County Commission - Regular Meeting

want to call to order the county commission work session for January 5th. Mr. Reagan, would you lead us in prayer? Lord, I thank you for this opportunity to be here tonight. Thank you for each person here and for the opportunity that we have to serve this county. We thank you for the county that we live in and for the people that live here. And Lord, we pray that the business that we do here will further the good of our county and pray for the the safety and well-being of all here. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Everyone stand for the pledge. I allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. The clerk call please. Yes sir. Mr. Simpkins here. Mr. Ledger here. Mr. Mane here. Mr. Batty here. Mr. Dawson. Miss Spicer here. Mr. Buckner here. Mr. Britt here. Mr. Penny here. Mr. Williams, Mr. Grove here.

First order of u business is approval of the December 1st work session minutes. I have a motion. Motion by Commissioner Petty, second by Commissioner Mane. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none. All in favor vote by stating I opposed. Thank you. Uh item number two, committee reports. Any committees report? Hearing none. Uh next order businesses appointments. First is solid waste management director. As you know, we had a change in management uh back about last April uh at the uh solid waste department. We've uh we've worked through a lot of issues out there and I want to commend the teamwork that was done by management and the staff out there. There's a lot of good things happening and I think y'all all aware of a lot of them that have happened uh not only at Burns that was finished up there, but uh Charlotte, Cland Furnace, uh we're still working on a lot of the other sites to get that done, but that's in part of the uh leadership that's been done out there. So, we've got a lot of good folks pulling the rope really hard. Uh I've asked Jackie Fet over that time to act as interim director on that. So we'd have an opportunity to frankly give her a chance to take a look to see what she could do and um give her an opportunity to manage that because she's been there for quite some time. Uh I'm very pleased and excited to say that I'm bringing her name forward tonight to as director uh for your approval to do that. Uh she has done an outstanding job. uh proud of the work she's done and she's sitting here tonight and uh my ask is for any director this is me that's on the regular session for approval uh but Miss Fett ready to answer any questions or I'll answer any y'all like to have

she's a Burns girl. I'll make a motion to approve her. Let's fast track this. You know she knows what she's doing. She's from Commissioner Grove and I heard Second Commissioner Mane. So if I need a job later on, I just got to move to Burns. [laughter] We'll get you one of them little jobs at the convenience center come come September. I don't know if my customer service skills are good enough for that. They actually have expectations. So there you go. [laughter] No. Any question, discussion? We have a proper motion, a second. All in favor vote by stating I

opposed. Thank you. Uh item number two is medical examiner and uh I didn't write down who it is, but he wants to be reappointed. [laughter] What's his name? Anybody want to jump in there? Yeah. Jeff Eie son-in-law. Do I have a motion to reappoint Jeff Eie son-in-law? [laughter]

Kyle Moore. I'm sorry. Motion by Commissioner Batty, second by Commissioner Ledger. Any other questions or discussion on that hearing? None. All in favor vote with stating I opposed. Thank you. Okay. Item number three. I know this this was water authority. This was Mr. Daryl James' appointment is up and he'd like to be reappointed for that for a three-year term. Motion by Commissioner Spicer, second by Commissioner Buckner. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none. All in favor of vote by stating I.

Opposed. Thank you. Uh if y'all don't uh I'm going to go and do a little bit of other business now because I'm going to be uh courteous at the time we have here with a couple of our folks that have showed up. Uh and that way if they need to cut out, we'll let them do that. We've done a very good job as a county over the last several years to get grant money to do do a lot of different projects and leverage the things we can do which grant money is taxpayer money but it doesn't come directly from uh the taxpayer Dixon County. It's money we get from from the state of Tennessee which we are in competitive grants on that on a lot of things. And the first one is y'all own Jackie Hodgeges our highway supervisor. I'd like for him to give uh just a highlights of some of the grants he's just recently received.

Well, my grants, you said the state grants. These are actually I went a little bit farther. I went for I went for that federal money. You know, it just a whole lot harder to get so that way we we could, you know, go after some bigger bigger dollars. Uh actually the NRCS stream bank stabilization, we've got three more little small projects that we we're doing with them. The total amount is $135,000. There's a 25% match. They're paying 101 with this particular grant. The match for our side offsets with equipment and labor. We're doing all the work. So, it all it offsets our 25%. You know, it's no money out of out of our pockets. It's all going to be federally funded. It'll be money reimbursement. We'll have to pay for it and then they reimburse us. The second grant is the SS4A which is safe streets for all. Previously we've got a grant one one other grant from MIM last year I believe it was and it was for an action plan that's real close to being completely put together. This particular grant is a supplemental and de demonstration grant. It is there is a 20% match on this. The federal funds will be $46,000. Our match will be 101,744. I have to go to Don and them to take care of that part a little later on and you guys as well once it's all in place. We just got approved for this one last week, I believe it was. And this is going to be for several different things. It the there's going to be a trailer that we purchased. We're going to put a lot of emergency equipment in it. Barricades, barrels, cones, safety lights. Then we're going to get three of the uh portable signs that light up. Those be used by Mr. Fischer and and his crew as well. All of this stuff can be and it's it's to demonstrate all of our dangerous

intersections that we have in the county and everybody knows which ones those are. We're going to be setting up some things on those to try to show that with with this money, we can better the lives of the count, everybody in the county. And then the next grant that we'll go after will be an implementation grant, which will actually fund some of the work to be done. Now, there'll be a match on that as well. But I've heard Bob say a million times. If you can spend a million dollars and then only have to put out 200,000, you essentially get 800,000 for free. You know, it's it's not free. It's taxpayer dollars, but it helps us out in a big way. You know, that's just the two grants that we've gotten right now. Bigger grants to come. That lady right over there, she's helped us out a lot. We've got a lot of grants that we're still applying for. And when I took this position, I said that's something we was going to go after. And we've got some small ones now. We're working our way up to the big ones. And if things work out with what we've got plans for, there's going to be some real good grants come in in the future hopefully.

Thank you. Yes. Have you done picked out for the soil conservation? Yes. There's three sites. One's down here on Hicks Road, one's on Batson Road, and the other one is on Woods Valley Road. We just got the the signed agreements in. I got those last Friday. Everything's in place on that. We've started the process of working with the quarry so they can get everything built up, the supply of it, and we'll we should actually start stockpiling some of the rock on site on Batson Road probably tomorrow. Okay.

This one is already going to be in play. Now, the other one, there's still a lot of paperwork involved to get it going. Once it's gone, once it's finalized, it's the money's there. We've got a got the award letter. Now we just got to cross our tees and dot our eyes and get everything lined out and then we'll be on it.

Thank you. I have now Terry Malone, our economic development officer and Shay Schrader, our tourism officer. Uh let them tell you a little bit about what they've done. Um, a couple uh months ago, we started working on a historic uh courthouse grant that will help with the renovation of the inside of the historic courthouse. We were notified two weeks ago, right before Christmas, that we were awarded the $500,000 for for that grant. So, um, that's good news. That's, like I said, $500,000 of it's taxpayers money, but it's not directly Dixon County. Um, so that's the newest one that we have going from my perspective. And then Shay's got one that she'll talk about.

We have the um America 250 celebration going on in the whole country right now. And part of our celebration is going to be in July at the courthouse when it's ready. Um, and through the Tennessee Historical Commission, they have a subcommittee for the Tennessee America 250 portion and we were awarded $8,800 for for that to help go toward that event.

Thank you. Just want to let you know that these two ladies here along with Jackie and and I know our directors, I know Miss Fet has got his grants. I know Mr. Fiser, uh, and y'all hear about most of his, but with the Mansion grants and and Donnie Bear, uh, they work really hard to leverage these. These are competitive grants, so it it's a little bit of an art to do these correctly and get those. But the $500,000 grant we received for the historic courthouse, we had it fully funded. So now we can leverage that money and free up $500,000 out of that money to use another place. So, I want to really thank them because sometimes when we talk about these grants, it looks easy, but it takes a lot of work and they put a lot into it to get these because we're competing with counties and cities across the state to get these. So, I wanted them to get have the opportunity to tell you about these because a lot of times you see it a state rep will put it online, all that. Well, they didn't do the work. These people right here is one did the work and I want I appreciate them and want y'all to thank them. Thanks.

[applause] Next item of business, other new business, budget amendment. All funds except schools. Mr. Hall. Thank you. I'm Don Hall and I am not a Barnes girl. [laughter]

Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah, the amendments we have tonight, right now we only have four, but uh general fund, landfill, 171 fund, and the 178 fund. Basically, what's in the general fund right now anyway is we we've received mental health grant for 157,748. We're taking care of those monies in the circuit court. So, we have 157 coming in and it's going to be spent out in circuit. So, it's just that in-n-out money type thing. We've had safe baby court for several years now and that's been taken away from us and we had I think $50,000 in the revenue and the offset on that. So that's been taken out. Uh they they've just done away with that. I believe that was I think that's basically all there was in the general fund right there. Now we have an ambulance. Uh couple years ago we ordered an ambulance. one of those times that we couldn't get an ambulance, you know, back order, back ordered, but that ambulance is coming in now. So, we've added that $190,000 to the ambulance uh department. So, it's been sitting in fund balance all this time. So, we've added that back in there because that ambulance has finally come in after two, three years. So, that is also in there. Just that just came to me. The 116 fund landfill. Uh we have a couple of revenues. Waste reduction grant for 30,812 and used oil grant. That's 73 uh 42,486. Those are the only two things that we have changed right now.

That's additional revenue. Miss Faget got Yep. Additional revenues 171 fund. We have health department construction grant. We budgeted $1 million and we're probably going to increase that down the line. We've received $686,000 plus. So that's helping out also on 171. And that is that may be what is that what Miss Malone is talking about right there? Is that what you're talking about, Terry? Okay. So we've got some extra revenues coming in there. And that's all that we've changed so far. The revenues there.

That one is on the new health department. We didn't know all that money. We've already injected all the county's cash in that. So this is money coming from the state for us showing revenue for us to pay out. So it's money in and out on that. And then on the 178 fund what we're calling we call swig within the office. We're getting some other revenue federal other federal revenue through state and uh we're getting that and we've we're putting $100,000 from the general fund over to the 178. It's the water projects out there pond I think in that area. So that right there is the 178 fund if you want to look at that.

It was the water line. One of them is uh STCP Tennessee City Pond water line extension down Yellow Creek Road and they're carrying letting the money go as far as they can go with that. The other was for Vanlier and Water Authority to have a connection up here on Highway 49 where Vanlier will have a backup water source. The swig grant the county received that's been probably three years ago.

Yeah, two or three. two or three years ago uh which we dispersed that out to them. What we did uh we did not pay there was a match on those. We the water authorities financially stable enough that they paid their match but the county uh the money we budget to pay the matches for Vanlier and for u and for STCP. So that way they can get that work done. And the good news is on the swig grant, I know this is a long time ago, so I just kind of covered again for a minute. Those are projects need to be done, but those were things that uh would just be financially difficult for especially the two smaller utilities to do. So, this is taking care of a really long-term problem with this money. Kind of like what we did with all the uh uh money from the the Joe Biden money, whatever we the ARP or whatever they call that, uh where we did long-term projects to get all that done. So all that's coming coming due and I think by law that has to be done by December 31st of this year now and all that money will have gone away and been distributed and projects done. Right.

If not whoever hadn't done theirs across the United States got to send theirs back to federal government. Right. [clears throat] That's all I have. Any questions for Mr. Hall or myself? Open the floor. Motion to send this on to regular session. Motion by Commissioner Ledger. Second by Commissioner Spicer. Any questions or discussion? [clears throat] Hearing none. All in favor with stating I. Opposed. Thank you. Thank you. Item number two is the postage meter lease for the justice center. Mr. Hall, is that yours? Yes.

We uh we have not received any uh cost uh estimates yet from Pittney Bose and that type thing. if you could leave this on the agenda for two weeks or the 20th I believe then with the holiday. If we don't receive it then we'll pull it that night. But right now we they're supposed to be getting us some information and we haven't heard from them. Okay. If that if there's no objection that I'll a motion to move this on a regular session pending the prices motion by Commissioner Grace, second by Commissioner Simpkins. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none. All in favor vote by stating I

opposed. Thank you. It's not a large dollar amount. It's the fact that we can't myself or Mr. Hall can't do leases over one year period. So that's why these show up here because it's a is it a three or five year lease? We didn't know five years.

Five years. Okay. And ironically that does show the justice center has been open for five years. I opened in November 30th of 2000. Wow. That's been a minute. Good. Um, item number three is additional property for agriculture center. I pass this out to you. Uh, this map and that's what that locates. Uh, as y'all know, we purchased property for the a center. Uh, then on that corner lot, the last property on the bottom there that says a center on it and we've owned that for a little over a year now. We're proceeding with work on that. Uh, the dirt work is we're waiting on TD give us approval on the dirt work. There's a little wetland issue that we have to work around. Uh once they give us approval of that, the dirt work will start in the springtime. So, that's the good news. Uh also doing some things to clean up and update the house that's uh located there that we're going to keep as the uh as a ranch house, the manager's house for a lack of better word. Uh what's come available to us is the property directly to the north of us, and it shows requested purchase. That's 11 and a half acres that's owned by, as y'all may know, Doc Thomas, a retired veterinarian that's been Dixon County for quite some time. This property is listed at $1.1 million. Uh, but after working with him, uh, realizing for the benefit of the county that he's willing to sell this at $750,000. Uh, the property just to the north of it, I think it's 15.02, it has a house on it. It's on the market right now for $1.1 million. I'm not suggesting we purchase that because frankly that would stretch us more than we need to go. But by having this property, we would take the 18 1.5 acres uh that we have now with 11 12 acres uh push us right up against 30 acres possible potential use. Uh, of course the price any price on

real estate's high, but the opportunity cost of this property uh is right here before us because we purchase this now and we ever have to expand this area in 10 15 years, we'll own it because we know in 10 or 15 years, if it's developed, it'll cost a lot more than that. uh the funding not only from what you heard tonight about the money being saved but as the books have been closed uh on our smaller funds which Mr. Hall, Miss Whitaker always give you the general fund fund balance. We did that a couple months ago or maybe a month ago Christmas I've lost track of time but uh they've closed on the smaller funds. We have in excess of a million dollars in debt service that was when we closed the books on that it overperformed. So from the savings that our other departments found through these grants plus that we have the funds to buy this. It doesn't affect uh anything to do with what the schools are potentially about to do uh or any or the a center building itself, but that's available to us now. Um and just wanted to put that out to you. I give it to you because I this is my recommendation. Uh I've met with few of the council or commissioners on this involved in agg, uh they felt pretty good about it. So that's my statement. And I'll be glad to answer any questions or anyone like to give me additional comments on that.

Mayor, do we have a plan for the building um and a footprint to where it's going to set? Is this going to change anything?

No, this will not change it. All it would do is give us additional property to grow into. Uh this would, like I said, get us about 30 acres. We had a group that went to McNary County. Um I guess it's been a month, a couple of months ago. Uh they the one we're modeling this after has been very successful. They sit on 24 acres of property right now and they're filling that up nicely. Uh but they have a little bit of an advantage because they're next door to McNary County High School. So they can do a lot of overflow with that property where we don't have an advantage of that. We're kind of are where we are. Could this can this project be done on 18 acres? Yes, it can be. But whenever the door opens with the opportunity to buy something directly next door, that's why I make the recommendation that we go forward with this. But as far as a plan, we've uh engaged an architect and they should start working on the plan on the 18 acres like here in the next month.

No, I'm for I just want to make sure that the and I've talked to some other commissioners. I think their concern is let's do it right the first time and make sure it's big enough to to host everything we want to do. I'll make a motion to move it forward. That motion by Commissioner Grove. Did I have a sec? Second by Commissioner Ledger. Any questions or discussion? Yes, Commissioner Gray. I was just curious. I see the properties don't touch. So, there is an easement between the two properties. Is that going to hinder anything of how we use that property?

No, it it is an inconvenience, but we'll work with T DOT on the rightway. As you know, there's a plan to widen Highway 46. We're going to use that plan as a basis to have a walkway basically on a glorified overdone sidewalk between that property where you could drive a a farm vehicle, a golf cart, and enough room where you could have folks pass on that because that is an issue. But that's one we can overcome just by finishing that part of the road. Basically, a sidewalk to get us to that property. any other question discussion. Well, the motion is to move this on to regular session. So, if there's no more question discussion, all in favor of vote stating I

opposed. Thank you. Next item is capital outlay note for emergency medical services. uh and number four and five there are two different issues but the barring I want to I want to do together on this uh on for emergency medical services Mr. Bayer has monitors that are in each ambulance. They're outdated. Our goal was to uh have this on the budget that we'll be doing this spring, but because the funds are there now, uh the prices right now, we didn't see the need to wait until July 1st where we could go to get those monitors purchased for him right away. That total purchase is around $330,000. Uh my goal is to have that portion financed along with a new fire truck and uh and I'll go and speak about number five. Uh that's a new fire truck that will be roughly around $500,000. I believe we're looking at total borrowing of these two combined to per make these purchases. These were two items that we're going to put in next year's budget because of the fluctuations in prices. Our concern with the fire truck and the monitors was going to get them done now since we have that extra money in in our fund balance and the borrowing on that. So that's basically what they are now. When it comes to specifics of the equipment, Mr. Fischer, Mr. Bear can speak to that, but in general, I'll be glad to answer any questions. Open floor for motion. Motion by Commissioner Buckner, second by Commissioner Spicer. Any questions or discussion? And for the these purposes, I'm going to go and combine these together. I'll have to separate those, I think, in regular session.

We're going combine them now. We're combining right now on this vote to move it to the agenda. There's no questions or discussion. All in favor vote by stating I. Opposed. Thank you. Item number six is 2026 road list. Mr. Hodgeges, did you have that? Okay. Does that is that just a notification that require resolution or a vote? It will require resolution. Okay.

Basically, what you're doing when you when you approve this list every year is you're identifying what roads can be worked on using county funds. And so it provides a road map. It's not an all exclusive list of everything that might be considered a public road because as you know there are some things that are still out there that aren't currently being used that were never properly closed that may still be considered a public road. But this is identifying the things that he can work on using county funds.

We need a motion and second move on regular sessions. Motion by Commissioner Batty, second by Commissioner Petty. Any questions or discussion hearing? None. All in favor vote with stating I. Opposed. Thank you. Item number seven, Nails Adams Road speed limit change. Commissioner Simpkins. Yes.

Between my district and uh Dwight's first and the third there. Um, I've been notified and he has too from people on that road that's uh say that people are driving too fast and like to see the the speed limit change Lord in that area. um like to pass this along on to the sheriff. Uh let him put it on his uh agenda of things to do, I guess, to look at that and let us know something back in next month or so when he gets time to do it. All right, that's motion by Commissioner Simkins. Who's who is the other? Is that Wayne?

Was a second by Commissioner Mane. Uh all in favor of moving this forward vote by stating I

opposed. Thank you. Um, under other business, uh, we I think you're all aware about public chapter 1101, the growth plan. It was initially put in place in 2000. I think it was reopened in 2006. So, it's a 20-year-old growth plan. So what it requires uh to us to do because of the change in that uh and it needed changes because frankly u in my opinion it was a very political document when it was done back then uh about and the growth plan basically shows areas that the cities can annex into and it also shows parts of the county that the county will reserve. So I just want to make you aware that that's out there. What it required was a meeting of the six municipal mayors and the county mayor and it was the first time we had all seven of us in a room together. So it's like getting a unicorn. It was exciting. Um but we u we met uh worked that out. The city of of uh Sladen and Vanier chose not to participate which means their growth area what it is will stay the same. But Charlotte Burns, Dixon and White Bluff and along with the county we're all doing that. So, we're in the process now of going through the proper notifications. Uh, and the notification was placed in the paper. It has to go to the planning commission initially for a po do they have the public hearing, Mr. Reagan? And you can probably explain as better I can.

Uh, I know we have it here. Uh, I'm not sure about the planning commission because Mr. Mills in our office has been the one handling it, but uh, I think we're on track right now for a February public hearing. I think the city of Dixon is going to be doing uh February, March um time frame. I'm not sure about Burns. Same. Okay.

Well, and and so what that does, it shows we're annex. So, you'll have there's a whole bunch of legal steps we have to take. The first was me getting the agreement. We sent out the letter. We've set this. We go through the public hearing process. Then we have to put together a committee and it's very specific about players across the county on this. I think the good news is that all the cities and you and especially with uh Burns, White Bluff and Dixon all intersecting with each other, they've kind of worked their area out so it's not going to be an issue. Uh the county is going to be more targeted. We used when it was done 20 years ago, it just kind of encircled everything which made it appear you didn't want to allow the cities to grow. So, we were It was a great meeting. I think everybody pretty much agreed on it. I don't

Is that Mayor Williams? Okay. Wow. [laughter] I didn't mean to pick the scab off there. It was Maybe I said too much. [snorts] But it's going to be a it's a good plan and everybody is pretty much left in agreement. And so, we'll make that available to you before uh the meeting. It's a GIS program. you look at it, but it makes a lot of sense this time. And uh the county gave up a lot of land that was just keeping Burns, Dixon, and White Bluff glued together. It made no sense for the county to have it because we're not going to let a city develop there. We don't need to own it. The city's going to do a better job of that. So, uh we'll get that to you and get you the maps on that here. Probably I'll have them at the meeting on the 20th and two weeks from tomorrow on that. But I just want to give you a heads up because those letters are out and the notifications out to planning and from planning and zoning and so if you get calls that's what's going on on that. But y'all will be seeing it shortly. Good. Does anybody else have any announcements? Got two. Mayor um on January the 19th will be Dolly Parton's 80th birthday and I think we need to make that a national holiday.

Agree. I don't know whether we have that authority here tonight to do that or not, but we can add it to dates of significance in Dixon County. So that love to see that. And also that will be my birthday on that that day. We were born she's she's 12 years older than I am. But hey, uh and the other other announcement I like to make is does was anybody made aware of the mayor's birthday today? It is today. And that was going to be my final announcement. Did anybody Did anybody know that? I don't I wasn't I wasn't aware of that. Know that?

Well, listen. I would prefer this being the last birthday I spend with y'all. I would like for y'all to sing to you. I want you to sing happy birthday to me. So, everybody [laughter] on your microphone, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear mayor. Happy birthday to you.

Thank you. I cannot tell you how much y'all improved over the last 15 and a half years. Y'all are You might be able to take this on there, but I've I've been waiting this many years to say it. I'm 67. 67. [laughter] I don't know what that means, but I that that's what I am. Yes, Commissioner. Multure of interest. It's got to be done between now and January 31st. Thank you for doing it. You better get it done. Is everybody familiar with disclosure interest? You all know about that. I tell you,

they will send you a letter and I had to go through that because mine last year I thought I sent that in and my wife was sick and was in and out of the hospital and she always did that. I got a letter about June of that year, last June, notifying me I'd have a $10,000 fine if I didn't get it rectified. And lucky enough, I talked to Brian and he kind of helped me on it, but I got out I got out of it. But they will they will send you a letter.

They whacked me for a whole $25. I got mine down from 10,000 one time. So, I learned my lesson on that. The other thing I really want to take time to appreciate is because I know we're, you know, campaign season starting to heat up is the fact that the three mayoral candidates or county commissioners are showing a level of unity that they're all wearing their same style shirt. And [laughter] I I appreciate that cuz [laughter] there just, you know, it just shows it goes beyond politics sometime. It's about brotherhood. So, thank you. I appreciate that. [laughter]

I don't have any more business, but thank you for the birthday wishes and commissioner, thank you. I thought I was going to get you cuz it's on a Monday and we don't show back up for two weeks in one day because of the holiday. So, always remember my birthday. There you go. Good call. Thank you. If there's no objection, the ne the next uh the last announce will be the next work session meeting will be on Monday, February 2nd, 2026 at 7 p.m. the Beaverdale bey junior county commission chamber the county administration building for court square Tennessee. I have a motion second adjourn.