October
Report
More
Political
Games
The political machine Commissioners
continued playing their
silly games in October.
You may remember that the Mayor
tried to cut
the budgets of
political machine bosses like Sheriff Berrong. The
Mayor also combined
the
position of Human Resources (HR) Director with another
position, and
saved the
taxpayers $100,000 per year. The Mayor tried to get
employees to pay
less than
$50 per month for their medical benefits, which cost
the County more
than $800
per month. These actions did not please the machine
bosses and their
Commissioner followers, most of whom are County
employees, or have
close
relatives who are. And so the political games began.
Several months ago, the machine
Commissioners decided that
they would hire their own HR Director, and have that
person report
directly to
the Commission HR Committee, where 9 of the 10 members
are County
employees or
their relatives. This would take the HR authority away
from the Mayor
and put a
Commission committee, dominated by employees, in
charge of salary and
benefit
policies. In
August, this
action was determined to be illegal.
Amazingly, this
did not stop the stupidity. The machine Commissioners
put the same
illegal
resolution back on the Commission agenda in September.
Then, they
postponed it
until October. At the October Agenda meeting, I
suggested that the
Commission
ought to be embarrassed to continue carrying an
illegal resolution on
its
agenda. I made a motion to kill the resolution. I
guess the machine
Commissioners are incapable of being embarrassed,
because they defeated
my
motion. Commissioners Carver, Caylor, Farmer, French,
Gamble, Greene,
Hasty,
Helton, Kirby, Lail, Lambert, Lewis, Melton and Moon
all voted
to continue
carrying the illegal motion on the agenda.
Only Burchfield,
Murrell, Samples,
Wright and myself voted to stop this nonsense.
The political games continued with
a
resolution to revoke
the Mayor’s authority to allocate space in county
buildings, and put
those
decisions in the hands of a new Commission committee.
Commissioners
Helton and
Melton rushed forward with a motion to appoint a
committee made up of
friends
of the political machine. Several other Commissioners,
including
myself,
suggested that it might be wise to define the
responsibilities and
limits of the
powers of this committee. Helton suggested that this
was unnecessary
and pushed
the proposed committee, with unlimited powers, to a
vote. I am happy to
say
that reason prevailed on this one. Commissioners
Burchfield, French,
Gamble,
Greene, Lewis, Murrell, Samples, Wright and myself
voted to insist on
defining
the responsibilities and powers of this committee,
before its
appointment. This
is to be done within two months. All this nonsense was
unnecessary,
because
Mayors have been doing this job in the county, for
years.
Unfortunately, the political
clique is determined to extract their pound of flesh
from Mayor
Mitchell for
trying to cut their budgets .
Bad
Ideas
That Never Go Away
A new zoning ordinance that would
permit
campgrounds to be
established, on as little as 5 acres, in residential
areas, was
brought before
the Commission for a public hearing last April. A
number of citizens
raised
serious questions about the proposal. No minimum
buffer distances to
adjoining
residential properties were specified. The proposed
ordinance permits
campers
to stay for as long as 270 days. Several citizens
suggested that this
sounds
more like a trailer park, or migrant worker facility,
than a
campground. The
ordinance did not spell out any objective limits on
noise or light
pollution.
Citizens did not warm to the possibility of campers
playing loud rap
music a
few feet from their property lines. When the ordinance
came up for a
vote in
April, a second could not even be found.
Unfortunately, a virtually
identical
campground resolution
has been sent to the Commission again. Another public
hearing is to be
held on
November 8. Several Commissioners thought it was a
waste of the
Commission’s
and citizens’ time to be bringing up the same poorly
drafted
resolution.
Commissioner French made a motion to postpone action
on a new hearing
until
citizens’ comments from the April hearing could be
incorporated. Only
French,
Gamble, Moon, Samples and myself voted to stop this
attempt to cram
this bad
resolution down the throats of the citizens.
The Pellissippi Parkway Extension
came up
again. This $100
million project would extend Pellissippi from route 33
to route 321 in
Walland,
cutting up some of the most scenic farms in the
county. The inevitable
result
will be more subdivisions along the route. Major
additions to the
crushing
$220 million of county debt will be needed to pay for
additional
schools to serve those
subdivisions. This will result in large future county
tax increases,
because
the cities of Maryville and Alcoa have already
announced their
intention to
annex the commercial development along the route.
Several months ago
TDOT held a public hearing,
attended by hundredsof citizens. Approximately 30
people spoke about
the project. Only one
favored the road. TDOT surveyed more than 550 people.
More than 65% opposed the project. At the Commission
meeting, more than
15
citizens spoke. Only one, Bryan Daniels, head of the
Industrial
Development
Board, favored the project. You would think that a
$100 million project
that is
opposed by more than 65% of the citizens would be a
no-brainer for the
Commission. Think again! Commissioners Burkhalter,
Carver, Caylor,
Farmer,
Harrison, Hasty, Helton, Kirby, Lail, Lambert, Lewis,
Melton, Moon,
Samples and
Wright all voted
to ignore
the citizen input and approve the project.
Only
Commissioners French, Gamble, Greene, Murrell and
myself voted to
follow the
wishes of the citizens.
Both the Tea Parties and the Occupy
protesters are sending
the same message – it is time government started
listening to the
citizens.
That listening needs to start here in Blount County –
NOW. Please
attend the
next Commission meeting and
tell your Commissioners it is time they started
listening to you.
Only YOU can change
YOUR government
PLEASE
come to
the Commission meeting Thursday, November 17th
at 7:00pm in Room 430 of
the Courthouse
