Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Call to vote. Commission meeting order of August the 6th, 2026. Welcome all of our guests that are with us today. Mr. Chase, you do the prayer for me? Yes, sir. Please rise.

Lord, we come to you today. We thank you, Lord, for all your many blessings. Lord, your grace and your mercy. The joy that we can have, Lord, through you. We thank you for those things. Help us today. Lead us in his wisdom and knowledge as we carry out our work. Let us be the best that we can in what we do. And for the people that we serve, Lord, we ask you to keep your hand on this country and this county. Lord, keep our men and women safe as they're out on the roads working. And Lord, in all the things that we do, we only want it to go to the uplifting and building of your kingdom. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

You do have a set of minutes in front of you. Any discussion on those? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. This time I have public comment period and I will go first to Mr. Ronnie Bogus. I said that wrong?

Bogus.

Bogus, sorry.

You got close.

I'll take your name and address for the record.

My name is Ronnie Bogus, 3936 Stewart's Ferry Pike. I'm here at Tennessee. just basically trying to see if we could get the speed limit lowered from 45 down to 35 on Stewardsbury Pike from Mount Juliet Road down to the South Street Market, Corinth Road. And we've listened to a few of our concerns, but over the 30 years that we've lived there, there have been a lot of accidents just across from us. There's a guardrail which crossed from our house at Lyon Road And I'd say about every year and a half, there's probably somebody who runs off the road right there. And from that area, it's like a drag strip through there. And it doesn't matter which direction, going toward Mount Juliet Road or coming back. Everybody just floors it right there. So it's just dangerous. And we have a list of some of the things that we were concerned about And we have a short list of some of our neighbor signatures. And these are just people that are close to us that have been affected either by cars plowing over their mailbox multiple times or maybe they're finding a car that just ended up in their yard going too fast.

And what was your request to go from where, from 45 to 35?

Down to 35 from Mount Juliet Road. Down to basically where the new bridge is going to be opened up at. That's Corinth Road.

Thank you for that. Next I have Michael and Tiffany Barrett.

My name is Michael Barrett. This is Tiffany Barrett. We live at 199 Knee Road in Watertown. And our concern today is the bridge on Knee Road. It currently was just assessed this May or June, and the previous assessment was 2024. But currently it's only rated at four tons for a two-axle vehicle, and there are some repairs they are showing needed to be done. So our concern with that is four tons. I mean, you can't even drive a dually pickup over that legally.

School bus.

Yeah, and there is four farms on the other side of that bridge, us included and our neighbor. He has a 130-acre farm. There's another cattle farm between us, and then there's a couple row crop farms. So you can imagine, we've had trouble getting equipment delivered for the farm. Can't get a dump truck over it, concrete truck. I mean, we honestly... Technically, I can't pull a pickup truck over it legally.

There's no other access?

Yeah, and it is a dead end road. It's just a narrow one lane country road, but it poses challenges for us to get anything there.

The sufficiency rating is 41.2, it says. It just keeps degrading. So our worry is if it keeps going, then what happens because we can't get out any other way because there's the creek that runs along all those farms.

So, yeah, it just has posed some challenges since you've been there. I can't get a pickup or anything over the trailer. I mean legally, you know, my neighbor hauls cows to auction and I can't get a tractor over it. I can't get a service truck over it to service a tractor.

Road machine comes and they drive tractors over it to do the, you know, keeping the trees mowed and everything.

Which is great. Yeah. But that's our concern. Okay. Awesome. We'll address it. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Murphy, I'll go to you on the first one on the speed limits and 45 to 35. Okay.

I just had to get signatures, but now this speed limit out there on Stewart's Fair has been changed multiple times. We went from 35 to 45. 35 to 45. And I mean, you know, we're on the board, but we just keep going back and forth, back and forth. It ain't been long since we just raised it to 45, I think. It's been about 10 years. But I mean, that's, we'll let y'all if y'all want to do it, but I mean, you know.

They've got about 10 signatures on here.

Yeah, and we're supposed to have 25. What's the... And you go splitting it up, splitting the road up like that, it's kind of, you know, I don't really like to do that.

What's the role of the board?

I don't know. What do you think, Bruce? I mean, as far as, that's, that's quite a few I guess down that stretch I mean we're doing it I'll make a motion we do it change it from 30 45 to 35 very second second and then the number of homes there down that road we need

certain percentage of those i think is right because we if it's not 20 25 is a normal route we go but if you don't have 25 in the area then we get just a certain percentage of that from south mountain road to the bridge there should be 25 there's at least 25 on down through there okay so so i got a motion a second to do that can you finish up the names list for us and bring them back to us i'll certainly try okay i basically like i said i got those uh from the people that are right in our area who have

experienced firsthand maybe a death, the death of Dr. Hill and others who ran off the road or had someone run off the road into their yard, a neighbor across the street. It happened, like I said, about once every year and a half or so. Usually on New Year's, but it's pretty frequent.

So I guess on my motion was to add that when you get to 25, it'll bring it back to y'all and y'all take care of it. Is that fair to know? Go to the full commission. Right, right.

So I got a motion and a second to do this if you'll bring the 25 back next month and appear before the road commission and get that done and get it to a resolution to the county commission following month. Okay.

I'll just write it back here next month.

Yes, sir. If you would. Yes, sir. All in favor say aye. No. Got one no and two yeses. Okay. How about knee road bridge?

New Road has been five tons for the last probably five or six years. We have went up there, Chase and I both have went up there. Other than painting the beams, we don't know what the issue is with it. I mean, the state's got it to five tons. I mean, you know, we're having this trouble everywhere. The beams are adequate on it. They do need to be painted. That's one of the big gripes. I know there was an issue with the wing wall that we worked on. So other than that, it's a state thing.

So the state, according to what she brought us, he brought us that it was four-ton, but you're saying no, it's not?

No, we got it posted. The state posted five-ton, so it's five-ton.

It is five-ton.

Yes.

On that sheet I brought, it says four-ton for a single axle, 4.7 ton for two axles, and that was published June of 2016. Okay. From the latest. But there is five-ton signs up there now.

Okay. And so what are, I think, they're concerned about being able to get equipment in and out?

I don't know what to tell them. Well, my only other thing, you mentioned the word up here that's dead end.

Mm-hmm.

So if you shut that bridge down, you ain't gonna get out nowhere.

You're right.

That's what we've told you.

You can't get out of there. Right.

Yeah, we've talked about that.

I mean, a lot of people, for a long time, people went through the creek, which I know I wouldn't want to go through the creek, and I'm sure they don't want to go through the creek, but there used to be a place where they'd been going through the creek.

If you built a new bridge beside the old bridge and kept the old one open, if there was a way to do that, what would that bridge be waiting for?

Well, a new bridge, I mean, it would be up to the state.

Which is what?

It just depends on our 40-ton, I'd say. 40-ton? Because, I mean, we'd have to be up to the state specs.

Is there a possibility for us to acquire some property beside it or be able to do that like you're doing at some other place?

You'd have to buy a property. I mean, we'd have to acquire a property to do that. the only way you're going to so because when they come in and shut that bridge down like they've done to us before i don't i don't see them shutting it down but now that not to say that i ain't wrong but i don't i don't because there's not that much wrong with it i just don't we can't really i don't see what their graph is on the bridge it won't get linked to that

we got shut down, but I do have a good relationship with the guys at the state over that. If we can wait until next month, I will call them and see further in. If there's something that we can do to help beef it up a little bit. Because I walked up on this the other day.

It's stout.

It's one of our better breeds.

It's 94 feet, and you have your two filings on each end and two in the middle, so they're not even 25 feet apart, and you're getting me. It's I've crawled underneath there and I'm like, not that I'm a bridge engineer, but I've had people come out and look at it too and they said, that bridge will hold anything you put on it. So I don't know what the issue is.

The issue is AI. I can tell you the issue. It's AI.

And I've had love that the state has met me on another bridge we had concern. And look, if we can bring it back home. I'll see to it this month to see if I can get some more. There used to be a tractor and trailer more across the baby.

So you're not concerned about the safety. You're just concerned about the labeling of the weight tonnage, correct? Right.

We've got several across the county that's got this on them.

Couldn't say that bridge right there. I've been down before. Yeah.

I mean, if I go back there and work, I'll take my trucks across. Yeah. Because the bridge is not that, it's just, I'm telling you, it's structurally still good.

So, Chase, if you will, then, no need for me to come back next month. You can report back to us next month. But are there phone numbers on here once you communicate? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Seeing no other public comment, we will move forward. I can get this paperwork back to him. You sure can. Yes. Thank you very much. There you go, sir. All right. Thanks. Assistant Superintendent report.

Mr. Chase.

On their subdivision list, we added a pressure at Christian School, added a letter of credit. They're going to do a little widening on Colesbury there for their school. They're doing some adding on to the school. And in that adding, they're going to add a center turn lane in front of their school with the entrances. So they have got the plans and the letter created in to do that. We added the grove at Horn Springs. That's another little addition. Down there with Horn Drive, they're actually putting the stone on it today, but they've got their letter created in and working on that addition as well. Cedar Tree out there on East Old LaGuardia, it went from the list to the two-year maintenance. They got all that work done per plan out there, so we got them over on the two-year maintenance. for that project. Outside of that, I just want to give a little update on East Division because we had a lot of work going on out there. It is back open. I do know it's not the best case scenario. There's a little bit of a lane shift and stuff going on there. Had a little bit of an engineering problem that they had to work through. We're gonna have to do a little widening on the north side of it, but I did get in a meeting We did get the okay to go ahead and start the wing walls on the south side, get all of them in, and start the widening, the actual widening for the turning lane, so it's not going to hold us up. The worst it will be, it might go down to one lane with Flagman at some point when they go back to the north side on the wing walls, but it shouldn't be closed anymore. But that rain shift concerns me a little bit, and I know people have called and explained I'm hoping we're Got the okay, I'm hoping it won't take us too long to at least straighten it out and get it more safe.

Appreciate all your work on getting it back open for us before school started. Also with the flagman helping us on the detour, had those calls.

Yes, and that's another thing. We do know the damages on Hickory Ridge and Sullivan's Lane. We thought once we can get that squared away, we will come back and fix it.

Would that company help you do that where you don't have to do it since it was, no, okay?

Not on that part. Not on that part. That was a big thing on this. That box that was there before we done this was hand-laid rock. And that thing, I walked it when this project came along. It's in pretty bad shape. And, I mean, it cost quite a bit. They had to bring a crane in to set that because it's so deep down in there. And, yeah. it you know i know it was aggravating but i i mean that was a big piece of that box was a big deal it cost a lot of money getting that in there so uh that's another reason why i can't get them to fix some of the other stuff i think they went there leaning on setting that box bringing the crane in and but it's a big deal well i appreciate both of you looking at looking ahead having that developer help you with that that's good for all of us and so

You had the foresight. I know I talked to Kristen, and she said, hey, look, a little while ago, Mr. Murphy and them said, hey, let's get this box fixed while we're there. So, well, then, convenience, but you did the right thing, and that's on them and not on us, and so that's a good thing, too. Yes, sir. Yeah, okay. That's all I got on the subdivisions. Any questions for Mr. Chase? We have a motion to approve his report. Motion to approve.

Second.

Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Superintendent report, Mr. Steve Murphy.

uh first thing i got uh the road closure there at east oligarda where they put the new light in there uh actually right in front of mr commissioner balkanard there the old where the old road goes in been requested to shut it down make everybody go to the light which is probably a good thing because somebody trying to come out there and i wanted to that y'all know that we've got stuff to do that, make sure y'all are on board with doing that.

That could be a good thing.

But I mean, it's so close to the light there, it's a wonder the state didn't make us do it, but I know they were, before they kind of would like to have that shut down. And plus, the red light now opened, a lot of our neighbors are using the red light, so it's backing the traffic up more. So I think it would be a lot smarter. I think it would be a lot, it would be good. But we've got, I think we've got all the signage to do that, don't we? It's ordered, and I'll let it come in. We're going to get the signage up, and we've got to take out so much asphalt off of the state, we put it all back dirt, so we're going to do that ourselves. But we'll get the signage up first and probably give it a week before we actually get there. Let everybody know.

So the board can approve the shutdown, and does it need to, I know we have to do something when we shut our road down, right? on the legal side. I've always been told that. So is that something that we need to go online?

Sure. I talked to Michael back. I guess that would be just so you know, everybody knows this. It's not

is shutting that entrance off but it's not really changing it's not changing the road itself we're just shutting off the entrance but i mean we probably need to get mike to yeah see what we need to yeah i think so yeah because you know i just know every time we talk about shutting the road down or doing away with one or whatever he says hey it's a long process we've got to go do that so we'll approve that if you're good with that today is there a motion to close make a motion to close it second somebody all in favor say aye aye okay and then We'll turn it over to you to get it to the legal side of what has to be done.

The next thing is the gate there at Odom Lane we've had some issues with. Well, I think you weren't here last night. Another one of the gates that was put in for the city. Chase has talked to the city and I think you've got the email. I've got the email here. But they're wanting us to put up a special kind of barricades And I mean, I don't think, if it's our gate, we ought to put up where we want to. Which they said they don't have a problem with us closing it, but they want a certain kind of barricade in case they want to use it. So they, I don't know, I know I talked to Joey about it, and Joey said he didn't have, at Weiman, he said he didn't have a problem, and he was supposed to get me a letter, but they hadn't got it yet. So I don't know what y'all want to, how y'all want to handle this. It's supposed to be our gate. And what I was going to do is go out there and just put rock up, about four foot high to block it off. But now the city is saying they want some kind of special kind of barricade.

Is that so if there's an emergency they can get through? Yeah. Okay. But I mean... Does the Sheriff's Department have any issue? I didn't talk to the Sheriff's Department. Why don't you check, just check with all of our emergency services and stuff. Well, no, I talked to Joey. Yeah, bring that back to us next month.

But I mean... Steve, what does that mean, special kind of barricades? Yeah, what's it cost? Well, that's what I don't know. Probably been plastic ones probably. Well, the thing about the plastic is they won't last no time. That's the reason I was going to put rock in. I mean, if it has to be moved, we can always move the rock. Right.

You can explore the emergency situation with Dave for the bill on that?

Well, I asked Chase about that, and the guy never did respond back to Chase after we told him about the rock.

Yeah, in the meetings prior, when this all came about, it was under my understanding it was going to happen. I know it's at the end of Barrett right away there, but it's like the other gate. It's supposed to have been the seat, and it should have had a knock box and all that. And that's why I recently reached out to Bert to tell him, you know, I thought maybe it just didn't get done and why can't we put that on because that would slow people, because it just had regular old locks by over here at Walmart. Only people were just cutting it and busting through it. And that's when they said it wasn't their gate. But that was the whole reason why it got put in because we didn't want to connect there. And that's why we allowed them because they wanted to for emergency reasons. If they didn't want to do it, or if they wanted to do it, I feel like they should put what they need there if it's their game to use.

So for sure, if you come back after our people have talked, and then the board wants to do that, it would be at their cost. If not, then you just do what you normally would do, and we'll bring it back next month. Okay.

I'm going to tell you, if you don't put something good there, these trucks are going to go through it.

And then this Odom Lane, this I guess is going to a subdivision?

No, it actually comes out onto just Odom Lane, though, there's an old road there, and there's, I don't know, probably 1,520 houses down that road.

Are the other accesses for these people, other than one access?

No, that's the only access they got.

So just the one access?

Well, they've always just had one access.

Okay, so when you cut this off, how do they get home? Well, they've got the one access that they've had for years. Gotcha. And this was the second one.

Well, this was actually just going into the city development, the warehouses.

They didn't want it to begin with. Got it. Because I knew when we had our Callis Road meeting that everybody was good at that time.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, the people on the old one actually didn't want it to begin with. That's the reason we told the city we need to put up a gate. Because the city said they had to have a second access. But now they don't, the way I understand it, well they're putting another warehouse down there so they're going to have two accesses is the way I understand it.

Okay. We'll let you come back to us next month.

Okay. To this day, we've paved 10.44 miles. We're still paving, but I'm going to tell you, we're not going to get the mileage like we normally get. With all this construction going on, we're having to go back and fix places just like Hicker Ridge. We're going to have to go in there and fix it, and that's going to cut us. I mean, I've got to take a paving bunch down there and do it, because they have tore Hicker Ridge off places where this detour was at. Now, can we get any money back off that? No. I mean, it's like Chase said, you know, we were able to get them to fix that box cover. So, I mean, that was a pretty big deal because I ain't done what that cost. That thing was, what is it, 8 by 10, 8 by 12? 8 by 12. And it's, what, 50 foot wide. So, I mean, that's a bigger chunk. That helped us. So, I mean, you know, Give and take a little bit there. Give and take a little bit. Which is an area anyway, so we're hoping we can go through there and add a couple of shows to put on each side to help widen it out some.

He'll be happy with that for sure. While we're on that, what about our guy Luke?

Unless we had that layer that we talked about, they did not want to fix it until they widened it. And I just don't, I don't think it's smart or under parked to lose the white moon, because I think it needs to be white.

And that's an agreement they had with the city anyway, so we can't void that. But I will go back to him, because I wish he would fix that road for us right now.

I'll talk to him and try to knock him out.

Okay, we'll see if we can do something.

They were willing to pave it, but I think it was fair.

Yeah, we can't break that agreement with the city. Anything else?

I got, yeah, well, I got a pageant and

mowers and just doing our general maintenance but that's pretty much all i've got okay any questions yeah i got one um we put up signs of like no dumping signs yes it's beginning to fill up out there at the uh big springs and roll pipe you know what i'm talking about right there in the corner yeah yeah they're done i thought there was some don't know about the signs out there Let's go. Yeah.

Well, see, that's the thing we get into. We put them up and they still.

They take them down, yeah. But, yeah, somebody backed up there and threw tires off the other day.

Yeah, they've always. I knew there was, I thought there was some sign. I used to get no dumping sign there, but they'll still let you pass it.

Yeah, and then right down the road from a fellow commissioner, they're on Bluebird, right before you get to Payton Road, those trees that are sitting right on the road, is that in the right of way? Can we take those down? No. They're on the edge of the pavement. That's what I'm talking about. Are you talking about down there in the curve? No. It's just right when you pass the new fairgrounds gate, those trees are on the side right before you get to Payton Road. It's right in front of the two houses there before you get to Payton Road going back towards... Going back north? Yeah. I'd have to look at it.

I know there's, down in that curve, we've had an issue with all them trees. You know where it runs kind of parallel with the interstate and then you go around the curve? Oh, yeah. Them trees there, them people for a long time would have just cut all them, but see, they're off right away. I thought that's what you were talking about.

No, this one, these are actually, they hit your mirrors on your truck. Oh, okay.

Yeah.

They've been there for years, but now you're getting so much traffic that you've got to stop.

just look at it yeah just look here i do have one other thing i was just going to inform y'all we uh we've been having trouble with no we're not having trouble with a lot of times we need a skid steer somewhere and still taking a whole little boy i've checked on a just a regular tilt back trailer bumper style But it's under the bid limit, so I just wanted to inform you. We're going to probably buy one. I can get one for about $8,200. And it will sure help us as far as getting around what to pick up and pull on a skid steer. It'll be a lot easier. Yeah.

It's good to have them take a local one. A lot of money. A lot of fuel saved. Yeah. I did have one more thing. I know y'all talked to Tony. So where are we at on that? What's that? Reed. Tony Reed. The road out there, Canasta. We'll have to wait. We talked about it last month.

As soon as we get it on the road list, which will be in January, sometime the first of next year, we'll try to get it through us. We'll have to wait, you know, get through winter. As soon as it gets where we can, we'll try to go up there and figure out where the line is and fix that. Okay.

Any other questions, comments? Do you have a motion to approve this report? So moved. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you, sir. Anything from the county attorney?

No, it worked this month.

All right. Any old business? Yeah, I wanted to bring something up, Bob.

If you didn't get a chance to see the mayor's planes, trains, and automobile presentation, you missed out. And I had a great table, and Steve was up on the panel. It was a good panel, and I've got to tell you, if you haven't, You ought to go up and see it. It's been videoed by the Pig Channel and it can be viewed. And the thing that jumps out at me is just if you look at the enormous amount of money that the state spends on roads and how much roads cost, $10 million a mile per lane. Think about that for a second. It's just so expensive. You have to park. There's no way to build anything without parking. The state of Tennessee. You say $10 million? $10 million. that's if you don't have bridges and bad you gotta count your drainage and your bridges and i mean engineering right away it's it's got the greatest guy it's crazy and so that's ridiculous if you go i would encourage everybody on the road commission to look at that that meeting it was a good one uh mayor i'll have to give it to you you did a good presentation there's a lot of

Thank you. So let's get back to this because I'm trying to get some roads paved too. And so are you saying that's building a new road? That's a new road. Straight from dirt to, okay, all right, I'll take that. I thought you were talking about just, I thought you were talking about paving and widening. No, no, no.

So I'm actually buying, you know, right away, moving utilities. Okay. Drainage. Yeah. I mean, you take that bridge over on Stewart's Bridge, 2.4 feet. Yeah, and where are we at on that? Is it open? Well, I'm glad you brought that up. They're supposed to pour the deck next week. That's what the plan says. And then it's a month after that, right? Well, it's got to set 27 days after that. There won't be nothing going on. Eastover, still the same? Eastover, all the permits are in. We're hopefully maybe either this week or the first next week get a bid date to bid it. so we're hoping and back and forth with the feds a couple times yeah they sent the structures back they had to change some comments on it and they sent them back and now we've got all of our permits a matter of fact i signed all the permits and finished signing them all yesterday for the tdac and utilities so they gotta send that to the state and they got it to the state so now we're waiting on you know try to get you to send it to gilson

Any other old business? Any new business? Motion to adjourn.