Health, Welfare & Recreation Committee - Regular Meeting

Okay, we're a little bit late. September 25th, 2025. This is uh health, welfare, and recreation committee. six o'clock and uh call the meeting to order and we've taken the role. U make a motion to approve the agenda. Motion to approve. Okay. By Jackie. Second. Second by Roseanne. Of course, we'll have to make a note on here that we don't have minutes for this one, but that's okay. All those in favor to approve the agenda by I. Okay. All right. Miss Amy's here. Oh, public comments. If you want to new business,

I'll just put you down for new business. How about that? We'll do that with the Christmas tree because I like that. All right. We don't have minutes from the previous minute. That's much my fault, I guess, as anybody's. Uh, old business is animal control, and I don't think he's here. uh Tim Morrison will rot water and that's me and I just got budget and finance to agree to uh make $35,000 for uh

J Sartan Road. Uh that may not be enough to uh do it, but at least we made a motion to do that out of rural money. And if Manchester City doesn't accept that, then I don't know. Next one is the rule fire report also over there. Uh Hillsboro and uh they miscommunications not doing paperwork right had come up $41,667 uh short from a previous year and we voted to approve that to give them their money back so they would be equal all the way around. Uh so we've taken care of Was that one year or two years?

One year. They were only owed for one year. So this year they'll have 82 $83,000. Uh and it's got to be, you know, you have to take care of your paper business because in this business where you get audited, it's very important that anything and it's putting a ton of pressure on Mariana. But I felt like we needed to reach out and try to rectify that and make sure that everybody because they did they did do their job. They did put in the fire things, the fire detectors. They did what we asked them. So, it is an amendment to this year's budget. Yes. Mhm. And it will be $41,000 coming off of it. Okay. New business added to

Yes. to the debt. Yes. Okay. Christmas tree. All right. Miss Amy. Um, so I uh met with Jimmy this week and we talked a little bit about the Christmas tree. So, I want your feedback as a committee about what you are wanting, expecting, and who would like to help. figure it all out. I'm just thought it would be cool to like at the state capital or at the White House, we have a Christmas tree that is grown here in Coffee County. Whether it be a cedar tree, a fur tree, uh working with maybe duck, if we get a big enough one donated, working with Duck River for them to help us or maybe our mayor, the crane man,

uh cutting the tree down and bringing it in on a crane and having it set up at the uh courthouse. uh to be a I guess bring Christmas back to where it was when I was a kid. Okay. And that sort of I feel like what this country needs is an old timey Christmas. Have a lighting. Yeah, we could. Yeah. Yeah. We need to do the Yes. Yes. Okay. And have the mayor light it. Okay. We also um we talked a little bit about maybe doing some ornaments. Maybe the schools could submit maybe one per grade

that was going to be outside. And one thing that I would like to see is let's find out how many lights and stuff because this would fall under the tourism uh money and we could buy lights and stuff for for it because that's going to draw people into our community to come see the lighting of the Christmas tree. And um my question to Jimmy was do you want to set a minimum any minimum specifications for the tree? Like it needs to be a 10ft tree, a 20 foot tree. I think we talked about whatever we can get. Whatever we can get we can afford. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Somebody's going to donate.

It doesn't need to be a Charlie Brown tree. I have a Charlie Brown tree in my back. Yeah, I mean somebody I can find you a bunch of those in the fence line. I just thought it would be pretty cool to have a tree that was grown here in Coffee County. Okay. And to me, whether it be cedar, fur, pine, there's plenty of large cedar trees that are grown not on purpose, right? In Coffee County. So, we could somebody could do that. But if somebody had a fur tree that they wanted to donate that got out of hand and too big for their their yard now, I mean, I don't know if we're limited about how we would have to do that, but I'm sure our mechanical mayor would be able to help us a lot.

I'm sure we have some people who are pretty mechanical and may be able to dig. I had a call in to um Adam Wilmore with Wilmore Nursery. Um he's actually out of town this week, but I was going to talk to him about trying to get his opinion on how to move it and if we if we just cut it. If we dig it, if we I guess it depends on how big how big it is because if it's more than if it's 10 feet tall, it's gonna have to be cut. You're gonna have to cut it. Um Okay. So, we'll kind of come up with that. But I would like to have it'll be cut. Yes. I would like to have like a se maybe a selection committee um to I think if we put it out there and and have people put in by close the date down by Halloween. Okay.

Because by Halloween we're going to have to be moving, right? So, if you would like to donate a tree. Okay. And then we'll just work out the details. But I can I can talk to Ben or Dennis to see if they would be willing to to help move it. I'm sure we can we can definitely get that done. Deadline 31st. Okay. Um so I can put um I can put a call out in the paper. usually do my Facebook weekly article. Okay. And then um we can do Facebook. Um we go on the radio and go with Tiffany. Um

you can u if you got give me a copy. I do a TV show every two weeks. Cool. I just did it yesterday, but a day before yesterday, but I'll do it again. Okay. And I can do it on there, too. Okay. I'll make sure. We'll we'll make a pretty little flyer out of our office and make it look nice with some additional information and and try to get that out. Um if I can get it done by next Friday, that would be okay. That would be my goal. I'm just going to put And we might, you know, you might be able to close it off even before Halloween. I don't know. Halloween's sort of like a good day to just shut it down and Right. Right. and then change of seasons because Jimmy was thinking it would go up probably Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving and then be up the whole

Yes. the whole month of December, which would be fine. So, um Okay, that gives me a little ways to go. Um can I put together a flyer and send it to all of you to look at first before we see if there's anything else we want to add to it? Okay. And we were just talking about emails. This is just your county. Mhm. Email fine. Okay. I'm going to give you my email. Okay. You ready? I'm ready. It's Rose R O S E A period. Smith international.com. The international or just

No, just international.comational.com. Got it. Yeah. Please hand me some card. All right, got it. I will ls.net. I will get that. I will get that moving. Ornaments, we think. Yes. Or do we just want to do lights this year? They would have to be waterproof or something. Right. I was after I after we were talking about Manchester City has these great big plastic ones on their tree down here by the soccer fields. Oh, it really looks nice.

So, is there going to be one in Manchester besides the one on Manchester City has theirs down by the courthouse by uh the J&G. That's their It starts the Christmas parade right there. And they have It's an artificial tree though. It's not a real They have one on the square between Harvest. It's on that end. Harvest and um what used to be People's Bank, where it is now. So I think when he was thinking it would be the opposite end. Is it on the courthouse grounds too? Yes. And it's it's artificial. Okay. There. And then I think he was thinking it'd be on the opposite end over by the old post house. The old post office. Yes. Facing the post

office. The Henley building over there. Okay. Well, that gives me a direction. So, I will get to work on this and um I'll get you something before Friday so we can try to announce it on Friday and I'll get with him about the tourism. Okay. So, we can buy some lights. Yes. Old timey lights too. Not those LED lights. Right. Pretty ones. They are pretty. The LED lights just don't I just remember the Wilkins Christmas tree in as a kid. I was so excited because it was lit the night of the Christmas parade

and he was a very prominent man. He owned the overall factory there. Okay. Mr. Ben Wilkins and it was just something in home. It had a big star on it and everything and the tree and the trees been cut down because it got sick and died. Say the tree got bigger and bigger. Oh, it just out close to the railroad tracks. Yeah, it s right on railroad tracks and it had the old timey old lights and everything and it it was so popular even utility district or electric company back then decorated it when it needed help. way they could reason and get up there without looking do that. That's when the community was really community. But it mean you know if one kid takes something from this that I can remember now I'm 64

and it meant so much to me. If we can make one kid's Christmas and him look back or she look back in 64 years and say, "Hey, we're going to do this again." Okay, it's worth it. To me, it is. Okay. Well, how about we for this year just focus on getting the tree and lights and then we'll go okay from there. Um so that way I don't have to scramble to get with all the art teachers. They were the only Okay. Yeah. Well, they just came off the fair so they had a bunch of fair stuff. Yes, they did. And they did. They did. They had a lot of stuff in the fair. A lot of fair stuff in the fair. It was good. Okay. So, all right. That's it for me.

Uh the dog pound I know they are. Let me rephrase that. The animal shelter had run into some problems and I think Terry has that worked out with them on the the back filling and stuff on the metal building. Uh Terry had talked to me about that. Uh that's all I know on that on the animal shelter and the health and the health department is on task and on time right now as they speaking. There were some things going on with some conduit and stuff, but those two things fall under our purview, too, I guess. So, anybody anything new? I guess we could have not I know Craig's not here. I don't know how many are full. I know he's been full uh back and forth and I know that they've gotten some donations, but they're still needing food and cash donations to carry them through uh for the animals over there.

Um uh we we were talked about well we actually we talked about the um briefly one time uh the um oh the thing in the it's in the courthouse up here. the uh it's a museum with like or something. Yeah. And we gave money to them tonight too out of tourism money to help them uh with display cases. Uh the new the in fact I have it in my paperwork. Okay. I've got some stuff to take to them. And

Sandra Bennett is the lady that's over it. Uh where my paperwork's at now. But we did give $10,000 to them. it was her and um and that came out of tourism money. So, it's people who pass through here, right, are helping to pay for our courthouse museum and it's open 9:00. Ah, I said I had it. I know I do some place. Bonnie Gamble from Manchester. Yes. So, it is Bonnie and what's your name? You Sandra Bennett. Sandra Bennett. The redheaded lady. Yes, sir. Yeah. And and I tried for a while to get in touch with both of them. Wind up having to go through the chamber of commerce.

Okay. But you can go through the mayor's office to get to Sandra. Yeah. Yeah. Uh I tried to do that too, I think, at the time because I was trying to get over there to take some information and uh get some hours for our meeting in here. Uh Jimmy and I talked about it. I don't think there was no big discussion made over it, but he was interested. I think we'd have a lot of other stuff going on and you got kind of interested in that and so anyway, but but uh I do want to get the hours that they are over there and um uh maybe kind of get that out to somebody to there's some folks because I know some folks that would like to come. Yes.

And me for one, but u I want to take some information over there. I want to go back to the animal shelter, too. We have an employee in Coffee County School. Not Coffee County, excuse me. We have an employee cough county. I'm not going to mention a name or anything. And this happened at their home, but they were bitten by a cat and they have a real bad infection on their arm right now and they are in hospital. So, you never know. Uh, and this was I guess their home cat, but you just never know.

Make sure you're doing vaccinations. It's not rabies. It's just an infection from a bite. But it goes to show you that an animal can transfer different diseases or bacteria to you. You always need to clean your wounds and stuff. Uh have them vaccinated, spayed and neutered like uh they used to say uh always doing that to keep an animal population down. Well, we've got a feral cat problem in this county. I know. Yes, we do. And we have people that that continue to uh I guess perpetuate it. I don't know what perpetuate it. Continue it. continue it instead of stopping. So, have a good night.

I know. I know some folks. My sister's one of she she she likes to she'll take care of the cats. They a lot of them come around, but she'll load them up. She bought a special cage for it and and and haul them, take them get them fixed. Well, that's the thing, too, is you're feeding feral animals and stuff is you need to be careful that you don't get bitten because this employee is now in the hospital because of that. So, a feral cat may bite you or scratch you. Glad to hear that. I don't know if it's cat scratch fever or whatever, but this person is in the hospital. Yeah, you never know. So, just be careful with that. So, might be something going around. I think we should at least mention the Coffee County Fair. Did anybody go this year? I went to three beauty contests,

right? But you didn't go to the fairgrounds. No, ma'am. But it I went several times. It appeared to be doing really well. I went by a couple times. It felt It felt like it was good. I heard a lot of good things about the kids uh entries uh adult entries and the farming part of it and everything. So I uh think it's growing. I'm going to try to go to their meeting next month just to give a report at our next meeting. Okay. And one thing that happens is like in McMinnville, McMinnville contributes out of the general fund to the fair board. We don't. Right.

So there is a difference there. They have to come up with money to pay for their services and their land there, the upkeep of the buildings. They're not subsidized like other counties and and all the purses. Yes. Oh, yeah. It was several thousand dollars in in just the draw on that. So, it is it is an expensive endeavor and I'm sure the insurance there is very expensive. Uh, one thing I heard is a lot of the carnival ride people are going out of business because their liability insurance has gone up to that one day. I hope it's not, you know, that it's not the end of something that we grew up. No, our kids don't see that.

But lawsuit after lawsuit of people getting injured and and insurance companies have to go up because they're in business to make a profit drives these little bit guys out of business. So, well, they've had a number of accidents hurt. Mhm. Yeah. So, our next budget and finance meeting is October the 30th. There is the 24th open. If y'all want to do the 24th or if you want Jimmy to set the date, those both dates are I think it's the 24th. Yeah. 23rd. The last Thursday. Okay. Then 23rd. That's the last Thursday in the month. The last Thursday in the month is the 30th. Okay.

And that's the budget and finance meeting weeks after that. The 23rd is the week before or if you want to do it on the 30th. It doesn't matter. Talking about October, right? Yes, sir. October. 30th. Uh 23rd. What do we decide on? I'm okay. I'm open to either one or whatever you want. Either one. Yeah. Um you opened either one. You want to do it on the 30th then? Be fine. Okay. Just set it for October the 30th at 6. Well, I was wondering is that the fifth? Maybe we should do the 23rd in case we need to postpone it or Yeah. Okay. Good. The 23rd. Can we do the 23rd? Yeah. The last one. All right. So, we're going to set it. Hard for me. We're going to set it for October the 23rd at 6 o'clock. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. All right. Make a motion we adjourn. Okay. I have one thing to say. Um, the city is doing safe on the square for the kids on 31st and I didn't giving out prizes because they noticed last year that families brought pets dressed up. Oh wow. I didn't know if that was an opportunity for the animal shelter to maybe bring some It might be something for back on. I'm just just putting that out there. They're doing it on the What date are they doing it on? Highway 9th. Okay. 31st. Yeah. Cuz we're out of school, right? The kids are out of school. We were

I didn't know if y'all somebody could reach out to him and ask him if it was something that he might be interested in be a good opportunity for him to see a lot of families in the community. We had about 30 kids last year. Did we as a county contribute? We did contribute to it last year. Yes. Have we contributed to it this year? I don't think so. to my knowledge. What's the official name of the event? It's Safe on the Square. Yeah. Safe on the square. I have a courthouse truck. Okay. Okay. Up on the courthouse. It's safe on the square. And the theme this year is toy store.

I think right now we have like 50 businesses contributing to it. Who puts that on? Manchester City. Okay. Great. Now you can make your motion to adjurnn. Oh, I'd like to make a motion to adjurnn. All right.