Commission - Regular Meeting

Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. The meeting of the Washington County Board of Commissioners is now in session. Pursuant to adjournment, the honorable chairman Greg Maline is presiding. Come to order and remain standing. Thank you, Sheriff. Our first order of business this evening is our prayer led by Commissioner Carter and the pledge led by Commissioner Johnson. Commissioner Carter.

Thank you. If you'll bow your heads, please. Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for this day. We give you thanks for the the warm weather that we're getting and uh we can see some of the first blooms and green up happening and we uh we're very thankful for that. Um, Father, we'd like to uh remember our troops tonight and our military. And we ask that you just keep them safe. And Father, we ask that our leaders um that they just keep praying to you and uh that your spirit will guide them in doing the right things for for all of humanity. Um during our meeting tonight, we ask that you keep our minds clear and that you help us to uh make decisions that would help glorify you. We love you. Amen.

Amen. Please join me in honoring this great nation. I pledge 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.

Madam clerk, if you'll call the role, please. here. Here

we have 10 present, five absent. We do have a quorum. Move right on into approval of the agenda. Uh this item uh we will need to suspend a rule to approve the agenda this evening. Um Commissioner Wheeler. Mr. Chairman, um I'm I'm going to make the motion to do that, but I I do want to say I wish we'd had an opportunity for one of our committees to look at this. I understand that this has been known for quite a long time that it needed to be done, but um but it does need to be done. And with that said, I'll make the motion to suspend the rules. to consider this tonight.

Do we have a second to suspend a rule? Second by Commissioner Wexler. All in favor of suspending the rule to consider the agenda signify by saying I. I. All opposed. The motion passes. We will go now and uh approve the agenda as it is before you. This is special call session. Um, all in favor of approving the agenda as presented signify by saying I. I.

All opposed. And the agenda is approved. We'll open the floor now for public comment. Uh, well, seeing none, we have no public comment this evening. No one has signed up. So, we'll close the meeting or the public comment period and move right on into the uh agenda item. The first item on this uh agenda is resolution 260301 is a resolution requesting that the members of the Tennessee General Assembly representing Washington County, Tennessee introduce and seek passage of a private act to reenact the provision of the regional retail tourism development district act which was enacted as a public chapter number 498 by the Tennessee General Assembly in 2019 as local legislation. applicable to Washington County, Tennessee. Do we have a motion now or or what be the pleasure of the commission?

Motion to approve. Motion to approve by Commissioner Davenport. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Johnson. We'll open the floor up for discussion. Uh Kathy Baller, city manager, is here with us tonight. And she has some guests with her that she would like to introduce, I'm sure. Kathy, if you'll come forward to the podium and uh we're glad you're here. We we definitely may need may have a few questions at time. So, thank you so much for being here.

Totally understand. Thank you, U, Mr. Chairman, and members of the commission. I really appreciate you all having this special meeting and again, I'm sorry for the for it being expedited. Um we are asking to reconsider or to consider a resolution that would go to the state. Uh we have our city attorney, our attorney here, Mark Mamoto, to explain why we're asking for this. Uh and we also have Alicia Summers who's our economic development director and also helps support the county as well. So we'll be happy to answer any questions, but first I'd like to turn it over to Mark Mamatov to explain a little bit more and answer any of your questions.

Mark, this is not your first visit here, Washington County, is it? No, but no judicial commissioners tonight. So, I'm really happy. Last time I was here, it was a quite a discussion. So, thank you. It was great. It's great to see you. I know you're trying to get out of here. I I'm really here just to answer questions. I wanted to thank Allison for looking this over so quickly. Thank you guys. I know it was inconvenient um to meet tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, so when they adopted this act in 2019, it applies to uh a a population class of 100 uh, you know, between a thing that only Washington County could fit in. I mean, it would be a miracle if any other county ever fit in in it. And because of that, someone could easily argue this is local legislation instead of a public act. It's really unclear under the Tennessee Constitution as to that. And so we're talking about if they ever, you know, if we find the right developer for a project in Washington County to do this, we wanted to make sure it's bulletproof because the sales tax revenues off of a big project could result in, you know, $100 million of financing. And we needed an un unassalable statute so that we could make sure that this is done. This basically would make it bulletproof so that that that there's no question that this way we have the public act and this way we would also have it approved as local legislation. I just want to emphasize it would come back to you all. All you are being asked tonight is please introduce this if it passed it then by state constitution it would come back to you all and then would have to be approved by two-thirds vote of this body. So this is just the first step. It's just the traditional step with this type of act because if you guys don't want to do this, your legislators would want to know that so that they don't take the time to do it. But this is not binding you all to accept this. That would come at the end of the legislative session. And I know you all seen private acts come to you all before, so you sort of know that you I'm sure you know that routine, but that's what this would be. But that's why we're asking you all to do it. We had hoped, and again, I apologize that this came up late. We had hoped to address it internally with the state and things like that, but they

basically said this is a local issue. you need to deal with it locally. So that's when we came to you all and asked if you would help. And it is not a Johnson City law. I just want to be clear. That's why you can't. It applies to Washington County and does not apply to Johnson City. It's a it's a the narrow class of class population class is applying to Washington County, not to the city of Johnson City. So um but but it would benefit all the sales tax revenues obviously is the main reason why you would want to see this do because it obviously helps the schools and things like that. So questions I'm glad to answer. I know again you you didn't plan on being here this evening so thank you. How excuse me no go ahead. How different is this than u the situation at the pinnacle in Bristol?

So the pinnacle in Bristol was the border region act. It's another public act and when it got enacted um it applied to any um jurisdiction within 12 milesi basically of the border. It did not have any population classes in it whatsoever. So when they basically plagiarized the border region act to try to do it for Washington County um we didn't get a chance I mean I heard about it the day it went to the last committee and I immediately raised my hand and said guys you ought to fix this. Well, it didn't get fixed because it was too late in the legislative session and then CO hit and so nobody there was never a dream that we'd have opportunities. But now with CO well behind us, you're seeing retail just blossoming again. And so you'll have an opportunity to essentially do the border region type thing in Washington County. And the statute is very similar. There's some minor differences between the two, but the big difference is there was no population class in the border region. They then closed because there was no population class, they quickly closed down the border region and as a result only three got approved statewide.

Okay.

Well, Ron and I one reason I asked the question, let me clarify that too. Uh I I don't I I know my household and I don't think that we ever spend any money at holiday season or throughout the year in Bristol. we do. Now, that development drew us in and that's taken money outside of Washington County and it's opportunity not only for people to come back to Washington County, but to bring people into Washington County and there's risk with everything, but the greatest risk here is doing nothing. And you know, we don't have time to work wait on a perfect plan. Uh so we react on this one and then we still have control going down the road. It's not over. Is that correct?

Definitely. And if a development moves forward, my guess is you will be hearing a ton about it and a lot of pe you're going to have a lot of things come in front of you. But this is sort of a sorry a predicate to be able to move forward. Thank you. What what committee will this go into, Mark? Um, I'm sorry. I don't know the answer to that because private acts are so weird. You know, I don't know exactly which committee that that they would would go into. I would say state local government, but I'm not sure based on what it would be. So, I honestly don't know. All right. Thank God I'm not a lobbyist. I'm just a bond lawyer. Well, we're going to try to get all we can out of you know here. I'm teasing. I just don't know.

All right. Is there any questions for Allison, our attorney? I know she was with Mark and and they worked on this uh uh her review as well. So Allan is Allison's here for your questions. Also,

I would just tell the commissioners that my review was to put it into the format so that it could be considered by the county. Um, obviously council for Johnson City has was the laboring ore on the substance of it and allowed me to revise it to put the most amount of information into the resolution for you as decision makers but also for the public because moment did share with me the uh public act as it was forwarded. So you do have that as exhibit A. So you can compare that this makes a private act of that public act. But if you had any questions about the tax district itself or anything like that, I would say that that would probably be a maybe even a Kathy Ball or Alicia um Summers type of question. Those would be facts about the operations, but again, this is this only sends it to Nashville um to be requested. It does not bind the county to accept it. So, I hope that kind of breaks down the different roles. um as council for Johnson City advised, this is so that their bond can go through their bond issuance should they need financing that it is um in good order to be considered and that council can give a strong legal opinion about the legality and that's different from what you look at as factfinders like Commissioner Davenport was looking at the draw and that sort of thing. If you have any questions about how it would operate that would be the city. I hope that helps you. But I'm happy to have worked with Mr. Mamoff again. Thank you.

Call the question. All right. Is there any further questions or discussion? Call the question. Questions been called. Madame clerk, if you will call the role, please. Tucker, yes. Johnson, yes. Fitzgerald, yes. Yes. Yes. England. Yes. Wexler. Yes. Yes. Yes. Carter. Yes.

We have 10 yes, five absent. And the resolution passes with exactly a two/3 majority. We have no further business to trans transact tonight. We have no announcements. Do we have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjourn by Commissioner Huffine, second by Commissioner Wexler. All in favor of German signify by saying I. I. All opposed, we're journed.