our lives lord we're here tonight lord just to

[5:04] give you honor and praise and glory for it all for us in christ's name we pray

[5:08] amen

[5:13] salute pledge i pledge allegiance

[5:31] with liberty and justice

[5:40] next on the agenda the the acceptance of many minutes from the march meeting

[5:47] a motion to approve i'll make that motion

[5:50] randall jenkins six i'll second that isaiah ground staff

[5:54] all right motion by mr jenkins second mr grindstaff any additions or deletions

[6:02] hearing none madam clerk call the roll please

[6:07] willie campbell mark blevins uh robert aco yes

[6:13] nancy brown yes mike hill yes julie gwen yes bradley johnson

[6:21] yeah mark tester yes charles von cannon aye isaiah grimstad

[6:28] yes great prophet here austin james ross garland yes layla ward

[6:39] laila ward yes ginger holdren yes randall jenkins yes

[6:47] gary bailey yes travis hill yes send your caller abstain

[6:57] daniel mcintyre yes yes robin mckamey yes

[7:06] billy collins yes thomas prophet yes sonya how did you vote

[7:14] i abstained i was absent okay

[7:20] okay otherwise thank you next item on the agenda's approval of notaries and

[7:28] bonds ashley woods melissa joyner louis carty

[7:34] stephen j head lori l gil hilbert l christa brown tina bowers

[7:41] tammy lee a santam kathy bales edgar l presnell and add

[7:48] this one to your list to sharon w phillips motion to approve

[7:53] thank you to my mr fraser second by mr blevins

[7:58] any discussion hearing none madam clerk call the role please

[8:05] willie campbell mark blevins uh robert a calf yes nancy brown

[8:11] yes mike hill yes julie gwen yes bradley johnson

[8:18] yeah mark tester

[8:23] yes charles von cannon yes isaiah grant staff yes jerry prophet

[8:31] ross garland yes layla ward yes ginger holdren yes

[8:39] randall jenkins yes gary bailey yes travis hill yes

[8:46] sandra culler yes daniel mcintyre yes aaron frazier yes robin mckamey

[8:55] yes billy collins yes

[9:00] thomas prophet yes all eyes promotion past thank you next

[9:06] on the agenda i will recognize commissioner garland to introduce our

[9:09] next guest he wants to take control here yeah thank you chairman he'll um just

[9:14] want to welcome this group we've we've been waiting on

[9:17] them for a while we've uh actually got friends uh miss joy mcrae

[9:22] our new director on i think june was that's when that was and so she's been

[9:26] with us for a while been doing a fantastic job i think uh mr

[9:30] level is here david leveaux also from security federal he's our chairman

[9:34] and luke's going to present also but um happy to have them

[9:37] they've been working hard and they can tell it's all about it but we're proud

[9:40] of of all the work they've been doing so uh i'll turn it over to miss joy i know

[9:44] she's here or david whoever wants to start us out hey

[9:48] thanks so much i'm actually going to let lou kick it off and so he can tell you

[9:51] all about what's going on with tourism luke go ahead you can screen to share

[9:56] yeah can you all hear me all right

[10:01] share my screen here hopefully this works

[10:13] another cool dream

[10:16] terrorism

[10:20] um yeah my name is luke freeman i am the director of tourism at the chamber of

[10:26] commerce i appreciate y'all letting us join you today but uh just wanted to

[10:30] kind of share with you some of the things that

[10:32] we've been up to the past year or so and just kind of give you an update so for

[10:38] starters this is kind of our snapshot of tourism

[10:42] and economic impact from tourism in 2019 i know that's a little dated at this

[10:48] point but that's um what we have the most recent numbers on

[10:52] we usually get those in the fall but we saw we were 40th out of the 95

[10:58] counties in tennessee based off economic impact

[11:02] generated 42.17 million dollars in direct

[11:05] tourism expenditures that creates 218 jobs produces 6.59 million dollars in

[11:12] payroll 2.6 million in local tax revenue 2.59 million in state tax revenue

[11:20] and then just as a result of that every household in carter county is able to

[11:24] pay 200 less dollars out of pocket than they

[11:27] would otherwise if we didn't have that uh

[11:29] that money supplementing our income so that's great um as i think

[11:36] maybe ross mentioned we moved our offices for the chamber and our visitor

[11:40] center downtown this past year in october we're now at

[11:45] 615 east elk avenue and uh right there in downtown we're

[11:50] excited to be there the part of downtown where visitors can

[11:53] find us real easily as they're walking around

[11:56] and down and so if you haven't haven't been by there yet definitely

[12:00] come in and see us really excited to be here um

[12:06] 2020 was a really crazy year i know for everybody but

[12:09] particularly for tourism just like everybody else we saw

[12:12] a big dip in the spring as everyone just kind of shut everything down and we

[12:16] closed our visitor center for a couple of months out of the abundance

[12:20] of caution and trying to keep everybody safe but then

[12:24] since kind of spring summer time we've seen an increase in

[12:27] tourism people as people have realized that carter

[12:30] county is a place you can come you can be outdoors you can travel safely

[12:34] and so that's been really good i'll talk a little more about that

[12:38] but one of the things that we had to kind of help us

[12:42] through that dip and to help us recover from that is we received a grant of

[12:46] about 31 000 from its federal money but through the state

[12:52] provided us through the care act to kind of help with that recovery and we

[12:58] use that to do a marketing campaign to market carter county as a safe place

[13:02] that people could come and encourage them to travel to

[13:05] visit carter county safely we did a banner ads display

[13:11] ad campaign that got over 2 million impressions

[13:14] we did some print ads and good housekeeping magazine

[13:17] women's day magazine um travel taste and tour

[13:21] so i think this is one of the ads from travelation tour that had a um

[13:26] write-up as well with it we did some facebook advertising and

[13:34] just several different things like that we were able to spend that money on

[13:38] we had to be spent before the end of the year and so we

[13:42] kind of rushed that and did that real quick but it it turned out really well

[13:45] i think it got a lot of eyeballs on carter county

[13:49] a really good increase over the winter compared to

[13:52] past years and i think that's probably in large part due to that we also

[13:58] received a grant for this year from the tennessee

[14:01] department of tourist development which was a matching grant for marketing

[14:05] purposes that we're also using to do some facebook marketing and

[14:10] search engine campaigns as well to kind of keep promoting to people who are

[14:16] searching for things related to visiting the mountains or lakes or

[14:21] things like that uh some of the other projects we've

[14:25] participated in and that was another one that adds we

[14:29] did was the walnut mountain trailhead that the

[14:34] project of the backcountry horsemen um they did this up near rhone mountain

[14:39] it's a lot of volunteer labor and did a lot of

[14:43] the work themselves with money to buy gravel and

[14:47] bring in heavy equipment to put that in but that's going to be a really great

[14:51] place for people to park to ride horses there on

[14:55] our mountain trails ride mountain bikes hike it's just

[14:58] another great infrastructure that we can add to give people more of

[15:02] an ability to get out and enjoy those spaces

[15:04] and hopefully spread out even more and not everybody go to carter's gap or

[15:09] something like that but have some different places to go

[15:13] we also recently just this past week agreed to help

[15:17] go betsy with their project to build a boat ramp

[15:20] at their highway 400 lovers lane again we think that's going to be a

[15:24] really great project for tourism just help people get on the river help

[15:30] keep things safe spread people out i think that'll be a

[15:33] good thing we're continuing to distribute our

[15:36] brochures we send those throughout the knoxville metro area the tri-cities area

[15:41] the north carolina high country area as well as the five closest tennessee

[15:46] welcome centers and our brochure actually won an award

[15:49] it was the original award winner in the 2020 international

[15:53] best brochure awards from the international association of

[15:57] visitor information providers so that was really cool we were excited

[16:00] about that we just learned about that a week or two ago as well

[16:06] and talking about some of those different digital marketing campaigns

[16:09] we've been doing um we've been doing these this is an

[16:13] example of one of our facebook ads those have reached over 1.1 million

[16:18] people and got about 45 000 clicks

[16:23] through um facebook and people who click on that who are interested in

[16:28] learning more and want to come visit and then our search engine marketing

[16:33] over 000 187.000 and a click-through rate of over five

[16:38] percent and that's just like when you go to google or whatever search engine

[16:42] you type in you know cabins in the mountain

[16:45] and then you see those sponsored ads showing up at the top so we're showing

[16:48] up in those listings and uh we're doing that in the

[16:52] atlanta and nashville markets to encourage people from some of those

[16:55] kind of drivable distances to come in and visit and when they're searching for

[16:59] those kind of things that you know we can tell them we've got that

[17:03] here come visit us

[17:07] a couple of events we were able to do um this past year we

[17:12] hosted the rain grown as we do every year by grace from

[17:16] elizabethan to the tougher one mountain and this year we were able to bring over

[17:20] the criterium portion of that johnson city omnium as well and um

[17:25] we're going to be able to do it in johnson city we said we can host that

[17:28] here in carter county and so we had that in september it was a

[17:31] great event and everybody loved it so much that we're

[17:34] bringing it back this year and we're gonna

[17:37] i know you've already heard about that and you all donated some of the money

[17:40] for that which we certainly appreciate to make it the carter county on him this

[17:44] year we're very excited about that that'll be the

[17:47] first weekend in june it's the fifth and sixth

[17:50] that uh we'll have those racers they come in from all over the country all

[17:53] over the world even and we're excited about having that

[17:57] we're gonna do the packet pickup at our offices that friday night kind of

[18:01] in conjunction with the main streets first friday event and so

[18:06] that'll be a really good thing they've also heard we're

[18:10] bringing a half marathon miles half marathon by the goose chase

[18:17] they do a lot of the local races and stuff like that that of

[18:20] course brings people from all over the region

[18:23] to come and participate we're excited about that um

[18:28] if you want to run and walk sign up for it it'll be a lot of fun

[18:32] and again we're doing the packet pickup at our offices and going to bring people

[18:35] downtown

[18:40] we lost you luke okay am i back yet yeah you're back

[18:46] okay um i don't know where you lost me but i was

[18:52] just talking about the music in miles half marathon

[18:55] and that was pretty much where we lost you as soon as you mentioned the goose

[18:57] chase okay yeah that's that's another one

[19:01] we're going to kind of do on a friday night have packet pick up

[19:04] and do some of the just kind of

[19:09] get encourage people to come participate in the first friday event and then come

[19:12] back on saturday and of course those people

[19:15] spend money go eat a restaurant um spend time in our beautiful town and we're

[19:19] excited about that

[19:27] have you developed uh data on where these people are staying

[19:32] are they staying in bread breakfast or they're staying and

[19:35] can't are they camping or they're obviously not staying in the motel

[19:42] well we do get some of that information we see that um some people do stay in

[19:45] the motels uh there's of course a lot of airbnbs uh

[19:49] cabins we've got places like b cliff that has i think 13 or 14 different

[19:54] cabins lots of great places to stay places like boots off that have hostels

[19:58] and camping uh the watauga dam campground so you

[20:02] know it's all pretty spread out here in carter county but we do have some places

[20:05] for people to stay and we do see a lot of times

[20:08] folks will stay with us saw somebody i think the other day that came in and

[20:11] said they'd just driven into town or staying at camp

[20:14] stone fly up on the water river that's like there are spots for people

[20:18] and they find places but we certainly are in need of

[20:21] more lodging hotels and that kind of thing in carter county

[20:26] but this is another event um the acoustic mountain jam at boots off

[20:31] hostel and they're hosting that kind of through hikers coming through town

[20:35] um as well as anybody locally who wants to attend and

[20:39] hear some music and so that's another event that we're sponsoring

[20:43] and um we're continuing to partner with people like

[20:47] the northeast tennessee tourism association i'm on that board we work to

[20:50] promote the whole region including all of us here in northeast

[20:54] tennessee we're also still part of retired

[20:57] tennessee program which encourages people to retire here

[21:01] we see people all the time coming into our offices

[21:04] then from up north or out west or florida or

[21:08] wherever that they're just looking for somewhere

[21:10] that's affordable where they can have great cost of living and just a

[21:15] beautiful area lots of things to do whether they like

[21:18] fishing hiking that kind of thing so we see a lot of people coming in for

[21:22] that sort of stuff as well but as i mentioned at the top we've been

[21:26] seeing a great increase in tourism this past year so

[21:30] since kind of we started the recovery from the pandemic

[21:33] people are realizing what a great area this is we're encouraging them to come

[21:37] be safe but come travel come visit us and we're seeing a whole lot of people

[21:42] and that's been really good i think some of those grants and stuff we've had

[21:46] been able to help us out and we're continuing to try and support tourism in

[21:52] whatever ways we can but we certainly appreciate you all

[21:55] support um i'll say you've got my contact

[21:58] information there feel free to come by our office i'm normally there

[22:01] during the week or give me a call shoot me an email i'll be happy to answer any

[22:05] questions you have um and now i'll turn it over to joy and

[22:09] i think we'll take it from here oh thanks let me see if i can share my

[22:14] screen while i'm doing that i know david

[22:17] leveaux is on here and he would like to say hello and say thank

[22:21] you to all of you abby can you help me share my

[22:23] oh i got it yes hello everyone this is uh david leveaux

[22:28] i wanted to thank everybody for your support

[22:32] of our tourism group and chamber of commerce i wanted to thank

[22:37] mayor woodby for her support on some of the programs we're doing and of course

[22:42] uh ross being part of our board um we thank you also as the commission has

[22:48] uh helped us with bringing that bike race

[22:51] and providing some funds to help assure that stays here in carter county

[22:57] and hopefully you were able to see with luke's presentation

[23:01] all the neat things that we are advertising and bringing into this

[23:05] county we're really excited uh the outdoors and

[23:10] the natural beauty of carter county has really been an

[23:13] attraction in itself and uh we've been able to get the word

[23:17] out that it is safe space here and so many people are looking for the

[23:22] outdoors rather than the metropolitan cities and

[23:27] uh large large arenas uh especially this past year and uh we've really

[23:33] experienced that and and businesses in town have

[23:37] experienced that as well so uh thank you everybody for your

[23:41] partnership and support and look forward to doing

[23:45] more with you in the future thanks david

[23:50] hey so i'm just going to echo a few things that luke has said but i wanted

[23:53] to give you an update on what chamber's been doing you know we're all

[23:56] in the same office but we have found ways that we can partner together

[24:00] and work more efficiently for our community and

[24:03] luke totally stole my picture and i'm so mad because i was going to show you a

[24:06] picture of the ins outside of our building but i'll show

[24:09] you the cool outside of our building if you haven't seen it

[24:12] we have a webcam so if you are out of town or you just want to know

[24:16] one of our board members tells me that he looks at this all the time it's kevin

[24:20] peters all the time uh if you wonder what the weather is you can watch our

[24:23] webcam it's on our website you can also see it on wjhlw they

[24:28] feature it all the time on the news on the weather

[24:30] camp and then we just got featured on the weather channel

[24:33] which we think it's super exciting um this is a steel feed from it though but

[24:37] if you ever want to know it's happening on elk avenue please

[24:40] feel free to use our webcam and check it out for yourself

[24:44] so you've seen the outside of our beautiful building you know it's on top

[24:47] of our beautiful building these are some of the things that you

[24:49] can see that are happening inside of our beautiful building

[24:52] um i just want to talk to you about some of the things that we've been able to

[24:55] offer for our members um we have re-van

[25:00] all the programs that we offer for our membership one of the things that we do

[25:03] is we've offered connection days for our members who

[25:06] we saw something with covid that we've probably never seen before that a lot of

[25:10] our members just piecemeal together what they could

[25:13] and they found themselves not really sure how to do e-commerce

[25:16] nobody knew how to do zoom in 2019 as well as we do now and that's true for

[25:20] a lot of our members especially when their whole mission and their whole

[25:25] business is is buying and sell goods whether it was

[25:28] a restaurant or a merchandise store or retail or

[25:31] insurance or even with real estate being able to

[25:34] be efficient on zoom and be efficient in the things that they were doing every

[25:38] day in this covered world was something we

[25:40] needed to be part of so we opened a thing called connection days

[25:44] you can see a picture of seth taking a picture of tracy

[25:46] and you know gave a chance for our members to

[25:50] just come in and get their things put back together we saw a lot of folks that

[25:53] couldn't figure out how to make one thing linked to another whether it was a

[25:56] paypal to their e-commerce page or their social media to their website

[26:00] or their google the google maps to something else

[26:03] so they came in spent some time with us we got it all cleaned up and sent them

[26:06] back to do great work we've been able to host uh

[26:10] several meetings in our building just local

[26:13] civic groups we had the rotary club in recently

[26:15] it was great to have them in for lunch you see a bunch of angry teenagers down

[26:19] at the bottom was our chamber youth ambassador group

[26:22] uh mayor woodbe had the opportunity to come speak to them uh last semester

[26:26] she spoke to him on soon but this semester she spoke to him live

[26:29] we have a member who teaches dog class so she's hosting her dog classes you can

[26:33] see that little dog right there that

[26:35] graduated and then we've been able to do some things with downtown as well with

[26:39] main street whether it be small business saturday

[26:41] and we did gift wrap from one of our non-profit members

[26:44] and we've participated in pretty much all the events that have happened

[26:48] downtown and continue to do that as they come available

[26:59] here we go so one of the programs that we have that i talked about before was

[27:03] our chamber youth ambassador program mayor would be thank you again for

[27:06] coming over and speaking to my young ladies this time

[27:09] y'all last semester i had 25 students from all five high schools so all four

[27:13] counties the and the city high school and some

[27:15] homeschool kids um this semester i have all young ladies and it's just as

[27:19] exhausting it's all girls it's all it's so much fun

[27:23] it's great to really give them an opportunity to learn about why carter

[27:26] county is a great place to live work and play we have four different

[27:30] days and we do it each semester we have tourism day industry day healthcare day

[27:34] and community day that they get to find out what makes

[27:37] carter county so great who are the people that are making it

[27:40] work and they they kind of get a better idea of

[27:42] what careers may be available here in carter county and if anything have a

[27:46] healthy respect for some of the careers that

[27:48] may not be for them but they may have to encounter one day so that's one of the

[27:52] things that we've looked forward to we'll continue with that it's been

[27:56] really successful and we're glad that we brought it back

[27:58] we've had great response from all of our city schools and all of our county

[28:01] schools that we're going to offer another

[28:03] program this summer boss lady is new we started a women's

[28:08] networking group um it's for any women any age any level

[28:12] we you know any level that they're at in their career and we meet monthly

[28:16] we just had our enneagram workshop we had 54 ladies that came and learned all

[28:21] about how to communicate with others and how to communicate

[28:24] better within their workplace we if you want to see some things get done

[28:28] go to a group and ask give them a problem and

[28:32] just step back and i bet you will solve it so that's been great to see

[28:36] women from all different walks of life and

[28:39] all different in all different areas really get together

[28:42] and and find a way to make our region great and talk about what makes our

[28:46] region great so we'd really love to have a boss lady

[28:52] milligan college that's our next event is our we're back to chamber breakfast

[28:55] so we host our first virtual hybrid breakfast last month

[29:01] um we hosted at our building we had elizabeth and art alliance

[29:05] that was in our building that hosted chamber we keep the numbers small you

[29:08] know we're a trout small chamber anyway but we also offer a virtual option

[29:12] we'll probably do virtual forever not just because of covid but because some

[29:16] of you live in roane mountain and it snows a lot here in february so

[29:20] what a great opportunity when it's snowing

[29:22] or you're trying to get from one place to another or if you're like me and you

[29:26] got three kids and somebody has broken their retainer and you gotta go deal

[29:29] with it at eight o'clock in the morning you can still have an opportunity to

[29:33] zoom in and be present and still have a great way to connect

[29:36] this is our annual joint breakfast we're partnering with the johnson city chamber

[29:40] we'll be at milligan college it's one of the biggest breakfasts that

[29:42] we have this year and it will be important but again we will offer that

[29:46] zoom it's a great opportunity for our members

[29:48] to meet some folks that they might not meet otherwise to do business

[29:52] and to do networking and to learn more about what's going on at milligan

[29:55] university so upcoming events derby by the doe

[30:00] is may the first uh that's a fundraising event that we're doing all the proceeds

[30:04] go towards a lot of our programs that we offer each

[30:07] year what leadership class starts on thursday i know

[30:11] uh mayor woodbe will be speaking to my folks then

[30:14] level up is coming up that's for our brand new baby entrepreneurs that

[30:18] really just need to know the ins and outs of how to do business

[30:23] our next level business class is for our folks that have been in business for a

[30:26] few years

[30:31] do they do they hire do they need hr things like that

[30:34] carter county 101 is specifically for our folks that are new

[30:38] like luke said we've seen people move here from all over

[30:41] the united states in the world um they all don't know the secret menu at pals

[30:46] they don't know how to get to anywhere in town they don't know the shortcuts

[30:49] they don't know what day trash day is they don't know you know

[30:52] they don't know the things that we as locals know so it's basically

[30:56] how to live like a local in carter county um to kind of give out that

[30:59] information like i said our chamber youth ambassador

[31:02] program it's gone so well we're going to offer a summer session

[31:05] um it's that one will just be june 28th 29th and 30th for our students

[31:10] we have a lot of student athletes that wanted to participate but they could not

[31:14] miss one more day of school so we're offering

[31:16] it specifically at that time when it's tws double a blackout that

[31:20] they can come i know all of you look at the thing

[31:22] straight at the bottom yes legislative breakfast it's may 14th

[31:26] from 9 to 10 30 a.m at tcat governor lee will be present and will be speaking

[31:31] tickets go on sale in the morning i know that john thompson

[31:34] and the star on this call i will be sending you a press release in just a

[31:37] minute um but we're excited to have that come

[31:41] up this year last year our legislative breakfast got

[31:44] pushed and pushed and pushed and we ended up having it in september

[31:48] so if you are coming and you know that you're coming and you want a

[31:51] ticket let me know so i can mark it before they all get sold

[31:56] do you all have any questions for me that i could possibly answer about

[32:00] chamber or anything that's been going on with us

[32:04] you can always reach me at chamber i'm usually there sometimes i'm not running

[32:07] around um you can always email me at chamber or

[32:10] call me directly joy this is mayor whitney

[32:16] hello hey i just wanted to say thank you to you and david and your team for a

[32:21] wonderful job that you're doing for not just promoting carter county and

[32:25] tourism regionally and locally but for the programs that you're offering

[32:29] from our youth to our businesses to our business leaders um all

[32:33] throughout that's just a plethora of things to get involved in and i'm very

[32:37] excited to see how active the chamber is i think that's

[32:40] great news and especially during a pandemic so um

[32:44] i just want to say kudos to you guys and for thank you for all your hard work

[32:48] it's truly appreciated thank you i appreciate that and i

[32:51] appreciate you coming over mayor woodbe is a brave lady

[32:54] to walk in that room with those girls and tell them the truth

[32:57] um i have seen many many flustered but we appreciate you guys and we really

[33:01] appreciate you believing in us and giving us the opportunity to bring

[33:04] some of these big events that luke talked about

[33:06] and reinvest back into our community

[33:12] no other questions we will leave we will see ourselves out

[33:16] if we have any questions for for joey or luke or david

[33:21] i think i've got one uh luke joy you i noticed your

[33:25] the uh the click-through rates that you were having a lot of your ads

[33:29] have you been able to get those to continue to trend upwards are they

[33:31] staying about static or

[33:36] luck i'll let you answer that yeah we've been seeing those go up

[33:39] it's um this is something we just kind of started

[33:43] i guess about a year ago and so it's there was kind of an introductory period

[33:47] where we're figuring out what worked and what didn't work but then we see

[33:50] really good really good race since then yeah

[33:54] the google ad rate click-through rate is really that's really good the facebook

[33:57] was a little bit low i think but uh the other one was great yeah we

[34:02] just started the facebook i want to say and it hasn't had

[34:05] quite as much time as the other to get optimized and

[34:08] still kind of dial that in but yeah those are it's going really well

[34:13] awesome you guys are doing great thank you thank you thanks

[34:17] anybody else all right well guys we appreciate y'all coming on board keeping

[34:22] us updated and thanks for the fantastic job y'all doing

[34:26] bye thank you all next we'll move on to item nine which is resolution

[34:31] we'll turn over to uh tony hard and he wants to read that resolution or a

[34:35] caption of it or whatever he wants to do

[34:39] yes sir i'm going to keep my video off so hopefully the internet will keep

[34:43] working but this this is simply a resolution authorize the

[34:47] county mayor to make and sign an application for grant funds from

[34:51] tennessee housing development agency for the home rehabilitation grant

[34:56] this is another round which we've gotten several times before

[35:00] probably this time it's uh 450 000 total this is for rehabbing low income housing

[35:07] and there's no county match required

[35:11] motion to approve

[35:14] motion by mr frazier said by mr blevins any discussion

[35:20] hearing none madame call the roll please

[35:24] billy campbell uh mark blavins uh robert david yes nancy brown

[35:31] yes mike hill yes julie gwen yes bradley johnson

[35:38] yeah mark caster yes trust von cannon hi isaiah grant staff

[35:45] yes jerry prophet yes austin james ross garland

[35:51] yes layla ward yes ginger holdren yes randall jenkins

[35:59] yes gary bailey yes travis hill yes sanja culler

[36:05] yes daniel mcintyre yes aaron frazier yes robin mckamey

[36:12] yes collins yes thomas prophet yes all eyes

[36:20] promotion past thank you hey let me i'm sorry to interrupt right there chairman

[36:24] hill but i know um the date on that says april 12th and

[36:28] also adopted april 12th is is that okay i'm sure josh can make that change but

[36:36] i made that i made that change on the original uh

[36:40] i caught that after i sent it out for the package but it's it's fixed on the

[36:45] original okay just just wanted to check thank you

[36:50] josh uh are you going to cover the forensics agreement is that gonna be

[36:53] mayor would be

[36:56] uh it doesn't matter i'm happy to mention what i know about it

[37:00] okay yeah uh this is the uh obviously simply amending the term and

[37:07] the uh the rate slightly for the forensic

[37:11] uh agreement with etsu for autopsies essentially uh as you all know when

[37:18] years passed this is sort of uh about our only option this is an

[37:24] agreement that etsu has with many other counties in our

[37:28] region and it does include an incremental increase in the cost for

[37:33] medical examiner it's slight increase but it is an

[37:38] increase uh every year and this is a this

[37:42] agreement is the current term and extends it for

[37:44] another two years

[37:56] there would be you want to say anything or no that's correct all that josh said

[38:00] that was the agreement that was sent to me i forwarded on to him

[38:04] well i'll entertain a motion to accept it if anybody wants to do that

[38:11] i'll accept the resolution or the the amendment to the agreement

[38:16] okay i'll second i think i'm by mr jenkins

[38:20] any discussion

[38:24] was there any uh excuse me was there any compensation uh for example we had 156

[38:33] kobe deaths in carter county so far uh how did that that didn't have to be

[38:41] uh run through a medical examiner did it if it did we're broke

[38:48] [Music]

[38:54] to my knowledge mr von kennedy it did not i think these are

[38:58] suspicious uh or drug-related unaccompanied deaths is generally

[39:04] uh when an autopsy is called for so i don't believe

[39:08] that simply a coca death would have resulted in an

[39:11] autopsy but i may be wrong on that but in any event it did not

[39:15] change the contractual uh rate that we pay

[39:20] i'll ask the same question i asked last year

[39:24] who makes a determination that an autopsy needs to be performed

[39:32] well uh mr mccann i believe it's it's it can be the medical examiner

[39:38] uh it used to be a call that could be made solely by the

[39:42] law enforcement agency the sheriff but i believe

[39:46] when that law changed a few years back it's now can be requested by the

[39:52] sheriff i believe but i think the medical examiner is able

[39:56] to make that call on their own as well now

[40:05] any further discussion that's legislation from the state level that

[40:10] it changed several years ago and there was some

[40:13] there was some pushback from local sheriffs including ours

[40:18] uh on some of that legislation but as it stands it's still intact

[40:23] now and the i think it's a total of eight counties

[40:27] that uh sign this same agreement with etsu

[40:31] and of course the bargaining power there for the terms of the agreement is as a

[40:36] collective unit amongst those eight counties

[40:40] and one county alone is it's kind of hard to

[40:43] to negotiate much

[40:47] do we have any information on how many autopsy autopsies we've had done

[40:55] i have not received that in quite some time i know we used to get it

[41:00] at least quarterly but i haven't seen it lately

[41:05] mayor have you seen anything no i have not

[41:09] um josh can we amend this agreement on our behalf to have them uh

[41:15] responsible for issuing quarterly reports

[41:19] uh frankly i believe that's still part of the original contract

[41:23] uh i don't know where the ball got dropped on that i know

[41:26] uh we used to get them uh and they were included in the

[41:31] packets at least quarterly i believe and i i think that's just a matter of

[41:34] reaching back out to them i don't know where that contact was lost

[41:38] but it i believe it still is part of the original agreement

[41:41] that did that just being extended josh i can reach out to them

[41:46] okay

[41:51] any further discussion

[41:55] hearing none madam clerk call the role please willie campbell

[41:58] mark blevins robert daycare abstain for calls

[42:05] nancy brown yes mike hill yes julie glenn yes

[42:13] bradley johnson yeah mark kester yes charles von cannon yes

[42:20] isaac runs dave yes jerry prophet yes austin james ross garland

[42:28] yes yes yes randall jenkins yes

[42:35] gary bailey yeah travis hill yes sandra culler yes

[42:42] daniel mcintyre yes aaron frazier yes robin mckamey yes

[42:50] kelly collins yes thomas prophet yes allies

[42:57] motion pass thank you next we'll move on to the mayoral report with mayor patty

[43:01] woodby mayor you're recognized thank you chairman um just got a couple

[43:06] of things um i need as we know gary smith's

[43:09] retired and so i need to appoint billy harrell to the 911 board

[43:14] um so i need to go ahead and make that an appointment to get him on that board

[43:18] and i don't i don't think we have to vote on that i can't remember

[43:22] i don't think so is that correct josh i don't think so i don't think we do

[43:27] i just can't remember haven't done one in a while i can't remember either but

[43:30] it wouldn't hurt just to confirm okay

[43:36] i'll make that motion yeah motioned by gary bailey second by gross

[43:43] garland to uh point billy harrell to the 9-1-1

[43:46] board any discussion

[43:50] hear none madam clerk call the roll please willie campbell uh

[43:54] mark blabbins robert cub yes nancy brown yes mike hill

[44:01] yes julie gwen yes bradley johnson

[44:08] yes charles von cannon hi isaiah greinstein yes

[44:15] yes austin james ross garland yes laila board yes

[44:21] ginger holdren yes randall jenkins yes gary bailey yes travis hill

[44:29] yes sandra culler yes daniel mcintyre eric frazier

[44:36] yes robert mckamey yes kelly collins yes thomas prophet

[44:43] yes allies motion pass thank you thank you um the next thing i'll update

[44:51] the commission on is the single point of entry that began last week it's it's

[44:55] going very well not had a lot of complaints not really

[44:57] had a lot of upset people and it's just something they're going to

[45:00] have to get used to first week we security did confiscate i think six guns

[45:06] first week um just really more than anything people

[45:10] forgetting that we we have that in place and they were asked to take them back

[45:13] out to their vehicle so that that did um catch at least six

[45:17] of them um let's see and i also wanted to go

[45:20] over i know we have been discussing with building

[45:23] grounds possible possibility of discussions of the chamber

[45:27] the old chamber of commerce building with the city i had shawn shanks

[45:31] go over today and look at the building or architects

[45:34] um and it needs a lot of work um yes they estimate the building itself

[45:41] around a hundred thousand dollars to even begin

[45:44] it's in pretty bad shape um so that's an update on that i don't know how the

[45:48] commission if that's still even an option at this

[45:50] point i didn't know how in depth it was but they did a thorough overhaul

[45:55] of it today inside and out um it needs a lot of work is basically

[45:59] is what i've been called a lot of work he said you're

[46:03] looking at starting at around 100 000. so that's an update on that um

[46:08] on that on that that may be something to remove off of our list

[46:12] next thing as you know we were we are bringing the restrooms up to ada

[46:16] standards in the courthouse those plans are complete and the bid

[46:20] process will begin hopefully at the end of the month first of may for that

[46:23] project to get all the restrooms up to standard and to add two family

[46:28] restrooms to each floor that we'll be able to use for anybody especially

[46:32] wheelchair accessible those plans are ready um and the

[46:36] workforce development plans which brad will be happy to hear

[46:40] we did i did receive the as bill drawings today they're on my desk

[46:44] and we will have the final copy from the surveyor in

[46:47] the next few weeks so that's the status on that project we do have

[46:51] the asbia floor plans for the the whole the entire

[46:55] both buildings um and i think that's that's uh that's kind of all i got going

[47:00] on right now anybody's got anything for me

[47:03] mayor brad john uh did they get copies of the uh

[47:07] the drawings to uh dr mcavee not yet i'm planning on setting up a

[47:14] meeting with shawn shanks myself and whoever becomes

[47:18] the building and grounds chair that's the next step

[47:26] any further questions for the mayor

[47:31] i hear none i will say i appreciate uh director harrell's

[47:34] um report he put in our packets this month that was very

[47:38] handy to see what exactly he does on his calls yeah and he and we have decided

[47:42] that he will submit a report each month to the commission just to kind of give

[47:46] you an idea of what um what the office is doing and we also

[47:50] had our new employee trent start today he's the deputy

[47:53] ema and uh he's great guy and he will we will bring him into the commission

[47:58] next month to meet the commission since we'll be in person

[48:02] thank you all right next we'll move on uh this was a late edition

[48:06] commissioner gary bailey you're recognized sure

[48:10] yes sir can we take about a five minute break

[48:14] uh let's finish up with mr bailey and we'll take a break before committee

[48:17] reports if that's okay all right thank you mr chairman um

[48:22] actually i'd like to this is two parts i'd like to address the commission with

[48:25] something the first one is an article in the paper

[48:29] the other day about trash in the city um

[48:34] i want everybody to know that the way the article was wrote it basically looks

[48:37] like our county commission is not doing its job

[48:40] or being at the landfill the problem is that's in the city

[48:44] and i see mr estes is on there um i'd like to just have an answer of

[48:51] why they tried to blame the county the way that was wrote

[48:55] and the thing is that's the city's cardboard and trash so if they're

[49:02] throwing it out and they're locking their dumpsters

[49:04] why are they blaming the county commission in the landfill with that

[49:08] because the article pretty much was stating that we was not taking it

[49:13] my understanding that if it's in the city that's their dumpsters

[49:17] they are the ones that shut them off we have never denied taking it

[49:22] now i did have many to send an email to the city basically telling them that

[49:27] if we cannot get to it they are more than

[49:30] welcome to bring us that cardboard besides going to a paper and saying that

[49:35] basically we ain't taking it because we are not denying them

[49:40] the right to bring that to us it's just the fact that when it's in the city the

[49:44] seediest one shutting that down so mr estes is on there maybe we can get

[49:49] an answer see mr thank you mr gail mr bailey i

[49:53] really appreciate being put on the spot since i'm an audience member

[49:56] but i do appreciate the opportunity to speak to it

[50:00] uh and i'll explain it to you this way my understanding of the agreement which

[50:05] predates me by some time was that when these facilities were

[50:08] opened it was a joint agreement between the city and the county

[50:12] the city arranged to provide the land the facilities to where they're located

[50:17] one of them's on the edge of lions field and the other is leased

[50:21] by us from tdot and that on mill street was built through grant money to open

[50:27] that recycling facility we do not operate a recycling program

[50:32] forgive me for my kids in the background we do not operate a recycling facility

[50:37] we don't have a recycling program this was an agreement between the city

[50:40] and the county and the the agreement was we would have the

[50:44] facility there available and that the dumpsters there belong to

[50:47] the county and that there's three sets of dumps or some dumpsters that are

[50:50] picked up three times a week and some roll offs are picked up twice a week

[50:55] on numerous occasions we've had difficulty in having those

[50:58] dumpsters empty to the point to where the the

[51:01] recyclables were overflowing and members of the public were leaving those

[51:05] recyclables on the ground well that's ultimately an unacceptable

[51:10] situation i think for anyone we don't want to see

[51:12] that happen that's one thing the other one is if people are leaving trash and

[51:17] other items that are actually trash not recyclables

[51:20] that's another matter and i and then i hate that it's unfortunate

[51:24] i wish people wouldn't do that but that wasn't the root of the problem

[51:28] the root of the problem was we need them picked up if they're going to be open

[51:33] and we don't have the facility to do it and we don't operate trucks to do that

[51:36] we we don't do recyclables the agreement

[51:40] was that the county would pick those up as needed and we've had

[51:44] we've struggled over a period of time to get them picked up routinely this was

[51:47] really ultimately the straw that broke the

[51:49] camel's back was that they went for a period where ultimately that

[51:53] it just got in a terrible shape it wasn't the first time

[51:57] it's my understanding i don't personally deal with it that's why i have a street

[52:00] sanitation manager and i can have him come on the next

[52:03] minute if you'd like to speak to mr gilbert in

[52:05] directly or we both can attend the next sanitation the landfill committee if you

[52:10] wish you'd be more than happy to do that or

[52:12] have a dialogue or you can call my office

[52:15] uh that i'd be more than happy to do so but the thing is

[52:18] this is not the first time it's not the second time it's been multiple times

[52:23] and i can have mr hilbert or his number two jeff marlow or the administration

[52:28] assistant kelly talley speak to how many times

[52:32] they've tried to call and have the trash picked up

[52:34] so it's a matter of it's a win-win we have a recycling facility in the in

[52:39] the city that city and county alike can use

[52:42] that's a help to us i agree i like it it's a nice thing it's a good thing for

[52:46] the environment and hey and if it keeps trash out of the landfill that's a

[52:49] tipping fee we don't have to pay for but also it's a winner for the county

[52:52] you run a recycling operation you all just got

[52:55] even deeper in the recycling business and i applaud that if there's money to

[52:59] be made that's a winner for both of us but we

[53:02] don't pick it up that's not part of the agreement and it's never been part of

[53:05] the agreement so if if you're ready and willing to

[53:08] pick up the trash on a routine basis we'll open tomorrow

[53:13] well my my point is the way it was wrote in the paper

[53:16] if there was a problem somebody should have come to us and basically said look

[53:19] this is it but it it more or less just basically thrown

[53:22] out that the county is not doing that part in the city and that's why i

[53:26] was addressing this so if there's a problem

[53:29] you know if one of our trucks is down i don't see a problem of four miles up

[53:35] the road and honestly where the cardboard's going

[53:38] functionally for you is we're actually down there behind

[53:41] near the the ball field behind tractor supply so i mean

[53:44] it might be in an agreement but to have the trash thrown on the ground then say

[53:49] the county's not doing their part just i just well i appreciate that i wasn't

[53:54] throwing stones at anybody in particular trying to make it personal

[53:58] but i got a phone call about it because those statements were made in the

[54:01] landfill committee meeting and the question was a fair one

[54:04] what's the situation i respect that and understand it

[54:07] but the newspaper called my office wanting to understand what the situation

[54:10] was and i tried to be polite and diplomatic

[54:13] in what i said if you go back and read those words

[54:15] i don't think i said anything particularly pointed yes it was factual

[54:19] i'll i will say that again i know that there's a matter of opinion as to

[54:23] what the circumstances are uh but it's literally just

[54:27] if we can have routine service to get those dumpsters emptied

[54:31] everything will be fine we will try to work on that okay

[54:35] can i address all right or ask a question is it it was a problem

[54:38] i i think i heard a little bit of it other night during the budget hearings

[54:41] it was it because that he had two drivers down for sick as a

[54:45] reason he wasn't getting picked up right now he's trying to get some that's

[54:49] what come up i mean we've had a job posting they're not

[54:52] going to run with cdl for 10 something and there's the problem he is short

[54:56] drivers so i mean we've got to pick up what we can

[54:59] so i mean well and i understand the respect that there was a problem in the

[55:03] short run there when somebody was sick but again i'm

[55:06] not trying to have a you know knock down drag out over it it's not worth it for

[55:11] that i don't want to be that at all but this

[55:13] is not the first time we've had this problem and it's just a matter of

[55:17] if we're going to run it we have to be able to run in a consistent way

[55:20] uh and have it kept clean uh in work uh it just has to be it has to

[55:25] work okay that's the agreement can i make a quick suggestion gary maybe

[55:30] maybe for future reference uh maybe somebody has a better idea

[55:33] maybe if we see we're going to have drivers down

[55:35] maybe we can contact mr hilbert open up the communication line to

[55:39] uh possibly just having to close it off until we so it's not laying on the

[55:43] ground blowing around yeah all right i appreciate that mr

[55:47] chairman that's one where if there's going to be a shorter

[55:50] something's coming along if we can catch it in anticipation of it

[55:53] getting to the point where it can't be picked up we will be happy to

[55:57] to work with you but um it was a no-win situation

[56:01] again i i didn't it wasn't personally too offend but

[56:05] you know i stand by my statement yeah i think we just need to have a

[56:09] if i need to attend one of the landfill meetings maybe all of us just get

[56:12] together and work this out and get on some kind of plan like i said if we're

[56:15] going to have people shorthanded to to just contact mr hilbert and just

[56:19] go ahead and just shut it down for a day or two so it's not

[56:22] piling up but we definitely need to get something an understanding between both

[56:26] sides especially with the you know i read

[56:28] there was hardwood thrown in one of the dumpsters and that's

[56:31] that's a that's going to be a pain with our new baler so we got to get that

[56:34] taken care of okay mr hill i see mr hill i'm going to

[56:38] ask something mr i think commissioner hill from the second

[56:41] district would like to speak yes sir thank you

[56:44] chairman i also saw that article and there was something glaringly missing

[56:49] and that was anything in the sandwich for the customer

[56:53] there is no indication of customer service and this thing

[56:56] um in the case of of these convenience centers and

[57:00] and landfill ops in general your customers are the taxpayers

[57:04] they pay for this service in advance and not being able to utilize these services

[57:10] that they have paid for in good faith in advance

[57:13] causes them to have to take it somewhere else uh there's an illegal dump site

[57:17] that is being proposed to be cleaned up right now i think that's probably where

[57:20] part of that goes but you know clearly missing on both sides

[57:24] of the coin city and county was a woeful omission

[57:30] of any kind of consideration for the customer

[57:33] please do better in in client relations you guys can talk you guys can certainly

[57:38] figure this out um this shouldn't really even be a topic

[57:42] at this meeting right now thank you chairman thank you ross mr

[57:46] garland i'll see you guys that's the key to his communication i

[57:50] know uh mr s just mentioned that because i've heard both sides also from

[57:54] the city side from county side i think the people

[57:58] dumping stuff feel down there illegally trash 1200 pounds

[58:02] of hardwood floor nobody can deal with that

[58:04] i've also heard that the cameras aren't working that that on those facilities

[58:09] so i think just talking it out and and trying to get on the same page and

[58:13] working out the kinks of this thing because it's a pretty successful

[58:16] operation if we can keep it going and we need to

[58:19] uh especially with the new baylor coming on in the next month or so

[58:22] so that's something we gotta work out and iron out for uh for all of us for

[58:26] the good of this county and city thank you thank you the second part of

[58:31] this basically i'm glad mr estes is on there

[58:33] is communication um two months ago we had a special call

[58:39] meeting with landfill so basically 19-5 was the vote

[58:44] to send it to you all to the city to see what their thoughts are on a 501

[58:49] 3c has there been any discussion on that because what we're hearing in paper

[58:57] and around is they don't care or just kind of just it's dead so

[59:03] you know the communication i think the commission made it pretty clear what

[59:07] they want to go with and we're just trying to figure out

[59:10] now we're at 12 months before this is going to come back up and

[59:14] any discussion at all well i appreciate it again to to speak

[59:20] off the cuff uh that's i'm always willing to do so

[59:24] uh but

[59:27] let me say this i think a couple of things are in order one would be

[59:32] my personal opinion i think a little cooling off period was was of use

[59:36] because uh emotions were running high and folks were really

[59:41] uh keyed up on the whole matter uh and there's there's nothing to be gained by

[59:47] being hasty one way or the other because we need to figure out what's going on

[59:51] uh i suspect what you will hear uh if you speak to the city council members

[59:57] is that they're willing to entertain a 501c3 as a

[1:00:00] form of uh incorporation or governments whatever it's going to be for the animal

[1:00:06] shelter however that's that's a concept that's

[1:00:09] not a plan i think that before you can sign on to

[1:00:14] something it's going to have to be more fully fleshed out so i think what you've

[1:00:16] seen is

[1:00:20] an opportunity to find out where the process is going to play out if the

[1:00:23] animal shelter board is going to

[1:00:27] facilitate some of that how that's going to play out as far as getting the

[1:00:30] particulars lined up uh it's not at the stage where it's an

[1:00:35] action item again i just again i can't speak for seven

[1:00:39] people because i you know maybe part of my job is to read

[1:00:42] the collective minds of certain people on a daily basis

[1:00:44] but which is not entirely possible uh but i don't think it's in a again to say

[1:00:52] yes 501c3 no matter what or absolutely no we're never going to do that it makes

[1:00:57] no sense i think it's an open mind uh but i don't know how much fruit is to

[1:01:04] be born by voting on a concept alone i would instead say i think it's

[1:01:08] it's useful to let a process play out if that's going to be by way of the shelter

[1:01:11] board which i think that they're trying to find

[1:01:14] their way on that if you were in attendance at the last shelter meeting

[1:01:17] uh they're trying to uh figure that out uh and i'm

[1:01:22] and you know and by the way you know three out of the seven members of the

[1:01:26] council are on that board so uh that gives them some uh

[1:01:32] some place to to participate uh i think the the comment maybe that you were

[1:01:36] referring to commissioner bailey about uh

[1:01:41] how it got started was maybe one of perception and communication

[1:01:46] yeah and it was uh in that it might have been more advisable if we

[1:01:52] were going to have this discussion uh city and county government together

[1:01:56] to have more fully fleshed it out and i appreciate that it's the

[1:02:00] commission's prerogative to express its opinion however it wishes

[1:02:04] but to put the shoe on the other foot it looks like it

[1:02:07] you know this was the commission's vote fair or unfair

[1:02:11] to actually say well this is what we want done you know this is where we're

[1:02:14] going period it's either you know whatever it is

[1:02:18] leave follower get out of the way and that's not exactly how uh the uh

[1:02:25] a partnership if you work with somebody and try to communicate with them to come

[1:02:29] to an answer don't jump out in front of the other one

[1:02:32] talk with them and try to work it out because again i think the council is

[1:02:35] open to the discussion they just don't want to be run over okay

[1:02:40] i think it's all right mr buddy i think i'm

[1:02:42] gonna go ahead and stop this conversation

[1:02:45] we're done i just want to say that i did listen to the to the animal shelter

[1:02:49] board meet another night and i think i think it may get brought up later on

[1:02:52] in committee report maybe if not i'll bring it up but they did

[1:02:55] uh bring up the fact that they want c-pass and impasse to work together

[1:03:00] to basically dig into this and i think it's something we definitely need to

[1:03:04] consider on our part to support that uh when that comes

[1:03:08] before us i think there'll be a letter come to myself and maybe mayor would be

[1:03:13] chairman hill uh i will report on that at the

[1:03:16] appropriate juncture okay thank you dr akov so with that being said let's take

[1:03:20] about a 10 minute break let's come back at 7 15

[1:03:24] and we'll get started with committee

[1:03:28] reports

[1:14:40] okay

[1:14:58] my watch it's 7 15. we'll go ahead and jump back in here

[1:15:02] and let hopefully everybody in the courthouse start rolling back in

[1:15:05] but chairman james has texted me and said he's going to jump on here and give

[1:15:08] the budget report um so whenever he wants to start we'll go

[1:15:12] ahead and let chairman jane start

[1:15:18] ross do you have your hand up i did not but um i thought i was actually

[1:15:23] presenting this but if he wants to he's more than welcome well he told me

[1:15:26] earlier you probably would but he just text me

[1:15:28] saying he's going to jump onto budget and he's going to jump back off

[1:15:30] i don't know what's okay he might be a little bit busy for some reason tonight

[1:15:38] all right is everybody on

[1:15:41] we're here buddy all right everybody turn to the

[1:15:45] budget and let's move forward

[1:15:49] all right first i'll put into a form of a motion to approve addendum number two

[1:15:53] to the inmate medical contract with southern health

[1:15:57] partners the renewal for the 2021 physical year

[1:16:00] has a three percent adjustment and an increase of

[1:16:04] 1468. to the monthly base rate making the new

[1:16:09] base annual cost of this six hundred and five

[1:16:13] thousand one hundred and seventeen dollars and eighty eight cents

[1:16:18] okay i have a motion by mr james second take it by mr garland any

[1:16:24] discussion

[1:16:28] hearing none madam clerk call the roll

[1:16:32] please

[1:16:36] oh

[1:16:42] aaron can you turn your speaker on check checky mark blevins

[1:16:52] [Music]

[1:16:55] robert aka yes nancy brown yes mike hill

[1:17:04] julie gwen yes bradley johnson yes mark kester

[1:17:12] yes charles von kansas isaiah grandstay

[1:17:21] yes austin james

[1:17:26] isaiah grant's dad yes mike hill

[1:17:35] ross garland yes lana ward yes ginger holdren yes

[1:17:42] randall jenkins yes gary bailey yes travis hill

[1:17:49] yes sandra culler test daniel mcintyre yes aaron frazier

[1:17:56] um restate the motion please

[1:18:00] sorry i was late sorry okay thank you aaron

[1:18:03] sorry put into a form of emotion mary hello mary it's commissioner hill

[1:18:12] district 2. my vote was yes thank you

[1:18:16] i'm sorry it doesn't seem to work ernest the renewal of the southern health

[1:18:20] partners for the sheriff's department yeah approved yeah yeah i agreed

[1:18:26] changed mine robin mckamey yes kelly collins yes

[1:18:32] thomas prophet yes okay change my back yes okay

[1:18:41] all right all eyes motion pass thank you

[1:18:47] all right next i put into form of a motion to appropriate

[1:18:50] 59 dollars and eight cents from the courthouse security reserve account for

[1:18:57] construction costs related to installing an additional new entry exit door and

[1:19:01] flooring for the clerk master's office

[1:19:11] we gotta have a second before we hit discussion

[1:19:15] we have a second second by mr garland now discussion mr bailey

[1:19:20] exactly where is this door going

[1:19:25] close at the clerk and master's office

[1:19:29] yeah they've got a window that's coming out right now the chancellor

[1:19:33] has to walk around the building to get in and it for security reasons

[1:19:37] that he's supposed to not really be going in with the same with the public

[1:19:42] and they don't have an exit door in their office in case of emergencies for

[1:19:46] the staff gary i feel like we've been discussing

[1:19:48] this since we took office it's been on there for a while

[1:19:53] all right we're good yes mr phil yes sir mr tester i do have a

[1:20:00] question

[1:20:03] in um and grounds this was brought up and it was

[1:20:07] stated in our package the tune of 57 000 when the budget approved it it was 59

[1:20:15] 863 which is roughly rounding off 3 000

[1:20:22] increase and i was just wondering and i forgive me if i don't know what

[1:20:26] this is but you know 57 60 000 seems a lot for just cutting the

[1:20:31] door but uh and i'm sure there's more to that

[1:20:35] but i just i'm been not being privy to what other

[1:20:38] stuff's being done here so if someone could fill me in i would

[1:20:42] appreciate it all right mr tester i'm not sure of all of tomorrow i have to

[1:20:46] update you but with this quote is is putting the door in so

[1:20:49] and it's going in the historic part so we've got to comply with whatever the

[1:20:52] historic committee has said um i believe it's getting owning over it

[1:20:57] we're going to have to build some sort of platform for them to exit because the

[1:21:00] elevation difference and then on top of that they're also

[1:21:03] replacing all the flooring in this quote in the clerk and master's office too

[1:21:10] so it's not just a door on the on the quote they sent out to the budget

[1:21:14] committee it's got fifty six thousand nine hundred dollars for the

[1:21:17] construction costs and that includes replacement of florida clerk and masters

[1:21:21] office suite includes unforeseen conditions allowance of

[1:21:24] twenty five hundred dollars includes hardware for new door allowance fifteen

[1:21:27] hundred dollars and then you've got ancillary costs

[1:21:30] which are architectural fees fire marshal review historic zoning review

[1:21:34] and miscellaneous that's where the 59 000 come in

[1:21:38] we've had across a lot of hurdles to get that approved

[1:21:42] um through the fire marshal and the historical zoning community we had to go

[1:21:45] in front of all those entities to get this approved it's not

[1:21:49] just a door it'll be a platform with steps going up

[1:21:51] to the door there'll be an awning over top of that the awning also has to match

[1:21:56] the other awnings that are on the wheel and like the commissioner jane said

[1:22:01] there's currently carpet in there and they're going to have to pull up a

[1:22:04] portion of that carpet to do this project so it was decided to go ahead

[1:22:07] and pull up all that nasty carpet that's in there

[1:22:10] and replace it with the flooring that's currently in all the offices in the

[1:22:13] courthouse at the top

[1:22:16] chairman hill if i may yes sir yes ma'am um it was falsely reported in budget

[1:22:24] committee that this passed out of building and grounds

[1:22:27] this did not pass out of building and grounds building and grounds

[1:22:31] wanted a breakdown of the cost a motion was made and passed unanimously

[1:22:37] that we would ask mayor would be to ask sean shanks to provide uh cost analysis

[1:22:44] on this to show us exactly where the dollars

[1:22:48] were going uh so we deferred it until next month so

[1:22:52] it was very uh surprising and uh somewhat

[1:22:55] disrespectful to me to find that it appeared in the budget meeting a week

[1:22:59] later uh out of respect for the building and

[1:23:01] grounds committee i would ask that this commission vote no

[1:23:05] on this issue tonight uh from my understanding commissioner

[1:23:10] holder under building and grounds had already approved this contract

[1:23:13] with champ with the door previous months ago

[1:23:16] and it came back around again due to the there was some change

[1:23:20] this was the final contract but the act the amusement park had already been

[1:23:23] approved um her county attorney josh harding had

[1:23:27] already approved that contract and i just brought it back through building

[1:23:30] grounds again to update the committee on the status of

[1:23:33] the of the project well um mayor would be this is a lot of

[1:23:39] money and um i i take it very seriously when

[1:23:43] we spend any money i wouldn't even uh you know

[1:23:48] i responded to uh commissioner hill that i didn't even want to

[1:23:52] uh change the status of this meeting this evening because i didn't want to

[1:23:56] pay that new advertisement i take every dollar

[1:23:59] that we spend very very seriously this is enough money

[1:24:03] to almost cost our taxpayers a whole penny on their property taxes this year

[1:24:08] i don't think as long as it's already taken i agree with uh

[1:24:13] hill and and some of them that have spoken up and said that this has been on

[1:24:17] uh our discussions our agendas for a long long time now

[1:24:22] but if it's been that long why can we not wait one more month

[1:24:26] to see how this money is being spent

[1:24:32] terminator brett johnson yes sir mr johnson

[1:24:35] uh i i agree with uh chairwoman holder about this this was

[1:24:42] deferred in it and the largest reason was that

[1:24:47] the bid was modified as it's already been stated

[1:24:51] that there were other items that was either added to

[1:24:54] because of the type of constructions going on

[1:24:57] but if you look at the bid and since it is modified it's only a

[1:25:01] single line identification on where to be performed

[1:25:06] now we're paying for an ae service and part of their service

[1:25:10] is to review the bid and to verify that the amount that this bid is within

[1:25:17] comparable range of what's called the construction

[1:25:20] issue because all you got like i said a single

[1:25:22] line and fifty six thousand dollars and doesn't tell you anything

[1:25:27] and they're also to verify that the work to be performed within the scope of work

[1:25:31] that was placed out for business uh and i support uh

[1:25:37] our chairman holden as it should be go back to committee

[1:25:42] for the bill on the ground to approve that and for the ae

[1:25:46] to give their opinion on the value of the thing

[1:25:50] chairman james would it be outlined for me to ask you to remove your

[1:25:53] your motion and mr garden with a second defer this until next month

[1:25:57] until we get a breakdown i'm perfectly fine

[1:26:00] i'm not deferring it next month they can go to building the grounds and they can

[1:26:03] send it back when they get get it cleared up in their committee so

[1:26:06] we've talked on this long enough we've got plenty to cover here so

[1:26:10] um send it back miss would be if you would reach out to the chancellor and

[1:26:13] see if you couldn't get him to log on next month

[1:26:16] to building a grounds committee and uh reinforce why he feels

[1:26:20] that it's necessary maybe him or mr will report both

[1:26:24] and um why it's necessary that they need a sixty thousand dollar door and

[1:26:29] and uh see if that can help a little bit with it too so

[1:26:38] it's just a matter of the bid document being certified

[1:26:42] and verified by our ae uh it does it is a requirement in ways

[1:26:49] because it does violate the nfpa the fire codes for the builders

[1:26:53] that space does not have but one exit for the employees or any of the

[1:26:58] customers or citizens that's in that space

[1:27:01] if an incident takes place so that brings a defend qualification

[1:27:06] the question is is the cost now we've already stated that the weather is going

[1:27:11] to be taken out so basically to go in into mine through the

[1:27:16] walls all you got is the lower portion the

[1:27:18] reinforcement of the top is already there so that

[1:27:22] takes out the seriousness of the construction side of the house

[1:27:26] so that's why my question needed that's awful

[1:27:29] mayor before we decide to defer this do you have you do you have the quote

[1:27:34] where you can look at it is any of this price guaranteed for a certain period of

[1:27:38] time or or what because that's one thing that we

[1:27:41] do need to look at right now because material they they won't my material

[1:27:45] quotes they won't guarantee but a week at the moment

[1:27:48] it's 60 days i think okay yeah well even if it is it can be rebid

[1:27:54] we're not held with that that's part of the statement i'm going out for bid

[1:27:58] yeah well what i'm saying is the material is fluctuating so much it's

[1:28:01] going up so quick that i don't know how good the quote was good

[1:28:04] for so we're not um you know we're sitting here talking

[1:28:08] about 59 000 but next month it may be 67 000 is what i was getting at and just to

[1:28:14] let the committee know or the commission know that is what shawn shanks says

[1:28:19] the problem is of the cost is materials right now are so expensive

[1:28:24] um the highest the high quote that we had to be come in was 86 000

[1:28:31] that was on the high end of the quotes the bids that came in

[1:28:36] just to clarify a couple more things uh chairman hill if you don't mind

[1:28:40] yes miss hold on go ahead um so i reached out to tom shanks

[1:28:46] this evening around 5 p.m um you know i love that group every time

[1:28:51] i've had to talk to tim or tom as mayor woodbe has stated before they

[1:28:55] are very nice very helpful very kind at all

[1:28:59] times um the number is 56

[1:29:04] 9 for labor and materials 5808 so that's 5 808

[1:29:12] goes on top of 56 9 bringing the total project to 62 708

[1:29:19] dollars when i ask during building and grounds

[1:29:23] if the 569 included architectural fees and

[1:29:26] managerial fees of the project i was told yes it does but when i talked

[1:29:31] to tom shanks today he said no ma'am 5808 goes on top of that for

[1:29:38] their project management and for their architectural drawings and whatnot

[1:29:43] so the project actually is more than the number we're given tonight

[1:29:48] tom shanks could not tell me where the 59 000 number came from

[1:29:52] uh so i think if we're going to vote on any numbers

[1:29:55] in the future it's got to be 569 or 62 708. uh commissioner holder yes

[1:30:02] i was looking at the quote on my phone and for some reason it's got owner's

[1:30:05] contingency of five percent marked out and that that brought it down to the 59

[1:30:10] 860 308 which was 28.45 yeah that was correct they told me to

[1:30:15] take that out after they sent that to me well he told me today that it it needs

[1:30:21] to stay in there until the project is complete and if we don't spend it that's

[1:30:25] when it comes out okay chairman hill

[1:30:29] yes mr james if i'm uh we've we've done beat this road so it's going back to

[1:30:35] building the grounds so let's move forward with this they can

[1:30:38] figure out numbers and bring it back to us whatever it is

[1:30:41] next month all right thank you all right next go ahead

[1:30:49] i just wanted to add that it is it as far as it's

[1:30:52] compliant with uh the new courthouse security with

[1:30:56] fitting it with the kind of keyed entry and all that stuff too right and ada

[1:31:00] and everything yes we talking right all right next up we'll put into a form

[1:31:06] of a motion to appropriate 35 000 from the general unassigned fund

[1:31:10] balance for salary of benefits for the future carter county finance director

[1:31:16] motion by mr james second thing about mr frazier discussion

[1:31:25] why was vacation added into that number for such a short period of time

[1:31:31] i believe uh we've got mr burke out of his vacation time and so that's

[1:31:36] we went ahead there's not currently enough in his line item

[1:31:40] to purchase his vacation time out so we had to add enough to go ahead and

[1:31:45] be able to purchase his vacation time

[1:31:50] okay so just for clarification 30 000 is set aside for the training of a new

[1:31:56] finance director once they come on board and about 5 000

[1:32:01] is for burke's vacation time that we need to purchase

[1:32:04] correct okay

[1:32:08] actually that vacation will be closer to 10.

[1:32:12] oh well stand corrected well i would hope that you know

[1:32:19] by the time that we hire a finance director we're not going to need to

[1:32:22] spend 30 000 anyway i wouldn't think no and that's why we're kind of doing uh

[1:32:27] we put a number out there that we kind of factored we hoped was really close

[1:32:31] and it's just going to be set there and so you know it's

[1:32:34] i mean when you we hire somebody of course we'll set their salary

[1:32:38] and then they may be extra money left in there and we're getting ready to come

[1:32:41] up in in the budget so we'll yank it back out if there's anything

[1:32:45] left but we just you know we're on a tight time frame so we don't want to run

[1:32:49] up or short on the money and not have the money to hire somebody

[1:32:53] um but yeah and that brad had told us that we'd also need to give put some

[1:32:57] money there to be able to buy his vacation time so

[1:32:59] that's where we come up with the 35 from

[1:33:07] okay chairman hill i'm i'm a little confused

[1:33:11] how much is the vacation time roughly ten thousand dollars is what

[1:33:17] director mark's saying so you're going to count

[1:33:22] what was it 20 000 then for the 25

[1:33:30] okay thank you yes ma'am

[1:33:35] any further discussion

[1:33:40] green none madam clerk call the roll please willie campbell

[1:33:43] yes mark blevins yeah robert aiken yes nancy brown yes

[1:33:51] mike hill no julie gwen yes

[1:33:58] bradley johnson yeah mark kester yes charles von cannon

[1:34:05] yes isaiah grandstaff yes jerry prophet yes

[1:34:12] austin james yes

[1:34:16] ross garland yes layla ward yes ginger holdren yes

[1:34:24] randall jenkins no

[1:34:29] gary bailey i'll pass right now

[1:34:35] travis hill yes sandra culler yes

[1:34:42] daniel mcinturf oh frazier yes robin mckamey

[1:34:50] yes kelly collins yes thomas prophet yes does anyone want to

[1:34:58] change your vote

[1:35:04] i'll vote yes it was gary gary bailey

[1:35:15] 21 eyes motion pass thank you and uh chairman i just like to add on

[1:35:21] top that in the next coming days financial management is going to be

[1:35:25] seeking for that position and you know i know there's uh

[1:35:29] not as many of us on that committee but there is 24 commissioners that has to

[1:35:33] work with this person so i greatly appreciate and i'm sure

[1:35:36] commissioner holdren would uh all of us sits on that committee

[1:35:40] everybody's input and and thoughts on this when we hire somebody

[1:35:44] um you know everybody's gotta talk to this person so we want somebody

[1:35:48] that can work with all also

[1:35:52] commissioner hill yes mr tester i would make a suggestion that

[1:35:59] whoever writes the specifications up for this job and all like that

[1:36:04] that they have a minimum requirement of so many years service in government

[1:36:11] business and stuff like that that might keep you from getting

[1:36:14] 400 resumes mr tesla i believe commissioner holdren can address this i

[1:36:20] think we're using the same one we used last year

[1:36:23] and i don't know no we are not okay sorry director burke and i worked

[1:36:29] worked on this for about a week we could have advertised the position

[1:36:33] sooner but he and i wanted to get the advertisement correct

[1:36:38] so he and i went back and forth for several days and we came up with an

[1:36:42] advertisement that is more restrictive than what we had used

[1:36:46] last year because last year we got a lot of

[1:36:50] applicants that had managed uh five people at wendy's that wanted to

[1:36:54] be our finance director uh and i'm making that up but that's

[1:36:58] very similar to some of the applications that we saw

[1:37:01] um so this time we did put in there so many years of government service so

[1:37:07] many millions of dollars in management

[1:37:11] i think we used 100 for the number of employees that they've had to oversee

[1:37:17] and that means county-wide not within the department of course

[1:37:21] but that you know and director burke if you want to chime in here but we did try

[1:37:26] really hard to to get a more qualified top

[1:37:29] individual

[1:37:33] mr chair mr director i would just like to add a couple things

[1:37:38] uh i believe it's absolutely essential to

[1:37:41] have somebody with governmental finance experience it's a different

[1:37:46] world than a private business uh

[1:37:53] be hard to learn the governmental as well as doing the taking care of the

[1:37:59] responsibilities that come along with the

[1:38:01] position

[1:38:05] absolutely

[1:38:11] all right let's move forward uh commissioner hill i'm

[1:38:14] chairman hill can we or get a copy of that

[1:38:18] um commissioner holden can a copy be sent that out to everyone about

[1:38:23] what qualifications of course yes ma'am thank you and now we do have a special

[1:38:28] called meeting on this on the 22nd um at six o'clock i don't know i haven't

[1:38:33] looked miss holden is it zoom or is it um in person it's in person sir in

[1:38:39] person at six o'clock i guess in the main courtroom correct

[1:38:42] it'll be in whichever room uh miss abby and miss would be tell us

[1:38:47] is vacant and available it'll be somewhere on the second floor

[1:38:50] of the courthouse yep so i you know anybody wants to show

[1:38:54] it please come i understand that we're advertised for

[1:38:58] the mayor's conference room and that's not a very big space at this time

[1:39:05] um we will not be going over any applications

[1:39:09] on that evening because applications can be received through april the 30th

[1:39:14] um so i understand that people will be interested but

[1:39:18] that kind of um meeting is going to be in may not

[1:39:22] april so miss culler i'll definitely take that into consideration when we

[1:39:26] schedule that meeting thank you

[1:39:31] all right if everybody's good we're going to move forward here um

[1:39:34] next i'll put into a form of a motion to approve a policy establishing

[1:39:38] establishing a deadline for all carter county departments to

[1:39:42] spend any budget committee related requests and documents to the

[1:39:46] carter county finance department the first monday of each month seven

[1:39:50] calendar days prior to the regular scheduled budget meetings

[1:39:53] with an exception for issues that the finance department classifies as an

[1:39:56] emergency

[1:39:59] second promotion by mr james second with mr fraser any discussion

[1:40:08] hearing none madam clerk call the roll please willie campbell yes

[1:40:11] mark robbins yeah robert aco yes nicky brown yes mike hill

[1:40:19] yes julie gwen yes bradley johnson yeah mark tester

[1:40:26] yes ross von cannon yes isaiah branstad yes very prophet yes austin james

[1:40:34] yes ross garland yes laila ward yes ginger holdren

[1:40:41] yes randall johnson yes jerry bailey yes travis hill

[1:40:48] yes sandra culler yes daniel mcintyre yes aaron fraser

[1:40:56] yes robin mckamey yes ellie collins yes thomas prompted

[1:41:04] yes all eyes motion pass thank you

[1:41:13] all right next i put into a form of a motion to appropriate thirty thousand

[1:41:17] dollars from the cares act funding to give additional funds to the carter

[1:41:20] county rescue squad to cover the cost of additional expenses due to cover 19.

[1:41:25] second motion mark first motion by mr jane sega by mr blevins

[1:41:30] any discussion

[1:41:36] seeing no hands raised madam park call roll please

[1:41:39] willie campbell

[1:41:43] sorry mark blevins yes robert a kev abstain for calls i'm on

[1:41:49] the board nancy brown yes mike mike hill

[1:41:55] yes julie gwen yes bradley johnson yeah

[1:42:03] sorry mark caster yes charles von cannon yes isaiah grandstay yes

[1:42:11] jerry prophet yes austin james yes

[1:42:18] i'm sorry ross garland yes laila ward yes ginger holdren yes

[1:42:25] randall jenkins yes gary bailey yeah travis hill yes sandra culler

[1:42:34] yes daniel mcintyre yes aaron frazier yes robin mckamey

[1:42:41] yes kelly collins yes thomas prophet yes all right

[1:42:47] motion pass thank you all right next i'll put in the form of a motion to

[1:42:52] appropriate fifteen thousand dollars to the second harvest food bank

[1:42:56] for the backpack program funding to come from the general fund

[1:42:59] unassigned fund balance and the amount of 10 000 and reallocation of

[1:43:04] contribution to the carter county honor guard

[1:43:06] at 5 000. second motion by mr james second by mr

[1:43:12] bailey any discussion yes uh mr chairman hill

[1:43:18] yes sir mr von cannon i spoke to

[1:43:23] the three gentlemen that are now representing the honor guard from carter

[1:43:26] county but they had to join the honor guard from washington county

[1:43:31] but they serve here something has happened in that whole

[1:43:36] organization and before we fund anybody i think

[1:43:39] we need to get the county attorney to try to sort out

[1:43:42] what's going on the van that was used to haul the people is no longer

[1:43:49] available there's uh there's just numerous things

[1:43:53] about that situation that that uh it doesn't

[1:43:59] that would leave us holding the bag with something

[1:44:03] i i want to know before i would vote for what's going on because

[1:44:10] uh they just it's not something is wrong with that situation

[1:44:14] mr von cannon and and it involves the van it involves the

[1:44:20] weapons uh who else has been involved in this mr

[1:44:25] von cannon who else knows about the uh the

[1:44:30] ascension within the group charlie when mr james

[1:44:36] we're we are actually we're we're pulling the money from the honor guard

[1:44:40] because they have dissolved or something of that nature they've never picked

[1:44:43] their money up so since we're already getting ready to

[1:44:47] flip to the budget time we're taking and moving it to the second harvest food

[1:44:51] bank because we've never funded them and she come in

[1:44:54] and requested and said they deliver over two million pounds of food in carter

[1:44:58] county every year i believe that was correct

[1:45:00] and so we thought it was necessary that we ought to try to back up and give them

[1:45:03] something for last year to help with this am i

[1:45:07] permitted to make a motion that the county attorney look into this because

[1:45:11] it is it's serious from what i've seen and i didn't see

[1:45:16] enough of it to know for sure but i know i know i saw enough to know

[1:45:21] that we used to have six or seven honor guard people come to a funeral

[1:45:26] charles they're taking the money away from them

[1:45:30] they're taking the money away from the garden

[1:45:33] from the honor garden then that's the city that's the problem

[1:45:39] we're taking the money away because there is no honor guarding you you've

[1:45:42] still got the people in carter county that are

[1:45:47] serving on the honor guard marlo uh is one

[1:45:54] the sailor whatever he is and kelly green seems to be out of it

[1:46:02] he's the guy that had to do it but they uh

[1:46:06] they have to check their weapon they have to go to johnson city to get the

[1:46:09] weapons come back they don't have a van they did

[1:46:14] ask a mayor about the white van that's sitting on the lot a lot of times

[1:46:22] if that would be available but

[1:46:28] mr hardin if you don't care could you look into that and uh

[1:46:32] get with mr von cannon and figure out what's going on here

[1:46:37] i know yes sir i will draw my second travis let's just go

[1:46:44] i just know something's not right because there's too many too much

[1:46:50] floating around out there some of it's got to be true somebody's trying to

[1:46:54] breathe oh okay so we don't have a second

[1:46:57] anymore does anybody want a second mr james motion

[1:47:00] i'll say it think about mr frazier

[1:47:04] any discussion now is there any way i mean we're taking that 15

[1:47:09] from the honor guard and basically given to second harvest is that what we're

[1:47:13] trying to do yes we're they they have apparently

[1:47:17] dissolved or something but for the last two years they have not come in and

[1:47:20] picked their money up so since we're getting ready to go to it no whole

[1:47:22] another budget cycle this money is still sitting there so you

[1:47:26] know you were sitting there the other night on the second harvest food bank

[1:47:28] come in and tell us how many millions of pounds they provide to carter county so

[1:47:31] we're trying to back back up and make up for some of those years that we didn't

[1:47:35] get them funded and we're going to fund them moving forward

[1:47:38] hopefully i i understand that is there any way we can just take

[1:47:42] 15 from unassigned and then just just keep the 15 for honor guard just in case

[1:47:46] something comes out of that in the book i mean i think we could i

[1:47:49] think we could just give an appropriation when if they come

[1:47:53] and request some money i don't think we'll ever deny the honor guard money

[1:47:56] i think we should just wait until a formal group comes and requests some

[1:47:59] money and one thing that one thing that people

[1:48:02] have to understand is the money that we had approved to give to them is to an

[1:48:05] organization that no longer exists negative it does exist well we were we

[1:48:11] were told that it had been this american legion right but this is

[1:48:15] specifically for that honor guard well i understand what you're saying but

[1:48:20] although the honor guard has been abolished that doesn't mean

[1:48:24] that it won't be reorganized but what you've said is they can get the

[1:48:29] money up on request correct they can come back and they can

[1:48:32] do a bunch of requests they have a reserve now i mean the money

[1:48:36] is on hand that doesn't mean that the american legion has it in their account

[1:48:40] this is just doing carter counties yeah this this is still

[1:48:43] money it's in carter county jerry it had been appropriated but they never

[1:48:48] had come in and actually normally got it and done the step what

[1:48:52] all it took else to get it so it's been sitting there for the past two

[1:48:55] years so we're trying to move it around to do something with it and if they come

[1:48:58] in and request some more then we can appropriate something at

[1:49:01] that time for them there's 5 000 veterans in this county

[1:49:06] you've got to take care of somebody as you know they serve their time

[1:49:13] and they deserve they deserve a military funeral if that's what they desire

[1:49:21] mr chair they're still yes mr burns because these people are from florida

[1:49:30] county that i went to uh the

[1:49:34] funeral of al king and they were there four of them

[1:49:42] generally there's six or eight

[1:49:46] and one of them was a graduating on military leave

[1:49:50] and they recruited him a marine but that was shy of what they normally

[1:49:58] would be given as a military funeral

[1:50:03] burke you're recognized okay thank you uh just a little clear

[1:50:07] clarification on this uh i have a couple of men have come in i've talked

[1:50:12] to them a couple of times and they're in the process

[1:50:15] my most recent understanding way of forming a group

[1:50:20] to uh take over this this very honorable duty that's provided to the to the

[1:50:25] veterans um and like somebody said before i

[1:50:29] believe or may not have anyway there was ten

[1:50:31] thousand appropriated in nineteen twenty and five thousand twenty

[1:50:36] twenty one the county has not paid out anything

[1:50:40] to the honor guard the carter county honor guard they never

[1:50:43] requested anything uh and as this motion states

[1:50:48] the 5 000 will be coming from this year's budget 2021

[1:50:52] and since the 10 000 from 1920 rolled into fund balance

[1:50:56] that's where the 0.10 is coming from

[1:51:00] the problem seems to be between the bmw the american legion and

[1:51:09] the three or four that are serving uh without any

[1:51:13] any any authority with any authority they're serving because the need is

[1:51:19] there

[1:51:21] chairman i think you have time i agree let's let's go for let's call for the

[1:51:26] boat adam clark call the roll please

[1:51:31] the motion is uh to appropriate fifteen thousand dollars the second harvest food

[1:51:36] bank for the backpack program funding funding

[1:51:40] is to come from the general unassigned fund balance in the amount of ten

[1:51:43] thousand dollars and reallocate of a contribution to the carter county

[1:51:46] honor guard of five thousand

[1:51:50] yes

[1:51:53] willie campbell yes mark blevins yes robert a cup yes nancy brown

[1:52:01] yes mike hill no i can't do that julie glenn

[1:52:08] yes brandon johnson yeah mark kester yes

[1:52:15] charles von cannon the answer is no until you can find out who to give it to

[1:52:20] isaiah grant staff yes jerry prophet no

[1:52:26] austin james yes ross garland yes lady ward

[1:52:34] yes ginger holdren yes randall jenkins

[1:52:40] yes gary bailey yeah travis hill yes sanja culler

[1:52:48] no daniel mcintyre yes aaron frazier yes

[1:52:55] robin mckamey yes kelly collins yes thomas prophet

[1:53:03] yes 20 eyes question pass thank you next we'll put

[1:53:09] into all right if everybody wants to move

[1:53:11] into their budget amendments we're into there now

[1:53:14] well austin's pulling that up guys make a statement to say that i don't think

[1:53:17] anybody on this commission is going to deny the honor guard money if they come

[1:53:20] requested no and the only thing to back up and

[1:53:23] give a little more insight i'm getting picked up from brad the ten

[1:53:28] thousand dollars out of the appropriation had done roll back into

[1:53:30] the general fund so they wouldn't if i understand correctly from brad not

[1:53:33] able to request that anyway so it's five thousand dollars is what we had moved

[1:53:37] and now it's getting ready to end this you know when we

[1:53:41] wrap this budget up this year it would roll back into the general fund so

[1:53:44] you know if they have a request for this coming year i don't you know i'm i don't

[1:53:48] think anybody's going to deny that

[1:53:53] all right if everybody's ready we're going to move into the amendments now

[1:53:58] all right first i put in the form of a motion to approve general fund 101

[1:54:01] budget amendment number 10 uh for a total of 93

[1:54:07] seven dollars and three cents with seventy six thousand and eighteen

[1:54:10] dollars and three cents coming from reserve fund balance and zero coming

[1:54:14] from the unassigned fund balance

[1:54:19] motion by mr james go a second second by mr garland

[1:54:26] any discussion

[1:54:30] hearing none madam clerk call the role please willie campbell yes

[1:54:33] mark blavins yeah robert a cup yes nancy brown yes

[1:54:40] i keel yes julie glenn yes bradley johnson yeah

[1:54:47] mark tester josh von cannon yes i said grind staff yes

[1:54:54] jerry prophet austin james yes boss garland yes

[1:55:02] may the ward ginger holden yes randall jenkins

[1:55:10] yes gary bailey yes travis hill yes sandra culler

[1:55:16] yes daniel mcintyre yes ann fraser yes robin mckamey

[1:55:25] yes kelly collins yes thomas yes

[1:55:32] motion pass thank you all right next i put information

[1:55:36] form of a motion to approve solid waste sanitation fund number 116 budget

[1:55:40] amendment number four for a total of nine thousand dollars

[1:55:44] with nothing coming from unassigned fund balance

[1:55:46] second question by mr jane's second by mr bailey any discussion

[1:55:51] [Music] hearing none madam quote call the roll

[1:55:54] please willie campbell uh mark blevins oh

[1:56:00] robert a cuff yes nancy brown yes mike hill yes

[1:56:07] julie glenn yes bradley johnson yeah mark kester yes

[1:56:14] von cannon yes isaiah grandstand yes jerry prophet here austin james

[1:56:22] yes i'm scarlet yes bailey award ginger holden yes randall jenkins

[1:56:32] yes gary bailey yes travis hill yes sandra culler

[1:56:39] yes daniel mcintyre yes aaron frazier yes robin mckamey

[1:56:46] yes kelly collins yes thomas prophet yes all eyes

[1:56:54] motion pass thank you all right next i'll put into a form of a motion to

[1:56:58] approve the highway public's work fund number 131 budget amendment number four

[1:57:03] for a total of 68 477.50 with nothing coming from phone balance

[1:57:12] motion by mr james tag about miss brown any discussion

[1:57:16] anymore call the roll please

[1:57:20] willie campbell yes mark blevins yes robert aka yes nancy brown

[1:57:28] yes mike hill yes isaiah julie gwen yes

[1:57:35] brandon johnson yeah mark tester yes crossbone cannon yes isaac ryan

[1:57:43] yes jay prophet yes austin james yes ross garland yes bailey ward

[1:57:51] yes ginger hogan yes randall jenkins yes gary bailey

[1:57:58] yeah travis hill yes sandra culler yes daniel mcintyre

[1:58:05] yes aaron frazier yes robin mckamey yes kelly collins yes

[1:58:14] thomas prophet yes all eyes motion pass thank you all right next i

[1:58:20] put into a form of a motion to approve the general purpose school fund number

[1:58:24] 141 amendment 8 a for a total of 177

[1:58:32] 607.17 with nothing coming from fund balance

[1:58:35] second aaron motioned by mr james second by mr frazier any discussion

[1:58:42] ain't none madam clerk call the roll please

[1:58:45] lily campbell yes mark blevins yeah robert aka yes

[1:58:52] nancy brown yes ikeal yes julie glenn yes

[1:58:59] bradley johnson yeah mark kester yes charles von cannon yes

[1:59:05] i see a grandstand yes jerry crawford yes austin james yes

[1:59:12] ross garland yes

[1:59:18] yes randall jenkins yes gary bailey yes travis hill

[1:59:25] yes roger color yes daniel mcintyre yes aaron fraser

[1:59:32] yes robin mccamey yes

[1:59:38] yes that's profit yes motion pass thank you

[1:59:46] i put into a form of a motion to appropriate general purpose school fund

[1:59:49] number 141 budget amendment number nine for a total of five hundred thousand and

[1:59:54] fifteen dollars and ninety four cents thirty six thousand four hundred and

[1:59:59] thirty seven dollars and fifty cents coming from a reserve

[2:00:01] fund balance and twenty six thousand four hundred and thirty seven dollars

[2:00:06] and fifty cents coming from unassigned fund balance

[2:00:09] second motion by mr james take it by mr bailey any discussion

[2:00:15] hearing none madame clark call the roll please willie

[2:00:18] willie campbell yes mark blandon yeah robert aka yes nancy brown

[2:00:25] yes mike hill julie gwen yes bradley johnson

[2:00:32] yeah mark tester yes trust montanan yes isaiah grandstaff

[2:00:39] yes austin james yes ross garland

[2:00:50] ross carlin layla ward yesterday ginger holden yes

[2:00:58] randall jenkins yes gary bailey yes travis hill yes

[2:01:05] sandra culler yes daniel mcintyre yes ann fraser yes robin mckamey

[2:01:13] yes kelly collins yes thomas prophet yes ross garland

[2:01:20] yes all eyes motion pass thank you all right next i put into a form of a

[2:01:28] motion to approve school federal projects fund

[2:01:32] number 142 amendment number nine for a total of six

[2:01:36] million seven hundred and sixty seven thousand

[2:01:39] four hundred and forty two dollars and fifty eight

[2:01:42] cents with nothing coming from unassigned fund balance

[2:01:45] thank you aaron frazier promotion by mr jane's second by mr frazier any

[2:01:50] discussion

[2:01:54] hearing none madam clerk call the role please willie campbell

[2:01:59] robert yes nancy brown yes mike hill yes julie glenn

[2:02:07] yes bradley johnson yeah mark tester yes trust von cannon yes

[2:02:15] isaiah grandstaff yes yes austin james yes

[2:02:24] yes [Music]

[2:02:29] yes dan layla ward yes kids are hungry yes

[2:02:36] rainbow tintins yes okay yeah travis hill yes

[2:02:44] 100 color

[2:02:47] yes aaron frazier yes robin mckamey yes kelly collins yes

[2:02:56] false prophet yes all eyes motion pass thank you all right next i

[2:03:01] put into a form of a motion to approve head start fund number 145

[2:03:05] budget amendment number 4 for a total of 284

[2:03:09] 928 and 51 cents with nothing coming from unassigned fund balance

[2:03:16] motion by mr james take about mr blevins any discussion

[2:03:21] hearing none man call the role please willie campbell yes mark ravens yes

[2:03:28] robert de cup yes nancy brown yes ikeal yes

[2:03:35] julie gwen yes bradley johnson yeah mark kester yes

[2:03:43] charles von cannon yes isaiah grindstaff yes yes austin james

[2:03:50] yes ross garland yes taylor board andrew holdren

[2:03:57] yes randall jenkins yes jerry bailey yes travis hill

[2:04:04] yes john your color guest daniel mcintyre yes aaron frazier

[2:04:11] yes robert mckamey yes kelly collins yes

[2:04:19] yes all eyes motion pass thank you all right

[2:04:24] next i put into a form of a motion to uh approve the following monetary donations

[2:04:29] to the animal shelter in the amount of one thousand one hundred and seventy

[2:04:32] dollars secondary motion by mr james second by

[2:04:36] mr frazier any discussion hearing none madame clark call the roll

[2:04:40] please willie campbell yes mark blevins yes robert a cat

[2:04:46] yes thank you brown yes michael julie glenn yes

[2:04:54] bradley johnson yeah mark kester yes charles von cannon yes

[2:05:01] isaiah grindstaff yes great prophet yes austin james

[2:05:08] ross garland yes layla ward yes ginger holdren yes

[2:05:16] randall jenkins yes gary bailey yes travis hill yes

[2:05:23] sandra culler yes daniel mcintyre yes ann fraser yes robin mckamey

[2:05:32] yes yes

[2:05:37] yes promotion past thank you all right next i put in form of a motion

[2:05:43] to approve the non-monetary donations from walmart

[2:05:46] made to the animal shelter for approximate value of 349.45

[2:05:55] i'll second it motion by mr james sega by mr tester

[2:06:00] any discussion here you know madame carter call the

[2:06:04] roll please willie campbell yes mark blevins yes

[2:06:10] robert daycare yes nancy brown yes mike hill yes

[2:06:17] julie gwen yes bradley johnson yes mark tester

[2:06:27] mark kester yes charles von cannon yes isaiah grandstaff yes jerry prophet

[2:06:35] yes austin james yes ross garland yes bailey ward

[2:06:41] yes ginger holder yes randall jenkins yes gary bailey

[2:06:49] yeah travis hill yes conjure color yes danny mcintyre yes

[2:06:56] and frasier yes robin mckamey yes kelly collins yes

[2:07:03] thomas prophet allies promotion pass thank you all right

[2:07:10] that's all we have for budget um i'll just let everybody know that we're

[2:07:13] having to flex some of the dates around uh for the budget hearings and so when

[2:07:18] we get uh i've sent a thing around for the

[2:07:21] budget committee to look at i'm gonna give it a couple more days if

[2:07:25] i don't have any more responses and everybody's fine with it i'm gonna send

[2:07:27] it around everybody review so if you have any questions or something

[2:07:30] just let me know thank you chairman james next we'll move

[2:07:34] on to the nominated committee with uh chairman for asians

[2:07:38] all right ladies and gentlemen um got several to go through tonight so i'll

[2:07:43] try to be as quick as we possibly can um first up on the list would be

[2:07:49] a nomination for the county historian miss lisa jermaine and i will put that

[2:07:56] into a form of motion that we approve lisa jermaine as the new accounting

[2:07:58] historian second mike hill district motion by mr frazier

[2:08:03] second by commissioner hill any discussion

[2:08:08] excellent choice

[2:08:11] hearing none madam clark call the role please

[2:08:15] willie campbell yes mark ravens yes robert a cup yes

[2:08:21] nancy brown yes hill yes julie glenn yes

[2:08:29] bradley johnson yeah mark kester yes yes

[2:08:36] isaac run staff yes jerry prophet yeah austin james yes

[2:08:42] ross garland yes laila ward ginger holdren yes randall jenkins

[2:08:52] yes gary bailey yes travis hill yes andrea culler

[2:08:59] yes daniel mcintyre yes aaron frazier yes robin mckamey

[2:09:06] yes kelly collins yes thomas prophet yes

[2:09:14] all guys all right thank you guys next up on the list would be

[2:09:18] two reappointments and one new appointment to the equalization board

[2:09:22] uh first up on the list would be reappointment of richard todd smith to

[2:09:26] the to the equalization board now put that

[2:09:28] in the form of a motion second motion by mr frazier second my mr

[2:09:33] von cannon to reappoint todd smith to the equalization board

[2:09:38] any discussion

[2:09:41] hearing none madam call the roll please willie campbell yes mark blavins yeah

[2:09:50] robert ako yes nancy brown yes mike hill yes

[2:09:57] julie glenn yes bradley johnson yeah mark tester

[2:10:04] yes trust von cannon yes isaiah grant staff yes

[2:10:11] yes austin james yes ross garland yes

[2:10:18] laila board yes ginger holdren yes randall jenkins

[2:10:25] yes aaron bailey yes travis hill yes sandra culler

[2:10:32] yes daniel mcintyre yes ann fraser yes robin mckamey

[2:10:40] yes kelly collins yes thomas prophet yes

[2:10:51] thank you guys uh next up on the list would be the

[2:10:55] reappointment of deborah sam's

[2:11:01] to the equalization board and i put that into a form of a motion

[2:11:05] second motion by mr frazier think about mr james for the reappointment of

[2:11:10] deborah samps with equalization board any discussion

[2:11:14] hearing none might have worked call the role please willie campbell

[2:11:17] yes mark blevins yeah robert daycare yes nathan brown yes ikeal

[2:11:25] yes julie glenn yes bradley johnson yeah mark tester

[2:11:32] yes charles von cannon yes isaiah grandstaff yes jerry prophet

[2:11:39] yes austin james yes ross garland yes

[2:11:48] ginger hildren yes randall jenkins yes gary bailey yes travis hill

[2:11:57] yes sandra culler yes daniel mcintyre yes aaron frazier

[2:12:03] yes robin mckamey yes kelly collins yes

[2:12:10] thomas prophet yes

[2:12:14] who seconded that uh austin james

[2:12:23] thank you guys next up on the list would be the appointment a

[2:12:26] new appointment of blaine the canvas to the equalization board and i put that

[2:12:29] into a form of emotion

[2:12:33] second a motion by mr fraser second by mr james for the appointment of

[2:12:38] blame mcamis to the equalization board any discussion hearing none madam part

[2:12:46] call the role please willie campbell yes mark blevins

[2:12:52] no robert a kid yes nancy brown yes

[2:12:59] mike hill yes julie gwen yes bradley johnson yeah

[2:13:07] mark tester yes charles von cannon yes isaiah grant staff yes

[2:13:14] very prophet nope austin james yes ross garland yes

[2:13:22] later ward

[2:13:25] ginger holdren yes randall jenkins yes mary bailey yes

[2:13:33] travis hill yes sandra culler yes daniel mcintyre yes

[2:13:40] ann frazier yes robin mckamey yes kelly collins yes

[2:13:48] thomas prophet yes 22 eyes

[2:13:55] next up on the agenda is the appointment of the

[2:13:58] commissioner for the second district of the planning commission

[2:14:02] uh nominee was kenneth shell and i put that into a form of a motion

[2:14:06] oh i'm sorry that's incorrect that is steve stevenson

[2:14:09] is the nominee thank you stevenson is the nominee

[2:14:14] promotion by mr frazier second by miss brown

[2:14:18] any discussion

[2:14:23] ain't none madam clerk call please if you don't care start with the second

[2:14:26] district please second yeah start with a second then go

[2:14:31] do the rest okay nancy brown yes

[2:14:36] my kill yes julie quinn yes

[2:14:43] yes mark blevins yeah robert aka yes

[2:14:50] brad bradley johnson yeah mark taster yes trust von cannon yes

[2:14:57] isaiah grandstay no

[2:15:02] jerry crockett yes austin james ross garland yes layla ward

[2:15:13] ginger holden yes randall jenkins yes gary bailey yes

[2:15:22] travis hill yes sonja color yes daniel mcinturf

[2:15:28] yes aaron frazier yes robin mckamey yes

[2:15:34] kelly collins yes thomas prophet yes

[2:15:43] chairman hill uh before we go for the third district of point

[2:15:47] e um i would like a uh ruling by the county attorney we haven't

[2:15:53] called for any nominations from the floor but i think

[2:15:56] there will be one for the third district that vote was close coming out of

[2:16:00] nominations it was 5-3 all right i certainly want to nominate jerry

[2:16:07] piermann and have since that vote was so close to

[2:16:10] have the entire commission vote on that position

[2:16:13] okay attorney harden do you want to address that

[2:16:18] sure the nominating committee is is giving their recommendation of course

[2:16:23] but there can be nominations from the floor if there are

[2:16:26] any others interested to be nominated josh since we know there's going to be

[2:16:30] one should it not become as a motion from the nominating commission we just

[2:16:34] open it up for nominations right off the top or how do we do that

[2:16:38] uh no i think the chairman of the nominating committee

[2:16:42] can certainly give the recommendation of the nominating committee and report that

[2:16:46] to the full commission here but uh after that nomination

[2:16:50] a recommendation is made then then you can open the floor for nominations

[2:16:53] okay mark how did you vote am i okay to proceed mr hill i think

[2:16:59] she's still checking on the vote on stevenson okay

[2:17:04] okay 22 eyes motion pass thank you all right next up would be the planning

[2:17:10] commission seat for the third district the uh

[2:17:15] nominating committee voted as mr akov said

[2:17:18] five to three for robert burrow and that is i put forth his name as a

[2:17:22] motion second mark tester

[2:17:30] we have robert burrow do we want to open up the floor to nominations

[2:17:34] yes sir if there is others that would like to nominate they're more than

[2:17:37] welcome to do so uh chairman he'll i nominate jerry

[2:17:41] pearman dr acuff has nominated jerry pearlman

[2:17:46] any further nominations make emotionally ceased

[2:17:51] hey we have a motion to seize

[2:17:54] nominations okay saying about mr blevins any

[2:17:59] discussion madam clerk call the roll to cease

[2:18:08] nomination billy campbell yes mark blevins

[2:18:15] yes robert a care yes nancy brown yes mike hill

[2:18:22] yes julie glenn yes bradley johnson yeah mark tester

[2:18:29] yes trump spun cannon yes isaiah grindstaff yes jerry prophet

[2:18:36] yes austin james yes ross garland yes layla ward

[2:18:43] yes ginger holden yes randall jenkins yes gary bailey

[2:18:51] yes travis hill yes andrew culler yes daniel mcintyre

[2:18:58] yes aaron frazier yes robin mckamey yes kelly collins yes

[2:19:06] thomas prophet yes all eyes pass two seconds

[2:19:16] you did no mark did on the on the russian so we have two

[2:19:20] two nominees for the third district that being jerry pearman

[2:19:23] and robert burrow so as a clerk call your name please state the name of the

[2:19:27] person you want to see chairman yes chairman he or commissioner

[2:19:32] hill yes sir i would just like to ask if mr

[2:19:36] daniel smith is actually with us tonight online i

[2:19:40] am in the receipt of a an interestingly worded letter from

[2:19:43] daniel smith and i reached out to my friend daniel smith who

[2:19:47] coincidentally lives in this district and he assured me that he wrote no such

[2:19:51] letter um there were assurances in the letter

[2:19:55] that that said that mr smith whoever the author was would be

[2:19:58] with us tonight and i just wondered if if we could

[2:20:01] recognize that individual third daniel smith are you online

[2:20:07] you are recognized if you are to speak

[2:20:18] hearing nobody commissioner hill i do not think he is online

[2:20:22] chairman commissioner james yes mr james um i think before we take

[2:20:28] the vote uh we maybe should ask if either of the rep

[2:20:32] either one of the people running for the physicians here

[2:20:35] would like to speak or if there's anybody want to speak on their behalf

[2:20:39] okay is mr burrow or mr pearman either one with us in attendance tonight

[2:20:48] hearing nobody is any commissioners or anybody in the public would like to

[2:20:52] speak on their behalf

[2:20:56] chairman hill i'll speak on uh mr pearman's behalf

[2:20:59] okay go ahead dr uh thank you sir um even though uh and it's regrettable

[2:21:07] that we received a letter it's the first letter i've ever received

[2:21:11] or seen in my almost seven years as a commissioner

[2:21:15] that there weren't multiple signatures to that

[2:21:18] objection for mr pearman to repeat on the planning commission i find that

[2:21:24] very questionable and dubious number of issues that have come to me

[2:21:30] where constituents have filed letters

[2:21:34] many have signed it and put their signatures to that to attest

[2:21:38] to the fact that they supported that issue

[2:21:41] the letter that came before us or before the nominating kit committee did

[2:21:46] not contain anything but the third district um individuals

[2:21:52] of concern or some manufacturing thereof uh i will speak on jerry's behalf in

[2:21:59] that he spends a lot of time at the planning commission he goes out with

[2:22:03] with the staff down there if it weren't for commissioner brad johnson

[2:22:07] and um jerry pearman we probably would not have

[2:22:12] a viable code enforcement in this county i know commissioner johnson did

[2:22:16] your person's work in that as a heavy lift but jerry was also

[2:22:21] there supporting that effort now whether you believe

[2:22:25] things were handled appropriately hopefully we've put that behind us

[2:22:30] there is question to that but we know why that was done

[2:22:33] because of the fact that the commission didn't honor its agreement

[2:22:36] with with director schuler so i think the issue comes that jerry is still

[2:22:43] supportive he's a very good uh chair of the

[2:22:46] planning commission and works very well with the planning uh

[2:22:50] commission office thank you chair thank you anyone

[2:22:54] else uh chairman hill um i'd like to speak on

[2:22:57] in a little bit uh i know we all have had our indifferences

[2:23:01] over the last little bit of time with uh with his position and everything but

[2:23:07] you know i didn't realize i guess myself for the last few coming

[2:23:10] weeks and mr pimera put in as much time as

[2:23:13] what he does over there you know when being on the commission i

[2:23:18] understand how important it is when you have a

[2:23:20] commission that puts in the time and when you have a commissioner that

[2:23:23] doesn't put in the time you know when you have somebody picking

[2:23:26] up the site for everybody else it takes a lot

[2:23:28] um you know miss uh kristen works over there i don't know if she's on here or

[2:23:32] not but she might be able to tell you too

[2:23:34] you know pierman spent three hours over in the office the other day

[2:23:39] prepping her and getting her ready for her first day of court to do litter

[2:23:42] violation cases that she had never done before and

[2:23:47] nobody else came in and offered to help with that

[2:23:50] and then when we were short staffed but due to the covet issue we had over there

[2:23:54] from my understanding pyramid coming and worked in the office

[2:23:58] um to make sure that we was able to still keep the office running

[2:24:01] uh you know i mean granted we've had some

[2:24:05] issues and problems and i get that but at the same point in time

[2:24:11] you know what kind of position or shape might we be in in the event that

[2:24:14] we put somebody else there that's not willing to put forth the same amount of

[2:24:18] effort but that's all okay thank you mr james

[2:24:22] anybody else hearing nobody else we'll go ahead and

[2:24:29] call for the vote uh madam clerk if you'll start with the third district

[2:24:32] please and then work through the rest bradley johnson

[2:24:40] mark tester

[2:24:49] willie campbell

[2:24:53] mark blavin's robert a cup

[2:25:00] nancy brown burra mike hill hereman

[2:25:08] julie glenn burrow

[2:25:15] isaiah grandstaff burrow jerry prophet austin james

[2:25:24] airman ross garland burrow layla ward

[2:25:32] murrow ginger holdren earl randall jenkins

[2:25:38] burrow gary bailey pearl travis hill sherman

[2:25:48] sonja culler hereman daniel mcintyre burrow

[2:25:56] aaron frazier burrow robin mckamey [Music]

[2:26:02] kelly collins pierman [Music]

[2:26:09] thomas prophet peter

[2:26:29] mr burrow will be the new third district uh

[2:26:33] person on the planet commission

[2:26:36] that is all i have ladies and gentlemen um aaron come here chairman fraser i did

[2:26:42] speak uh i was made aware of last night that

[2:26:45] the board of uh zoning appeals had two open spots i spoke with mr

[2:26:50] schuler today and he's going to advertise those for us to address in may

[2:26:54] excellent sir what board was that travis zoning and appeals i believe that's

[2:26:59] correct is that correct mr johnson thank you thank you

[2:27:07] we'll move on to the landfill committee with chairman bailey

[2:27:12] let the minute stand for their self hey thank you

[2:27:16] highway

[2:27:20] thank you uh health and welfare dr akthous

[2:27:24] thank you chairman uh just a couple of comments

[2:27:28] uh regarding broadband uh the minutes can

[2:27:31] obviously reflect the discussion of the meeting but

[2:27:34] we voted um unanimously to ask for a rollover for matching funds for

[2:27:41] rural broadband of six hundred thousand dollars and i

[2:27:45] know uh chairman hill said that uh we would

[2:27:49] probably uh through this windfall profit if you

[2:27:53] will that comes from the state and other sources be able to

[2:27:57] earmark some of those funds for rural band broadband

[2:28:01] so we're okay with that i just want to make sure that we don't lose our place

[2:28:05] at the table and the second thing now that we know

[2:28:10] carter county schools will also benefit from the windfall

[2:28:14] i would ask that the commission reach out

[2:28:17] to the superintendent and the school board and ask them

[2:28:20] also to match those funds so that we can have a corpus of money

[2:28:26] that we uh can go forward with as soon as uh

[2:28:31] the grants are released and applied for probably sometime

[2:28:34] in late july or early august thank you sir thank you okay we'll move

[2:28:41] on to financial management with chairwoman holdren

[2:28:45] financial management has not met yet this month

[2:28:48] we are meeting thursday as commissioner james stated

[2:28:52] the purpose of that meeting will be to primarily discuss

[2:28:55] the application process that will be followed

[2:28:58] um everybody's welcome if you feel comfortable meeting in person

[2:29:03] uh this coming thursday that's going to be the biggest thing we have to

[2:29:06] accomplish in the coming months thank you

[2:29:11] thanks for the education committee with chairwoman award

[2:29:15] well well they need the minutes to reflect their meeting

[2:29:18] okay thank you um building the grounds uh i'm not sure who's gonna give that

[2:29:25] report i will sir okay thank you um i had to

[2:29:30] fill in for isaiah this month because he had a sick child

[2:29:35] we do have a couple of things that the commission needs to vote on this evening

[2:29:41] one of which is uh something that we voted on previously but there's been a

[2:29:46] slight change so we have to vote on it again

[2:29:49] and that is a donation of land uh up in the fish springs area

[2:29:56] if attorney hardin wouldn't mind to just tell the commission why we have to vote

[2:30:00] on that again i would appreciate it

[2:30:06] sure uh

[2:30:09] when this was brought before the commission before

[2:30:13] uh the property that is being donated was still part of a larger

[2:30:18] tract that had not been subdivided and the access to that track was off of

[2:30:24] uh directly off of weathertown road i

[2:30:28] believe it is anyway since that time uh and and also

[2:30:33] at the time the commission voted on it before

[2:30:35] uh there was no uh restriction or condition on the gift in terms of uh

[2:30:43] naming a park that would be developed there

[2:30:47] uh since uh since that time a letter came to light that had been

[2:30:53] given uh to former mayor barnett uh where the church who's donating the

[2:30:59] land basically said uh that they wanted to

[2:31:03] donate i believe it's uh if i can find that i

[2:31:06] believe it's just over two acres uh that it has been re-surveyed uh since

[2:31:12] the original gift was going to be made and there is

[2:31:17] access to it the 40-foot wide easement right away off of

[2:31:21] weathertown road not so it does not have direct road

[2:31:24] frontage and they want the park named uh

[2:31:28] specifically after a lady from that community and i don't

[2:31:33] have the file in front of me i cannot remember the lady's name

[2:31:36] but maybe one of y'all have it uh so those those conditions kind of changed

[2:31:41] from the last time it's brought before the commission so if if approved

[2:31:45] i'll have to get in contact with the trustees of the church

[2:31:50] and get specifics as to the deed uh reservations because they've asked it

[2:31:58] that it revert back to the church in the event

[2:32:01] it's not utilized as a park uh so we have to

[2:32:04] clarify a little bit of those terms as far as

[2:32:07] you know the length of time we have to develop the park

[2:32:10] and just exactly what parameters they're considering at park

[2:32:15] um and then also the uh the access to make sure that we're granted

[2:32:21] you know legal access for the public via the right of way

[2:32:27] thank you attorney hardin sorry to put you on the spot like that

[2:32:30] but i knew you would still do a much better job than i could have done

[2:32:35] so the building and grounds committee did vote to accept the gift when the

[2:32:42] survey is completed giving us that right-of-way

[2:32:45] uh we did discuss as attorney hardin pointed out that you

[2:32:52] know they want it to be hours as long as it's a park so he does

[2:32:56] need to clarify the length of time they're going to give

[2:32:59] us to do that as mayor would be has stated

[2:33:02] in the past and parks and rec has stated we are a little short-handed when it

[2:33:06] comes to working on our parks so we've got to

[2:33:09] make sure that we we've got enough time to get this

[2:33:13] accomplished before they would want it to revert back to them

[2:33:16] so anyway with that being said i'll bring it to the commission as a motion

[2:33:22] from the building and grounds committee to accept

[2:33:25] this gift with the new survey completion for fish springs uh park second

[2:33:31] chairman hill aka first motion blind miss chairman let me clarify uh

[2:33:38] since i found my file uh just for the record uh the donation is from union

[2:33:44] baptist church that is the owners union baptist church

[2:33:47] in hampton uh the law is 2.112 acres

[2:33:52] they're asking that it be developed as a park for kids

[2:33:56] in the community and they want it to be named in memory of

[2:34:00] kathleen and ralph smith

[2:34:06] so those those are the conditions that the gift would have to be accepted on

[2:34:11] everybody still good with that ginger and dr akov

[2:34:15] i am i am okay okay any further discussion

[2:34:18] i have one question yes sir mr tester commissioner is there the feast clause

[2:34:24] in that need where if it's not used as a park then it

[2:34:28] goes back to the church

[2:34:32] uh that is the proposal that is a condition that they have offered

[2:34:37] the deed hasn't been prepared yet of course i would prepare

[2:34:40] the deed uh if if we vote to accept it but they have requested a reverter

[2:34:47] clause in the deed essentially that if it is no longer used as a part

[2:34:51] that the property would revert back to union baptist church

[2:34:55] thank you anyone else chairman yes sir mr hill

[2:35:03] i've slept since we met but i think i was a no then because of

[2:35:08] the strings attached to this donation it seems to me that

[2:35:12] if the church wanted this many stipulations on the the

[2:35:15] gift if you will which isn't really a gift if there's a string where you can

[2:35:19] jerk it back at some point in time in the future but

[2:35:22] if they want it developed in the manner they want it developed

[2:35:25] and they used to be exactly what they prescribed and that it should be named

[2:35:30] as they want it named it seems that they would probably take that on as a

[2:35:34] project as an organization and if they wanted the county's support

[2:35:38] they could certainly come to the county as

[2:35:40] under an outside agency as a non-profit right along with

[2:35:45] several other non-profits like the animal rescues and such

[2:35:48] and ask for funding to assist in the development of the park

[2:35:53] uh i can't support thank you anyone else

[2:36:00] hearing none madam clark call the roll please willie campbell

[2:36:03] aye martin blavin aye robert yes auntie brown

[2:36:10] yes mike hill oh julie gwen yes bradley johnson

[2:36:18] yeah mark kester yes charles von cannon yes isaiah grimes day

[2:36:26] no jerry prophet yes austin james

[2:36:34] ross garland no layla ward

[2:36:43] layla ward no andrew holdren yes

[2:36:51] randall jenkins yes gary bailey no

[2:36:57] travis hill

[2:37:01] yes sonja color yes daniel macon turf yes

[2:37:09] aaron frazier no robin mckamey yes kelly collins

[2:37:17] no thomas prophet yes

[2:37:25] ma'am clark i'd like to change my vote to know please

[2:37:29] this is sonia mr sanjay yes ma'am

[2:37:48] 15 yes's eight no's

[2:37:58] motion passed

[2:38:04] okay may i continue sir it's ma'am okay um we also need to vote on another

[2:38:09] donation um ken good was able to attend our

[2:38:13] building and grounds committee meeting um we have been offered

[2:38:19] uh a section of the old twixie railroad right-of-way between mill pond road in

[2:38:24] valley forge and railroad street in hampton

[2:38:29] um ken googe and mayor would be and others have walked that section and

[2:38:36] checked it out uh the trail is in relatively good shape

[2:38:40] the tunnel is also in excellent shape the bridge crossing over the river is in

[2:38:46] terrible condition and needs lots of work this would extend

[2:38:51] the tweetsie trail to hampton it would add four and a half

[2:38:55] miles to the trail and give access to the watershed trails

[2:39:00] uh attorney hardin did caution our committee that as soon as we take

[2:39:04] ownership of this if we accept it we are responsible for it

[2:39:10] the bridge would have to have signs warning people

[2:39:14] that it's not safe for use after a slideshow presentation lots of

[2:39:22] pictures and discussion and questions and so forth

[2:39:25] a motion was made in that committee uh to accept approximately 28 acres between

[2:39:32] valley forge and hampton to extend our twitsy trail four and a

[2:39:36] half miles in that committee that night it passed

[2:39:41] unanimously so i bring it to you in the form of a

[2:39:45] motion this evening to accept this gift

[2:39:50] to our county and extend our tweetsie trail

[2:39:53] second all right ground staff this is a question by miss holder and

[2:39:58] second by mr hill any discussion uh i can't tell who's first mr bailey

[2:40:07] miss holden the bridge that you're talking about

[2:40:11] is was blown up years ago there's only one little bitty section

[2:40:15] right there i mean who's going to be responsible if

[2:40:21] yeah it's not very which we put wide

[2:40:26] gary i think you're wrong gary i don't know if you're talking about the right

[2:40:30] bridge you know the railroad bridge is gone

[2:40:33] it's the highway bridge that's still there yeah

[2:40:36] so technically guys there's there's two highway bridges up there one

[2:40:41] is on the other side of the four lane and it's almost

[2:40:44] it's almost demolished there's only you'd have to be

[2:40:48] really really brave to cross it really brave

[2:40:52] the other one that that we're talking about it's got

[2:40:56] two sections out of it that's fell through but there's room to walk around

[2:40:59] and i've walked around i took my son around it

[2:41:02] you know when he was five years old we walked around it hasn't changed in years

[2:41:06] it's been that way for quite some time so

[2:41:10] my question is the bridge is still if we take ownership of that we got a

[2:41:15] bridge that's got holes in it falling through are we responsible

[2:41:18] you better believe it it is i would say nothing more than putting

[2:41:23] some signs up there it's been there for how many years like that

[2:41:28] liability yes sir mr mcintyre that was my question for attorney hard

[2:41:34] and i think we should use the resource we have

[2:41:37] if signs are posted are we still liable if heaven forbid something does happen

[2:41:43] uh you know i understand its donation and i

[2:41:48] i'm appreciative of that but if we're going to be held accountable

[2:41:51] for an accident on that bridge how can we keep that from

[2:41:57] happening what do we need to go about to keep that

[2:42:00] from happening if the sign postage is not sufficient

[2:42:05] i don't think you're same thing in the highway portion of it you're accepting

[2:42:09] the right bridge your ride wave to the tunnel

[2:42:15] back to the railroad trade across the two pillows that are still there

[2:42:21] it's an excellent idea it's an expensive idea because from the tunnel

[2:42:27] to the right of way to the west is going to be

[2:42:31] filled another a bicycle bridge or whatever

[2:42:38] it's it's a it's a great idea it's it's just

[2:42:41] expensive idea

[2:42:45] attorney hardin

[2:42:50] yes sir is the sign postage is that sufficient

[2:42:55] to keep us from any liabilities definitely not

[2:43:02] uh cert certainly the the county could be

[2:43:06] liable and the county would be sued i'm sure

[2:43:10] if someone got hurt out there no matter what you did but

[2:43:13] uh certainly i think what what would be charged to do is is act

[2:43:20] reasonably and i think it would be more than just you know nailing up a sign to

[2:43:24] a tree or something i mean we would have to put

[2:43:28] some physical barrier there that uh that we were definitely

[2:43:33] discouraging access to the bridge and it's one thing

[2:43:36] to own it and people just go there it's another thing to

[2:43:41] advertise it and invite people there and that was kind of the distinction we

[2:43:44] talked about in the meeting i'm not trying to

[2:43:48] dissuade anybody from adopting accepting the gift and the gift

[2:43:53] is no strings attached no conditions

[2:43:57] and it is 27 28 acres along the old tweezy railroad bed um

[2:44:04] there's there's several easements uh or utility easements in play there uh i

[2:44:11] think the the water department or elizabeth and

[2:44:14] water and uh watauga uh river regional water

[2:44:19] authority has easements and things through there you couldn't do a lot of

[2:44:24] you know development obviously it's it's more of a

[2:44:27] trail and there's parts of it i understand i haven't been on it

[2:44:31] personally but there's parts of it i understand that are fine right now and

[2:44:35] walking trails and it's clear and perfectly uh

[2:44:40] cleared and level and i guess easy to to maneuver on and there's other parts

[2:44:45] the parts that would be obviously concerning are the the tunnel

[2:44:49] which i understand people have walked through and rode through for years but i

[2:44:52] don't know anything about the tunnel or the structural integrity

[2:44:57] of the tunnel and other tunnels through the same trail that have

[2:45:01] collapsed in on themselves but this one apparently hasn't so my

[2:45:06] my only concern was that we had some professional

[2:45:09] who knew what they were doing to evaluate the integrity of the tunnel

[2:45:14] and if it wasn't theme safe then it needs to be closed off but if it's okay

[2:45:18] fine and the other thing was the bridge that didn't

[2:45:22] from the pictures i saw look look safe to walk on

[2:45:25] uh much less drive anything on so i definitely that would have to be

[2:45:30] barricaded off in a way uh that a reasonable person would uh

[2:45:35] would would say it would stop someone from getting on that bridge

[2:45:39] but no matter what you do if someone calls and gets hurt on that trail

[2:45:43] just like they would in any county on property they're going to

[2:45:47] sue anybody they can to try to get some money certainly

[2:45:53] chairman commissioner hill go ahead i brought this up in the meeting the

[2:45:58] other night uh ty singer hampton and associates did the engineering on the

[2:46:02] entirety of the proposed tweetsie trail from

[2:46:05] downtown johnson city all the way to the north carolina

[2:46:09] state line that plan still exists somewhere there

[2:46:13] should be copies on file over in planning and zoning the

[2:46:18] remediation plan for the bridge consisted of some prefab panels that

[2:46:23] that would would carry bicycle traffic and the tunnel engineering

[2:46:27] is on there if i'm not mistaken it called for another

[2:46:31] sort of prefab platform that would elevate

[2:46:35] people over the the water lines which are actually

[2:46:38] encased if you look at the photos and such

[2:46:41] um that would that would get the trail all the way to uh

[2:46:45] in this case green bridge landing um there's there's no proposal to go

[2:46:50] through the gorge at this time but it would be a an incredible

[2:46:55] capture i do believe it would be prudent to put up some fencing and to prevent

[2:47:01] access to the bridge portion until the remediation could be done uh if

[2:47:05] anybody will cared i'm sure we could ask um

[2:47:10] planning director schuler about multimodal grants and that kind of thing

[2:47:14] uh if there is a point of interest on one end of the of the the linear

[2:47:21] trail uh the linear park is what this would become

[2:47:24] um and and some sort of ingress egress and parking on at another location

[2:47:31] then it qualifies for some some grants that are out there that that

[2:47:35] we don't typically seem to use

[2:47:42] anyone else mr chairman yes sir mr bailey

[2:47:45] i have no problem with us opening the trail up

[2:47:48] all the way to where it gets to that bridge but i think once

[2:47:52] even if we owned it unlike them it needs to stop there until we get an engineer

[2:47:57] or somebody to look at that because it's long ways down to that river

[2:48:05] a lot of money dude i think you should what do we gain

[2:48:09] oh we're putting these chairman of the hill yes mr von cannon

[2:48:19] i think you have to accept for this reason

[2:48:25] you your mileage then would equate almost to the

[2:48:30] trail out of uh that

[2:48:34] trail in having that comes out at damascus

[2:48:40] okay it almost equates to the mileage and if you could extend it on across

[2:48:46] green bridge but that there again you hit some

[2:48:49] private property before you get to the gorge property the lord's property would

[2:48:53] probably they would go along with it then you go on through two tunnels that

[2:48:59] are operative then you go to the tunnel

[2:49:01] that's collapsed and two more bridges the blevins bridge

[2:49:06] is one uh talk to me about the railroad because

[2:49:11] i have studied that for years and i would accept it

[2:49:18] but the but the real problem is over the dough

[2:49:21] at the tunnel at valley forge people would be jumping off of that

[2:49:28] thing you'd have to do it like they did to

[2:49:32] johnson city across the interstate and build a cage across the top of it

[2:49:37] until you couldn't jump off of it uh it would be a it'd be a great

[2:49:44] great thing but it's going to cost money like we haven't seen money before it

[2:49:49] probably cost more than railroad did originally but

[2:49:54] i can see a great deal of opportunity jack

[2:50:00] i don't see enough to invest any money in it but

[2:50:05] it it's intriguing it's intriguing chairman

[2:50:16] i'm poorly equipped to talk about it as did ken good

[2:50:19] if randall can remember and understands things better i

[2:50:22] i hope he'll speak but that is one of the things that ken guge pointed out

[2:50:27] is that with that additional mileage our twitsy trail

[2:50:32] uh is is a national attractor for cyclists it's not just a local

[2:50:39] pleasurable thing anymore but we're sponsoring the

[2:50:43] optium now we've got the mountain bike trails in johnson city

[2:50:49] this would add to carter county and we we become

[2:50:53] a little hub for cyclists um if if we have this and

[2:50:59] so anyway i'll stop talking and see if randall has anything he wants to add

[2:51:04] well i i support everything that you just said

[2:51:08] and so much more adding this to the tweetsie trail extension part of it

[2:51:14] uh i mean i can't even think of the

[2:51:17] possibilities uh it's it's endless to to see how many

[2:51:22] people use the trail down in town and that's just middle of town to put

[2:51:27] the scenic part of it and if you haven't walked up there and looked at this

[2:51:32] you need to it's in my backyard not literally in my backyard it's where

[2:51:38] i learned how to fish there's a lot of childhood memories up

[2:51:40] through there but that's a lot of people around here

[2:51:43] and that could be a lot of future carter counties

[2:51:47] too i'm going to think about that and to make this part of the trail

[2:51:51] it would probably be the prettiest part of the trail

[2:51:55] and there's been talks about the bridge mike you might remember we've talked

[2:51:59] about it before uh about making a pedestrian bridge

[2:52:05] it does get expensive but we've looked at other

[2:52:08] opportunities or other avenues to go just i i cannot see passing this

[2:52:16] opportunity up i'm i'm probably a little biased i'm a

[2:52:19] lot biased towards it but uh

[2:52:24] i'll try to answer any questions that anybody's got

[2:52:28] chairman hill yes go ahead director shooter

[2:52:31] uh if it's all right randall can i uh mention some stuff from park and rec

[2:52:36] yeah absolutely go for it okay uh i went to that

[2:52:39] uh last parking rec meeting when uh that was announced uh

[2:52:43] myself and and mayor woodbe were there uh

[2:52:47] at that time i decided to go ahead and check on some information

[2:52:51] and uh really a pedestrian bridge art is expensive especially that type of

[2:52:58] pedestrian bridge as such as the one that we have in uh

[2:53:03] uh gap creek that'll be in place here in the next few weeks

[2:53:07] so uh there is some some definite changes and there's

[2:53:11] actually i spoke with a gentleman in pennsylvania

[2:53:14] that's doing some of these new pedestrian bridges

[2:53:17] and uh we talked about actually sloping that bridge

[2:53:22] so that we can reach the tunnel there's there's quite a bit of elevation

[2:53:25] difference and uh i have to get up there i haven't

[2:53:28] had a chance to go up and survey it and shoot it and see what the elevation

[2:53:31] change is but there's a possibility that we can

[2:53:34] actually reach out and continue the trail and still keep it

[2:53:38] ada compliance we won't have the three percent

[2:53:42] greatest as a rail the trail would have and then what uh commissioner hill

[2:53:47] uh second district uh uh iterated to was uh

[2:53:51] the other grants that's out there there's a lot of relative trail grants

[2:53:54] there's a lot of multimodals that can be utilized uh

[2:53:58] it's something that myself and commissioner jenkins looked at

[2:54:03] probably six years ago randall maybe longer somewhere in there so

[2:54:09] google situation uh and yeah as mr as commissioner bailey mentioned you know

[2:54:15] yeah it definitely needs something there uh temporarily until we can figure out

[2:54:22] what we're gonna do on a bridge and uh uh and work

[2:54:26] that out to make it safer but uh i think it's a great opportunity

[2:54:31] and and i hope y'all go forward with it uh

[2:54:34] i don't know what my status will be much longer as far as dealing with parking

[2:54:38] wreck but i think it would be a good idea

[2:54:40] uh to go ahead and accept it if we have to block it off or at least make it a

[2:54:44] variable type as as attorney hardin says i think

[2:54:48] it's a good deal chairman hill yes mr president

[2:54:55] one other thing just for a point of clarification

[2:54:59] that bridge i'd heard the number of 152 feet is that a relatively close to what

[2:55:03] the distance is

[2:55:07] are you talking about across it or yeah across it

[2:55:11] oh yeah that would make it one of the longest pedestrian foot bridges in the

[2:55:16] country

[2:55:20] that's an attraction by itself

[2:55:24] i don't know you think it's that long i'm sorry i'm gonna have a little

[2:55:33] problem with my my uh speaker here what was the question sir

[2:55:37] uh i was saying do you think that bridge is 150 feet long

[2:55:40] i don't think it's quite that long uh the longest pedestrian bridge

[2:55:44] that this company that that makes the total

[2:55:47] bike hot bridges that i'm discussing with

[2:55:52] i just put one in that was a hundred and miss patty i sent it to you and ken good

[2:55:59] i think it was 164 feet uh supported in the end and that's

[2:56:04] all and uh that was placed uh

[2:56:10] i can't remember exactly where it was placed but that that's been in place

[2:56:13] for about six months now and it's working fine

[2:56:17] so i'll like i said uh randall i'll have to go over there and shoot it

[2:56:22] and shoot the elevation and shoot the distance and see what we've got

[2:56:26] to the workable pliable surface there and uh

[2:56:30] but right now i've been kind of swamped so i haven't been able to take care of a

[2:56:33] lot of people are buying these seven dollar two before us and building great

[2:56:36] big houses so we've been a lot of land planning doing

[2:56:41] so uh i'll try to get to it i can't promise

[2:56:44] you this week but before the next uh uh meeting i'll i'll have you some

[2:56:49] information that's fine with the board mr chairman justin just as an estimation

[2:56:54] do you think it's about 150 feet i would venture to say it's probably

[2:57:00] right at about 140 feet my best guess from the last time i was down there

[2:57:06] and i'm usually pretty close so i'll shoot it is that mr frazier speaking

[2:57:11] yes sir yes sir i'll shoot that thing and see where we're stand okay

[2:57:15] all right gary i think my uh commissioner hill had his hand up a

[2:57:19] second ago and i'll get you uh yes sir forward-looking um the the moment we get

[2:57:27] this trail eventually to the north carolina state line

[2:57:30] we do have counterparts on the other side of the state line that are very

[2:57:34] interested in carrying this forward uh they've expressed that sort of thing

[2:57:38] mr shuttler's pro prototype or counterpart over in avery

[2:57:42] county had expressed some specific plans as to how

[2:57:46] it might be rooted um if you if you look a little further

[2:57:50] ahead uh and it possibly could get all the way

[2:57:53] across avery watauga and ash you could back door connect to

[2:57:57] the virginia creeper trail that mr von cannon was referring to

[2:58:00] a little while ago and then you really have something that's regional in nature

[2:58:04] uh opens you up to all sorts of possibilities for

[2:58:08] buckets of funding and that sort of thing and i'll yield back and shut up

[2:58:12] now and mr bill speaking i apologize mr may

[2:58:16] speak go ahead yes sir yeah as a commissioner hill from 2nd

[2:58:20] district was speaking of we've met with them multiple times

[2:58:26] uh and it actually would probably go from a

[2:58:29] tweetsie trail to a over mountain victory trail

[2:58:33] switch the trail would be more of the bicyclist

[2:58:36] and then the over mountain would would split off up there

[2:58:39] so it's a win-win anyway we go and also we've been in contact all the way back

[2:58:45] to when uh mr hughes bob hughes was chairman of the

[2:58:49] planning commission with uh the town of damascus and working with

[2:58:53] state of virginia of course some of those guys aren't in

[2:58:56] the elected positions anymore and some of them passed away but actually working

[2:59:00] out iron mountain trail where it comes off of the uh

[2:59:04] appalachian trail that goes on in it would attach to the creeper trail

[2:59:08] uh so and uh uh i can't think of the other mountain trail off the creeper

[2:59:13] trail so we've worked on all that we have a

[2:59:15] lot of information on that so i mean even if we can't cross the bridge

[2:59:20] right now i think it's a good idea to take it and let's move forward

[2:59:25] mr bailey i was actually going to ask myself

[2:59:28] if she'd take an amendment to that that basically we would take it to the bridge

[2:59:32] and join it with the one we had and stop there until we get some quotes on

[2:59:36] what it cost us to fix the bridge or to get one across or whatever it is but

[2:59:42] basically um amendment to the motion to we stop at

[2:59:46] the bridge and fix it from there down then we come

[2:59:50] back and look at what it costs till we get

[2:59:52] chris gets a chance to survey a height we can get a quote

[2:59:55] well it's going to cost us what we look at that way it's not our responsibility

[2:59:59] instantly tonight but it still lets us go on and take that other portion

[3:00:03] and go with it uh mr chairman can i speak on that yes

[3:00:06] director yeah aggravation i apologize y'all but uh

[3:00:10] actually gary tysinger of ty singer hampton partners is now

[3:00:14] actually retired he is a licensed civil engineer and he is also a

[3:00:21] railroad engineer uh construction engineer

[3:00:24] and uh i've got him on speed dial so we can move forward with that we can block

[3:00:28] it off take the stuff block off what we have to until we can

[3:00:32] get his report and i'm sure he'd be more than happy to

[3:00:35] assist us in that because right now he's actually working

[3:00:38] on our other project with doe river gorge

[3:00:40] and uh i don't think i you know i think i can mention that i think

[3:00:43] mr von kan knows we're getting ready to have a christmas train there

[3:00:47] quite a large long run so uh gary's actually working on that and i can get

[3:00:52] him to work on uh i'll beg bum and borrow him and trade

[3:00:55] some radios or something with him and get him to uh

[3:00:58] to go and look at it with us and see where we go but

[3:01:02] i don't think walking will be that big at all go for

[3:01:07] thank you all aaron hill yes mr tester

[3:01:14] [Music] my questions for probably mr hard mr

[3:01:18] harden do you know whether that from my understand that was part of the

[3:01:22] tweetsie railroad do you know whether that easement

[3:01:25] through there has been put in the federal railroad bank or not

[3:01:32] my understanding uh commissioner tester this company

[3:01:35] management properties inc uh they they own uh this 27.12 acres essentially and

[3:01:44] fee i mean they are they are the fee simple owners uh to my

[3:01:48] knowledge uh the railroad

[3:01:52] right away isn't in play through there anymore is my understanding

[3:01:56] uh they've this company has owned it outright and paid taxes on it i believe

[3:02:00] since 19 95 or thereabouts so i

[3:02:06] i don't know if i can exactly answer your question but i don't think

[3:02:09] that the railroad right away is in play anymore

[3:02:14] mr chairman could i jump in that again please yes sir go ahead

[3:02:17] and uh mr tester uh what happened on that was the uh

[3:02:22] the oil company and i can't remember if it was united or simcoe or whatever it

[3:02:26] was actually bought all those properties and

[3:02:29] the railroad in that area went back to the actual physical owners

[3:02:34] uh of the property real property so you're not just getting

[3:02:38] the railroad right away you're getting the entire property that they own in a

[3:02:42] fee simple form thank you thank you chris that was my

[3:02:47] question because i knew that the rest of that railroad through there was

[3:02:51] uh was turned over to railroad bank and they actually did not have the right to

[3:02:57] do that so exactly uh epsc

[3:03:01] western north carolina railroad had an agreement through and it was

[3:03:04] in the 1800s that if they abandoned that railroad

[3:03:08] uh multiple portions of that railroad did not meet that criteria but uh

[3:03:13] that definitely through that area did meet the criteria

[3:03:16] if it didn't go to the county or the the uh the governing body

[3:03:20] then it went back to the the uh adjoining land owners

[3:03:23] so that's how that ended up in that piece of property sir

[3:03:27] thank you chris thank you thank you mr johnson go ahead i call for

[3:03:33] the motion okay let's go ahead and take the vote

[3:03:38] most of my miss holder and say goodbye mr hill

[3:03:41] i'm click call roll please willie campbell no mark blevins

[3:03:50] mark blevins no robert aka yes nancy brown

[3:03:57] yes mike hill yes julie gwen

[3:04:05] yes bradley johnson here mark tester yes trust von cannon

[3:04:12] absolutely i'd say a grand staff absolutely gary prophet yes

[3:04:19] austin james ross garland yes layla ward

[3:04:27] yes ginger holdren yes randall jenkins yes no i had awesome

[3:04:34] that yes i'm kidding i'm joking

[3:04:38] jerry bailey

[3:04:41] yeah travis hill yes sonja color yes

[3:04:48] daniel mcintyre yes aaron fraser yes robin mckamey

[3:04:56] yes kelly collins yes thomas prophet yes 21 eyes

[3:05:05] motion passed thank you chairman can i say something real quick this turn

[3:05:10] right i don't know what the process is but we need to make sure that we

[3:05:14] we get that blocked off that i don't know if that was added or not i i didn't

[3:05:18] i didn't hear but we need to make sure that bridge is is completely barricaded

[3:05:22] and tunnel until we get this process done like attorney hardin said

[3:05:26] that was going to be my question daniel who

[3:05:29] chris is this something you will do or who's going to be responsible for making

[3:05:32] sure the bridge is blocked off at both ends no

[3:05:40] i'm sorry my mouse ain't working right anyways uh

[3:05:44] if it gets donated i i can work with the parking wreck and make something happen

[3:05:50] i can contact the parks and rec i mean i'd be happy to work with chris on it

[3:05:54] and i can contact ken tonight and we can start action

[3:05:59] i didn't have something i needed to do randall just keep me in the loop if you

[3:06:03] need me to help do anything yeah absolutely

[3:06:07] yeah the thing about it is and attorney hardin

[3:06:11] didn't want to say this but no matter what you do

[3:06:14] as a county they could see you over a bologna sandwich if they dropped it in

[3:06:18] the trail so just be ready for some idiot like that but uh

[3:06:23] the key is to make it were a serviceable individual

[3:06:27] with the service of a brain would know that it is dangerous

[3:06:31] and uh mr mcturf i'll make sure it's took care of sir

[3:06:35] thank you somebody said it's a baloney sandwich and somebody gets

[3:06:38] killed there josh are you still on there

[3:06:44] yes sir as we voted here tonight and we accepted that right now we've become

[3:06:51] so loners of that property no sir they'll have to be they'll have to be a

[3:06:57] deed prepared uh and it has to be actually signed by

[3:07:01] the uh authorized representative of this

[3:07:05] company i imagine the president of the company

[3:07:07] i had i had some email contact with the gentleman who was uh

[3:07:12] talking with mr googe about it but i'm not sure

[3:07:16] has been said here right now they're going to prepare the deed obviously if

[3:07:19] they're donating and they'll probably want us to

[3:07:21] do so i'll prepare the deed but until that is actually signed

[3:07:25] up and recorded in the register dude's office we don't take possession until

[3:07:30] the end so i i would suggest that some coordination

[3:07:33] happen there with uh mr shuttler and maybe mr dude park and

[3:07:37] folks to have the uh the means lined up to get that

[3:07:41] accomplished before the actual transfer happens

[3:07:44] that's what i was getting now because if somebody gets killed

[3:07:47] always remember that is there a way we can cut that bridge out of there where

[3:07:52] we're not responsible uh the offer was all i believe all or

[3:07:57] nothing i don't think they were gonna just donate part of it so it's all

[3:08:02] one one donation of the entire thing they don't want for responsibility

[3:08:06] either do they guys it's been there that way for 20

[3:08:10] plus years let's let the 24

[3:08:16] well man in the condition it's in right now it's been that way for 20 plus years

[3:08:21] let's just move on let the committees do their work and then we'll come back to

[3:08:25] the full floor and talk about it instead of wasting time tonight

[3:08:31] um chairman hill i'll just hold him i have one more thing to say about

[3:08:37] building the grounds and then that that part will be finished for the

[3:08:40] evening i just want to thank the commission

[3:08:42] for their due diligence uh their concerns are well placed and and

[3:08:48] strongly noted uh so i just want to thank everybody for

[3:08:52] that and then we'll move on to the the last

[3:08:55] thing will just be a mansion there's nothing to vote on here

[3:08:58] but we are still in contract negotiations or at least negotiations i

[3:09:03] should call it with northeast state uh they first

[3:09:07] proposed ten thousand dollars a year uh mayor whitby went back to them

[3:09:13] with some questions from us they came back again proposing eighty

[3:09:17] six thousand dollars per year lease for five

[3:09:20] years uh they're calling that their break even

[3:09:23] uh point they have to pay no more than that in order to

[3:09:29] sustain their efforts we asked them some very specific

[3:09:32] questions though through mayor would be and they did not answer them

[3:09:36] so building a grounds committee asked dr bullock to please go back

[3:09:41] and come to us again next month with those questions

[3:09:45] answered um so just know that we're in talks with her and we value

[3:09:52] your input as a commission uh any anything you all have to say

[3:09:57] regarding that issue we would appreciate um that we could bring up to her when we

[3:10:01] see her next month

[3:10:07] thank you that's it sir thank you all right let's move on to rules and

[3:10:12] bylaws it's chairman jenkins i believe

[3:10:17] let the uh minutes reflect please okay thank you

[3:10:22] yes johnson don't you you know what that's the longest i've ever heard

[3:10:27] ramble talk in the past five years

[3:10:32] all right he should go live zoom i'd like to see what he looks like

[3:10:39] all right let's move on to law enforcement and beer board with

[3:10:43] chairman hill law enforcement had no agenda there was nothing

[3:10:47] brought forward to us to bring to the commission or vice versa

[3:10:51] beer board will most likely be meeting later next month

[3:10:55] um next month probably third thursday for beer board members um there is a

[3:11:01] permit application that's been picked up but it has not been returned at this

[3:11:05] time that i know get ready we gotta um go and look at one

[3:11:11] thank you very much uh planning with the director shutler

[3:11:16] uh yes sir we'll have next planning commission will be may 25th

[3:11:21] and we'll move forward with that thank you thank you

[3:11:24] uh animal shelter dr ako

[3:11:28] thank you chairman um just a couple of things

[3:11:31] regarding the shelter

[3:11:35] councilman kim bergsfield stepped down uh in representing the city the council

[3:11:42] has appointed mayor kurt alexander to take his place

[3:11:47] kurt joined us this last animal shelter meeting so he'll be

[3:11:51] part of the representation for for the city council going forward

[3:11:56] we are in the process of developing a job description

[3:11:59] for the animal shelter director we've never had a job description for the

[3:12:04] director that has always been sidestepped but uh

[3:12:08] mike simmerley and i have taken that task and we just finished the draft

[3:12:12] today it will be sent back out and we'll

[3:12:15] consider it at the next at next month's uh animal

[3:12:18] shelter board meeting uh mayor woodby and mayor

[3:12:24] um alexander along with uh city manager estes and uh chairman

[3:12:30] hill will receive letters probably by the end of this week

[3:12:34] uh requesting that we invite mtas and ctas to come to carter county

[3:12:41] elizabethton to evaluate the animal shelter for a 501 c

[3:12:45] 3 status much like what they did for sullivan county kingsport

[3:12:50] prior to making uh that move by that entity so hopefully we can

[3:12:56] have that in the process um before we proceed there are a whole bunch of

[3:13:01] unanswered questions i know that attorney hardin was concerned about how

[3:13:06] uh county employees could be part of a 501

[3:13:09] c 3 and still be paid by the county those are just that just one

[3:13:13] example of a conundrum that we want answered so we thought we would

[3:13:19] turn to the experts and ask them to come and give us an evaluation the other

[3:13:26] thing that was unanimously passed by the animal

[3:13:28] shelter board is just to ask both council and commission if you need

[3:13:33] statistics or have concerns or other issues about the animal shelter we

[3:13:38] would ask that you forward them to the animal shelter board first and we

[3:13:42] will provide you all those answers um going forward uh

[3:13:47] we've instructed shannon to make sure that

[3:13:50] in the minute you always have numbers of the census for animals down there

[3:13:55] how much spay and neutering we are doing what how many animals

[3:13:59] uh are adopted along with things like the feral cat program

[3:14:04] which has been very very successful i just talked to some folks

[3:14:08] over the weekend who adopted feral cats from the shelter so they

[3:14:14] could use them as barn cats so there's a lot of folks that are

[3:14:18] taking advantage of that program and shannon and her staff are to be

[3:14:22] congratulated for uh what they're doing down there um

[3:14:27] i think that's all i'll answer questions from me chairman hill thank you

[3:14:30] anybody have any questions about the animal shelter chairman

[3:14:34] yes mayor would be well this is i just wanted to

[3:14:38] jump back at randall and remind him that his committee did vote

[3:14:41] on the july 4th holiday that he probably needs to bring through full commission

[3:14:45] yes sorry sorry mayor that's all right i

[3:14:48] just wanted to remind you the calendar change so i'll step back in

[3:14:54] here in just a second and and do that travis just come back to me

[3:14:58] i will i'll get you on parking wreck if that's all right

[3:15:00] all right all right ginger or miss hold on go ahead

[3:15:04] i just wanted um to thank the animal shelter board

[3:15:07] for the work that they're doing the questions that they're bringing

[3:15:11] uh for the directive to director pasada to provide us with census numbers

[3:15:17] i think that's a great step and i appreciate it very much

[3:15:21] um i just want to clarify the reason for bringing in ctas and mtas though because

[3:15:27] a financial management committee looked at that possibility

[3:15:31] but when we found out that sullivan county

[3:15:35] didn't really go with their recommendation that was one reason we

[3:15:39] didn't bring them in and the second reason was um that

[3:15:44] whichever gentleman i spoke with said that it would take many many months for

[3:15:47] them to do a study so are you asking them to study

[3:15:52] whether or not and a non-profit is feasible

[3:15:56] or more like how to go about doing that well i think it's both

[3:16:03] uh in terms of a non-profit they evaluate as they did for sullivan

[3:16:09] county in kingsport the ability to support a non-profit

[3:16:13] entity in those counties in that city so i think that's good for

[3:16:17] us to know the other things that make it um an opportunity to

[3:16:22] ask m test c task not only the question that josh

[3:16:26] harden had in terms of what we do with

[3:16:33] making county employees part of a 501c3 how does that work number two what about

[3:16:39] their benefits leave longevity with the county how does

[3:16:43] that work what about if uh it is a 501c3 and it

[3:16:48] assumes that position do does the city give the land to the

[3:16:53] 501c3 and the county give the building or they

[3:16:55] maintain their rights so i think there are a number of questions that haven't

[3:17:00] been answered just because we approved and as

[3:17:03] uh city manager este said just before the county commission

[3:17:08] approved that they wanted a good move for a 501c3 it doesn't happen overnight

[3:17:13] uh there are a whole host of questions that need to be answered

[3:17:17] and i have not talked with uh hardy or hall

[3:17:21] uh about the this but i would hope that with mayor woodby's help

[3:17:26] and mayor alexander's help that they could be forthright in asking

[3:17:32] him tests and see tasks to do due diligence as

[3:17:35] quickly as possible thank you yes ma'am

[3:17:40] anyone else hearing then let's move on to

[3:17:44] agriculture with chairman tester we'll let the minutes reflect the

[3:17:50] meeting thank you all right let's go ahead and jump to park and rack and let

[3:17:53] randall finish up with rules and bylaws

[3:18:06] randall

[3:18:10] we'll come back to randall let's get main street industrial development with

[3:18:13] chairman frazier uh main street nothing new

[3:18:19] really to report right now that we're mainly focusing on a facade grant that i

[3:18:22] think we're working on and uh some of the downtown activities

[3:18:27] coming up this summer and a few other things

[3:18:32] main thing is the first friday of the dance those are always

[3:18:35] huge and do do a lot to help out the local downtown businesses

[3:18:40] um as well as i've not seen the car show the past couple weeks but hopefully

[3:18:44] they'll get it fired back up here relatively soon as well

[3:18:50] you ready yet yeah i'm i'm here i'm sorry i was on

[3:18:53] you the whole time sorry uh so uh so rules and bylaws of the committee

[3:18:59] voted the original holiday list that we had uh

[3:19:03] had the fourth of july uh uh holiday

[3:19:07] for the courthouse to be closed on the second

[3:19:10] uh we we voted to move that to the fifth so i just need to

[3:19:14] i'll put that in form of a motion

[3:19:20] motion by mr jenkins second with mr tester to move the july 4th holiday

[3:19:24] from the second to the fifth any discussion

[3:19:30] hearing that might impart call the role please willie campbell

[3:19:34] all right mark blavins yes robert aitken yes ma'am nancy brown

[3:19:41] yes mike hill yes julie glenn yes bradley johnson

[3:19:48] yeah mark tester yes charles von cannon yes i said grandstand

[3:19:56] yes very private yes austin james ross garland

[3:20:03] yes award yes ginger holden yes randall jenkins

[3:20:10] yes gary bailey yes travis hill yes send your color yes

[3:20:18] daniel mcintyre yes aaron frazier yes robin mckamey yes

[3:20:25] kelly collins yes yes all right

[3:20:32] thank you and as far as parks and rec guys i'll

[3:20:37] i'll just take a moment and say thank you and

[3:20:40] no matter how angry or upset i sounded i i really do appreciate you guys and

[3:20:46] parks and rec will always do its due diligence before

[3:20:50] you know we take on a big project we discussed it

[3:20:53] uh it went to building grounds we will do

[3:20:57] our due diligence we'll take care i mean we always put the

[3:21:00] county first and anytime the county takes

[3:21:03] ownership of a property there is liability anytime

[3:21:06] we take any ownership of any property so i do appreciate you guys and

[3:21:11] hopefully i'll have more answers for you very soon thank you

[3:21:17] let's move on to the chamber of commerce and keep cars

[3:21:20] with commissioner garland righty uh just want to thank everybody for allowing the

[3:21:26] the chamber to come on and then hear what they're into they're they're really

[3:21:29] working hard we've we really hit the gold mine with

[3:21:32] the higher enjoy on she's really reintroduced some stuff memberships gone

[3:21:38] sky high you know picked up some people so they're really doing good they're

[3:21:41] helping us out and uh you know luke luke's working

[3:21:43] hard seth in there too they're they're all doing good um but i'll let

[3:21:47] their presentation just kind of reflect what they're doing but uh tune in to the

[3:21:51] legislative breakfast and i think she's asking

[3:21:54] if you want to get involved in that or be be part of that just go ahead and let

[3:21:57] her know as soon as possible as far as tickets go because it is

[3:22:01] limited capacity uh keep carter county beautiful this is a busy time of year

[3:22:05] for us a lot's happened i mean since the last

[3:22:09] commission meeting we've cleaned up milligan highway we planted

[3:22:12] 33 trees on the twisty trail uh great group effort community effort

[3:22:18] city elizabethan carter county keep clark county

[3:22:21] beautiful mayor woodby was there ginger was there uh as always uh let's

[3:22:26] see it was turned out to be a great event

[3:22:29] except for travis was there too don't let me forget him

[3:22:31] uh right in the middle of a hail storm and that was that was

[3:22:34] some experience but uh we battled through the mud and got them finished up

[3:22:39] so it turned out great they're already blooming out so if you're going down the

[3:22:42] tweetsie trail behind uh grind staff for in front of sycamore

[3:22:47] sycamore springs uh in hoffman's office you'll see the

[3:22:50] the new plantings there uh great acquisition they've come along

[3:22:54] good uh ed actually uh we had the

[3:22:58] executive director keep tennessee beautiful was here this past friday to

[3:23:02] recognize ed for uh for his achievement the love for

[3:23:06] you live award which is a statewide award given to one

[3:23:09] person uh we were lucky enough of our group and

[3:23:13] ed to receive that that's normally done in nashville you

[3:23:17] know that's presented by the governor so it was a big deal with covert

[3:23:20] restrictions and all that we were limited

[3:23:22] limited to uh black golov on friday attended by

[3:23:28] many delegates ginger uh mayor woodley was there of course

[3:23:31] benny was there captain smith a lot of city delegates as well chamber of

[3:23:36] commerce represented was fantastic uh the following day saturday trasher size

[3:23:41] on the tweetsie trail uh fantastic event had 40 plus people

[3:23:46] turn out for that and it was you know streamed throughout

[3:23:50] the state again facebook social media and promoted that

[3:23:53] way too and it was really great because it

[3:23:56] brought a whole bunch of people together i mean there were kids that

[3:23:59] were three four or five years old carrying signs for us

[3:24:03] a diverse group uh also had the apes there that

[3:24:06] uh they went to the part of the where the queries at above happy valley

[3:24:10] elementary and their group took kayaks up there and

[3:24:13] cleaned it out so a lot of good things have been going

[3:24:16] on and a lot of good things coming up as well

[3:24:20] i know they're going we're going to plant some i think put some seeds down a

[3:24:24] few locations up closer towards town um and they were coming up to

[3:24:28] ripshin there's been a legal dump site up there

[3:24:31] there been noticed uh gonna be a team effort with forest service and

[3:24:36] several other uh entities uh to help clean that up that's later

[3:24:40] that's that's into may june or something like that so it's you

[3:24:45] know how hard that group works and how hard

[3:24:47] his edge to drive so thankful for adding that that whole bunch so

[3:24:53] that pretty much sums it up for that that group and thanks thank you to

[3:24:56] everybody that's been a part of it uh just in this short this past month

[3:25:01] thank you commissioner garland last but not least the city council update so

[3:25:06] dr acuff or commissioner tester any update for city council

[3:25:12] uh chairman i'll let um mr tester also comment but we

[3:25:19] were kind of late to the to the meeting and the fact that

[3:25:22] we didn't get an agenda or a zoom link um uh i should have probably texted

[3:25:29] uh the city manager's office when i saw that it was a present so

[3:25:34] we we both kind of missed that meeting okay

[3:25:37] okay no worries uh what we'll get i think they're from here on out i think

[3:25:40] they're in person so we'll get you taken care of correct yeah

[3:25:44] all right so that does it for committee reports

[3:25:46] but i didn't miss anybody so we'll move on to county attorney report

[3:25:55] all right yeah i think i'm unmuted now uh

[3:25:59] as far as litigation goes this month uh the lawsuit that was

[3:26:05] brought by mr mcgee jim mcgee uh versus the county out on ridgecrest

[3:26:10] drive or the right-of-way issue that lawsuit has been

[3:26:14] dismissed by chancellor rambo we're still within

[3:26:19] the appeal period uh but as as we stand

[3:26:23] right now that uh that case was dismissed and no no

[3:26:26] liability on part of the county uh as far as litter violation cases

[3:26:32] the court was a little backed up with the

[3:26:36] covered restrictions and the in-person hearings but we're back on track with

[3:26:39] those now we had 10 leader violation cases heard

[3:26:43] the other day on the 8th of this month and 10 judgments

[3:26:48] uh in our favor in all cases there are six others that are in the

[3:26:53] process of service and everything before those

[3:26:56] hearings are set and i drafted three new leader complaints just uh

[3:27:02] last week and those will be filed shortly

[3:27:06] as far as the opioid litigation many of you all may be aware over in

[3:27:13] sullivan county uh chancellor moody actually granted a

[3:27:17] default judgment in favor of the plaintiffs which is us

[3:27:21] and all the other season counties in the first three

[3:27:25] judicial districts in tennessee a couple weeks ago or last week that

[3:27:29] default uh judgment was granted uh

[3:27:33] essentially just ruling that

[3:27:36] the pharmaceutical companies were liable and now

[3:27:40] the only issue that remains is uh for how much money

[3:27:44] and that's going to be a jury trial and i believe it's i believe it's set for

[3:27:47] july of course there may be some appeals or

[3:27:53] various tactics that may lengthen that some more it's already been going on a

[3:27:58] few years but we're talking about you know multi millions of dollars at

[3:28:04] stake so i'm sure everything will be tried that can be

[3:28:08] tried but as as as far as we're standing right now everything is positive

[3:28:12] uh there were a couple of new lawsuits filed against county this past

[3:28:17] month one from an inmate former inmate mr lanie markland who alleged

[3:28:24] excessive force was used against him that's in the very early stages in

[3:28:27] district court in greenville uh second

[3:28:32] lawsuit was basically a statewide class action suit

[3:28:38] against every county in tennessee for a procedural issue on dui arrests

[3:28:44] and both both of those new cases the county insurance carrier is providing

[3:28:49] representation so those are both in the very early stages

[3:28:53] other than that uh my general monthly work will be detailed in my

[3:28:58] report that'll be filed with the clerk thank you anybody

[3:29:03] have any questions for tony harden

[3:29:13] mr frazier um i would like your indulgence that we

[3:29:17] uh and put forth a motion that we empower the county mayor to

[3:29:21] negotiate on behalf of the county commission in the county

[3:29:25] with the joint economic and community development board to

[3:29:28] structure a uh or begin the structuring of

[3:29:32] and budgeting for a economic community development

[3:29:36] director and potentially subordinates

[3:29:43] okay we have a motion by mr frazier

[3:29:50] any discussion is that all the details we're going to get

[3:29:55] just a motion we don't we don't know anything about

[3:30:01] structure salaries whatever whatever we could stay

[3:30:04] all night on that one correct i suggest you come back with a

[3:30:08] plan uh that's what this is to set up charlie is to

[3:30:13] work with the joint economic community development board where the city sits at

[3:30:17] to get the plan started and see how they want to proceed or if they even want to

[3:30:23] proceed let me ask this question i saw that

[3:30:27] net rep was not in on the uh budget request does anybody know why

[3:30:33] they're closing all right they're closing as far as i

[3:30:35] know i think they actually requested some money

[3:30:40] well they just uh we didn't we're not appropriating anything for

[3:30:45] this chair is that it we were not to that yet they just

[3:30:49] announced 200 jobs ride with who'd ride with who provides

[3:30:54] jobs

[3:31:04] ride with who provides jobs and if you can't drive

[3:31:08] 30 miles 246 people used to drive from here to eastman

[3:31:13] and it's a lot shorter to telford

[3:31:18] you're going to get some of those jobs if you're blind

[3:31:21] yes mr johnson i just you know they can speak about net rep all they want to

[3:31:26] you know we have today that spent 320 000 in our budget to them

[3:31:32] now commissioners tell me what you've got in return

[3:31:36] they didn't find no job somebody else found it they're on the caboose that at

[3:31:40] the end of the tr end of the train they always ride

[3:31:43] they're worthless

[3:31:48] any more discussion on commissioner frazier's motion

[3:31:56] [Music]

[3:32:00] mark blavins yes robert aka no nancy brown

[3:32:08] yes my kill no specific information it's a no from

[3:32:15] me julie gwen no

[3:32:20] brad johnson no mark taster no

[3:32:27] charles von cannon no isaiah grimes dave yes

[3:32:35] prophet noah austin james ross garland yes

[3:32:43] layla ward no

[3:32:47] ginger holdren yes randall jenkins yes

[3:32:53] gary bailey oh travis hill yes

[3:33:00] john your color no danny mcintyre yes

[3:33:08] aaron fraser yes robin mckamey yes kelly collins

[3:33:15] no thomas prophet

[3:33:30] now

[3:33:37] 10 years is 13 knows motion failed

[3:33:42] i'm not doing anything else trying to get economic development in this county

[3:33:46] you're on your own

[3:33:50] jeremy hill may i speak yes miss gwen

[3:33:55] my no came from not the idea of getting economic development

[3:34:02] but if you go through any place in carter county right now

[3:34:06] what do you see on their signs and in their windows

[3:34:11] can anybody tell me that now hiring now hiring help wanted signs

[3:34:17] how many people are going to come here and start up a business when they cannot

[3:34:22] field help my business has this problem every place that i know has this problem

[3:34:28] i am absolutely not knocking economic

[3:34:31] development because i i think there's room for that but i

[3:34:35] think our bigger pandemic is the fact that everybody's lazy and nobody wants

[3:34:38] to work because the jobs are out there high

[3:34:43] paying jobs low paying jobs mid jobs nobody wants to work

[3:34:50] that is my biggest that's my biggest concern with that

[3:34:54] and i you know i just wanted to put that out there

[3:35:03] any other commissioner comments

[3:35:07] i would like to say i mean that's i don't know

[3:35:10] if he was saying that's just for elizabethan but you know it's happening

[3:35:14] everywhere kingsport john city uh it's everywhere and you know until

[3:35:21] we stop getting free money meaning get nobody to work

[3:35:24] so exactly and the problem is i don't want to jump

[3:35:28] into spending the kind of money we're going to have to spend for a director in

[3:35:32] this full program and then it not get us anywhere if we're

[3:35:36] going to do it at least put a cap on it i mean if we don't get anything back in

[3:35:42] maybe two years then you know maybe re-evaluate it

[3:35:48] two years doesn't even scratch the surface you've got it's generally

[3:35:52] five to ten years before you start seeing a return

[3:35:57] that's a big gamble with the taxpayer money when you can't find help to fill

[3:36:01] the business it's not about finding help to fill the

[3:36:04] businesses you've got tourism that's got to be covered and recreational

[3:36:07] development not only and as well as economic

[3:36:11] development br e's business retention and expansion

[3:36:14] keeping businesses from leaving entrepreneurship classes in the high

[3:36:18] schools small business incubator that's all the stuff that's

[3:36:21] got to be taken care of well see none of that was presented when

[3:36:24] we talked about it and they gave us that outline

[3:36:27] i think more information would most certainly be helpful to make it

[3:36:31] thank you well maybe it was before i came on board i'm not sure

[3:36:40] anyone else

[3:36:45] motion to adjourn everybody have a great evening thank you all

County Commission 04 19 2021

Transcript