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The Hamblen County Commission voted to approve a $1,137,500.00 purchase agreement from E-911 to purchase the current Hamblen County Health Department building.

The amendment from Commissioner Mike Richardson to include a refusal clause was included in the contract allowing the county to purchase the facility if E-911 decided to leave.

The sale of the facility will help fund the purchase Oak Tree Plaza for the Hamblen County Health Department. An additional $687,500 will be used from the county’s general funds to purchase the plaza.

The commission also approved to renew the lease for the Employee Health Clinic which is owned by the City of Morristown from November 1, 2023 to December 31, 2024. The county’s goal is to move the clinic to the space at the Oak Tree Plaza once it is purchased and renovated.

At the beginning of the meeting, a member of the community was escorted out by Hamblen County Sheriff’s Department officers after she refused to put away her “recording device” or move to the designated public recording area in the back of the courtroom.

The “recording device” she was holding? An empty phone case. However, the majority of the commission voted that the object she was holding was a distraction, which is the reason the commission created the new guidelines, to stop disruptiveness within commission meetings.

Commission Chairman Chris Cutshaw asked the individual to either put away the object or retreat to the back of the room to the public recording area, where she is allowed to record. She refused and was asked to step out of the meeting by local law enforcement.

She returned to the meeting shortly after speaking with officers and puting the object away.

As the commission meeting resumed, it approved of several budget amendments and resolutions that were approved by the finance committee.

It approved the Register of Deeds office to begin charging a $2 user fee for all documents filed electronically to the office, which will bring in $7,000 to $9,000 in revenue annually.

The two budget amendments made by the school district was also approved.

The first, budget amendment #5, would increase the school district’s general purpose school budget from $97,241,226 to $97,397,702. This comes after the district was awarded two new grants, one that will allow the district to build a veterinary science lab and classroom at East High School and will be used by both East and West, the second would help the districts special education programs county wide.

The second, budget amendment #3, would increase from $11,290,971 to $11,582,488 and this come from the State of TN supply chain assistance grant and will help to cover the increase of food costs.

The commission voted to amend the resolution from the Highway and Garbage Department to purchase a new truck to include researching an Automatic Side Loader Garbage Truck.

“I think for the future of the road department, the city has a truck that reaches out and gets the trash cans and dumps them and we have trucks that an employee stands on the back and gets the trucks,” Commissioner Long said. “The truck we’re looking at is around $200,00 and the automatic truck is around $400,000.”

“I have talked with the mayor and it looks like that if we bought the automatic truck we would save the county money over four years if we didn’t have to pay the employee on the back of the truck.”

Commissioner Kyle Walker asked if the county would have to replace the garbage cans for the automatic truck to work.

The representative for the department said that he spoke with the company that outsources the county’s trash cans and they believe the cans should work, but that is not a definite answer.

“We will not only have the cost of just the truck but maybe more trash cans and the increase on fuel because the trucks only go on one side,” Walker said. “I do think it’s a great idea, but we need to look at more than just the employee cost of it.”

The commission voted to change the 10 day information rule to 5 days that was approved by the Rules Review Committee.

The rule states that contracts presented to the commission shall be put in either the regular committee packet or the regular commission packet to be discussed at either the committee or regular commission meeting and that no action may be taken until after five days.

The commission clarified that this rule change would not affect regularly scheduled meetings since they take place 10 days apart.

“You have to have scheduled special meeting before the 5 day rule would even come into play,” Cutshaw said. “Our natural movement is 10 days and the new rule wouldn’t come into play unless a special meeting was called in between the committee and commission meetings.”

Hamblen County Mayor Bill Brittain asked if a contract was given to the commission five days prior to a meeting would it be accepted.

“At committee there is a vote taken in support of purchasing of a service and the contract is prepared and submitted to the commission and inserted in the commission packet five days before the meeting would that be accepted?” Brittain asked.

Cutshaw said that the contract would be accepted under the new rules.

The commission also voted unanimously to ratify the Urban Growth Plan Amendment presented by the Urban Growth Boundary Coordinating Committee.