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The Women in Business reconvened their monthly meetings at Tennessee College of Applied Technology on Friday and welcomed guest speaker Hamblen County Mayor Bill Brittain.

Brittain spoke about upcoming and currently developing projects in Hamblen County as well as touching on County government matters.

He welcomed the group back after its summer break and delved into his presentation on the influx of growth occurring in Hamblen County.

“There’s a lot going on in Hamblen County, Morristown TN. I know I am biased but we are the envy of East Tennessee because economically our economy is strong, and I’ll show you data that supports that. We have lots of job opportunities and businesses opening and lots going on on the government level as well,” Brittain began.

Growth seems to be the recurring buzzword for Hamblen County, and with growth comes the need to do an overhaul on the infrastructure of the county.

Throughout his presentation Brittain showed the audience a slideshow of charts and graphs, a heat map offered visual representation of how locations of certain government buildings such as the Health Department are determined.

“The reason I put this on here is to answer the question of why are you putting the health department in what seems to be out of the main flow of traffic in town. What this heat map shows is that the clients of the health department, this is where they live, so we are placing the health department near where the folks who use our services live,” Brittain said.

Brittain then went on to describe how the new building will be more efficient for individuals in need of its services.

“The new Health Department will be 12,000 square feet and will all be on one level. The Health Department right now is 14,000 square feet, but it’s very inefficient in its’ design. The only way you can get from downstairs to upstairs is by stairway. This new location will be all in one space, ground level and there will be a community room there that can be used by community groups,” Brittain explained.

Brittain touched on the construction of the new Justice Center and how updating this facility will help with safety within the community.

“The justice center project that began about a year ago is about 45% complete, it will house 621 prisoners at capacity. Before Covid we reached a peak of 472 of I think both men and women for 255 beds. In the women’s section we had about 120 per 68 beds. It’s a facility that was built in 1979 so it’s outdated and it’s dangerous for the inmates as well as the employees. This new design will be much, much safer for everybody, for the public, for the COs and for the inmates,” Brittain said.

Brittain also spoke on the subject of landfills and how waste collection policies have changed as they work to improve waste management and extend the life of the existing landfills while they work to make necessary expansions.

“Our landfill expansion out in south Hamblen County, it may have 4-6 months of space left in it for residential garbage. We’ve been working the last year and a half to two years to expand it, we’ve got expansion planned that will last about 14 years, but we’ve bought some property that can separate construction waste and brush, dispose of them in what we call a class 3 landfill and not take up space where we dispose of residential garbage. This will extend the life of our main landfill, our class 1 residential garbage, by years. The purchase of the C&D landfill and the 87 acres from GFL, plus the 50 acres that we own will extend the life of our landfill by about 50 years. It’s a long term move that we made,” Brittain explained.

Hamblen County is the only county in Tennessee to offer garbage, recycle and bulk waste collection at the curb. As Hamblen County works to improve the efficiency of their garbage department, they have implemented a new policy that will come into effect on September 1. Beginning then, Hamblen County residents, contractors and businesses will be responsible for the disposal of all construction waste at the Morristown/Hamblen County Landfill. The Hamblen County Garbage Department will no longer collect and dispose of construction waste.

Brittain also talked about the much anticipated construction of the new Lincoln Heights Elementary School.

“It was about 5 years ago maybe that me and Dr. (Jeff) Perry took the county commissioners on a tour of Lincoln Elementary,” Brittain began.

“I went to John Hay Elementary back when it first opened in the late 60s and that was the start of the open classroom concept. It’s not as strong of a learning environment as the traditional classroom setting, but back in the late 60s when John Hay opened and then in the 70s when Lincoln and Meadowview opened that was the latest trend in education, the open classroom,” Brittain continued.

“It’s now come back to the traditional classroom. The biggest issue is safety, with the open classrooms students, teachers and administrators aren’t safe because you can’t lock them down if there’s an active shooter situation,” Brittain explained.

“Lincoln Elementary now is hopefully in its last two years, the new school out on Martin Luther King Parkway is under construction and it will hold 700 students and is a much safer learning environment for students,” Brittain said.

Brittain also touched on tax distribution and broke down how revenue growth and county taxes help fund all of the new growth and improvement within the community.

“The growth in sales tax has enabled us to reposition property tax money within our budget, not have to raise taxes, and just manage and be able to pay for some of these capitol projects we have started,” Brittain said.

Brittain concluded his presentation by taking questions from the attendees and took time to personally answer any questions and concerns posed.