The Blind Leading The Blind In Hardin County

Amended Readers Write Submission to The Courier for October 21, 2009

The article on the front page of The Courier a couple of weeks ago about the County Commissions’ refusal to pass a simple housekeeping resolution calling for an election as the result of a successfully filed and certified petition, concerned me because I didn’t get to attend the ‘special called meeting’ due to a prior commitment and didn't get to observe these folks in action.

I have since listened to the audio recording of that meeting several times and intend to have it transcribed and certified as part of the "that’s just the way we do it in Hardin County" history. It’s a classic, no kidding.

The Notice of the special meeting was called by Mayor Davis to direct the election commission to conduct an election. The statutes clearly mandate that "no other business but that embraced in the call shall be transacted during the sitting of the special term."

I have said for year that if you want to see the simplest of tasks really messed-up, just let Mayor Davis exercise his leadership skill set as Chairmen of the Hardin County Board of County Commissioners and then watch some of the Commissioners follow him right out of bounds.

The recent "special meeting" of the County Commission, aka our Local Legislative Body, is just the latest example the Mayor’s leadership skill set and his general lack of knowledge of the statutes resulting in several violations of state statutes and local ordinances, again.

Thank goodness the general assembly seems to have anticipated this obstructionist type of action on the part of the local legislative body and wrote into the law that if the local legislative body doesn’t act on the request for the election within 30 days of certification, the petition becomes the required resolution for the election commission to hold the election within a given time frame.

Remember that "no other business" thing, mandated by the Tennessee statutes.

Instead - The Mayor had a better idea:

Mayor Davis: "Commissioners, I would inform you , tonight we are here to talk about the debt, the funding, how are we going to fund the debt, is really what the issue is at hand. Other issues as far as regards to schools are behind us but the debt the county has incurred 30 million dollars is before us and that’s what we are here to talk about. How do we fund it, if we rescind the 1cent sales tax or use other revenues."

Commissioner Jerrolds: I disagree with you. You said we were here to discuss how we are going to fund this, we’re here because a petition signed by enough registered voter of this county to caused an election to rescind this tax. That’s why were here.

[Commissioner Jerrolds was right on, but the County Attorney still cleared a motion to not rescind the one-cent sales tax and twelve of the Commissioners present followed the attorney and mayor right out of bounds.]

What we appear to have is an ill informed County Mayor, enabled by an uninformed County Attorney, who mis-informed the mostly unprepared and confused Board of County Commissioners.

Man-Up - Readers Writes - The Courier - July 23, 2009

As my teenage grandsons might say, it is time for the Hardin County Commission to "Man-Up" and fund the school building program and quit trying to put a guilt trip on the taxpayers of the city of Savannah, our county seat. You’ve used them for a crutch long enough.

Even the State of Tennessee has observed and reported that Hardin County, based on its fiscal capacity, has been under-funding education for the children of Hardin County for decades.

After reading the front page of last week’s Courier and in particular Hardin County Director of Schools John Thomas’ comments, there can be no question that there has been a major "failure to communicate" between the county mayor, board of education and the city of Savannah.

You know, one of the side benefits of attending all of the meetings that I attend is that you get to observe how these folks discuss and decide the issues they face, first hand.

First, lets talk about Thomas’ politically naive opinions and comments as expressed in the paper last week. It is obvious that he is relying not on research but on the rhetoric being put forth by the county mayor and a lot of the folks on the county commission.

Thomas and the board of education did their job when they developed the best plan they could and presented that plan to the county commission for funding.

As my preacher father used to say, however, Thomas has quit preaching and gone to meddling when he starts opining on how the building program should, or should not, be paid for and his views on the 1997 local option sales tax increase.

One should remember that the newspaper ads promoting the sales tax referendum were put out by the school board, not the county commission or the city of Savannah. If the citizens were mislead by anyone, it would be at the hand of the board of education.

Thomas has been preaching that the plan developed by the board of education at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars is the plan Hardin County needs to ensure that every child has an equal opportunity for a first class education.

Now he opines that he would not ask the county commission to raise property taxes, but instead may cut the building program to keep it within the money allocated by the county if the city of Savannah elects not to agree to relinquish their one-half share of the 1997 sales tax increase or the city is not allowed to change it’s River Resort District status.

If we have to cut about 20 percent of the cost of the building program you reduce that equal access and opportunity factor or the plans were over-developed.

Thomas, obviously speaking for Hardin County government, further opines that Savannah declining to help with the latest building program "would go against all precedent and previous administrations" and "against the expressed wishes and desired of the city commissioners that signed the contract that enabled us to renovate Hardin County High School."

Well now, one could also speculate that the precedents, expressed wishes and desires of previous administrations has not always represented the best interest of the citizens of Savannah but has consistently allowed the other county citizens, who live outside Savannah, to enjoy one of the lowest property tax rates in the state while at the same time requiring both deferred maintenance of Savannah’s infrastructure and increases in the property tax rate for the citizens of Savannah, just to provide minimal services.

If one does just a little research into the public records, one would determine that for the last several decades, at least as long as we have had a local option sales taxes for school constructions, the county commission, as stated in their own resolutions, wouldn’t have to increase the property taxes on all the citizens of Hardin County to construct county schools, if Savannah just relinquishes their share of the sales taxes.

Mr. Thomas then says Savannah itself "represents less than 30 percent of the total population of Hardin County, yet collects almost 70 percent of all sales taxes collected in the entire county" and continues that "obviously, those funds are coming from more that just the residents of Savannah."

One would have to ask, so what? Savannah taxpayers also pays for 100 percent of the cost of services to the folks that generate the sales taxes. Hardin County makes no contribution for police and fire protection, street maintenance, animal services, water or sewer or anything else.

I wonder if Thomas knows that for every $7 contributed by the city of Savannah taxpayers to pay for the high school upgrade Hardin County taxpayers contributed only $2.78.

When last examined, the tax assessor’s records reflect that 36 percent of the property tax bills, representing about 25 percent of all the property taxes collected in Hardin County, are mailed to folks outside the county.

Here is another interesting figure. For city taxpayers to replace the $425,000 Thomas and the county commission want relinquished, Savannah would have to increase its property tax rate by 37-1/2 cents. For all of the property taxpayers in the county, which includes the citizens of Savannah, the county property tax rate would have to be increased just 7-1/2 cents.

But then again that might elevate the county all the way up to the third lowest property tax rate in the State of Tennessee.

If the county wants to keep dipping into Savannah’s resources to fund the county’s obligations, they should give some serious consideration to changing the form of government in Hardin County to metro government.

Come on county commission, "man-up" and take care of your obligations to provide the children of Hardin County decent and safe facilities for the best chance at an equal opportunity for a first class education in Hardin County. Our economic and community development future depend on it.

Respectfully submitted for your consideration.

Ted G. Cook
Hard Rock Road