I hope everyone is ok. I took this video in the VA. I don’t know any details.
http://johnsoncitypress.com/News/article.php?id=100269
http://www.wcyb.com/news/31058860/detail.html
http://www2.tricities.com/news/2012/may/13/warehouse-fire-johnson-city-ar-1911987/
The proposal for a full-time attorney has significantly changed this month. From my understanding, the changes include shifting the process of appointing an attorney from the Mayor to the commission, the advisory committee is optional, the salary is not set, and the provision for a 2/3 vote has been taken out. All in all, it appears to be a much more flexible and less binding resolution. The mayor adamantly opposed this at the steering committee meeting.
I am inclined to support this proposal for the following reasons:
1) The mayor never voiced specific reasons of why he was opposed to the changes. His main point was that the office holders hadn’t been informed of the changes. He said it was changing everything, but never gave any specifics of it changing anything or why the changes were bad.
2) The mayor said that he would bring “numbers” to support his proposal and show that it is cost-effective. I’m not aware of any numbers that he has shared with commissioners.
3) From my understanding of the resolution, this gives us an option to change the position of county attorney but does not bind us to any decisions.
4) I see this as moving forward on something that could potentially save taxpayers money.
Above you will see the payback schedule for debt service through the end of this decade. It’s pretty obvious to see why I was critical of the restructuring proposal. We carved out money for our term and left the next commission with the task of finding more money to put into debt service.
While I still have issues with this, I believe the motive behind the restructuring was to buy time to find savings in other areas. This means that the ultimate ‘right or wrong’ decision won’t be known until the next commission sends us a sarcastic ‘thank you’ for the shape we leave them in. However, it should be noted that the revenue exceeds expenditures significantly through fiscal 2013-14 which will soften any need to provide immediate additional funding.
This shows some signs of respect provided we don’t decide to pull out additional revenue from the debt service fund this year.
1) Sales Tax Referendum was approved.
2) The Washington County Commission voted unanimously to support Jonesborough in pushing for an agreement with the state. The plan would take state sales tax revenue from a specific area in downtown Jonesborough and invest it in tourism. It sounds like an excellent idea. It will NOT cost the tax payers any additional money and it could prove to provide a significant economic boost to all of Washington County. Kudos to Mathew Hill and Kelly Wolfe for working on the plan.
The title of the resolution speaks for itself: “A RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE CREATING A COURTHOUSE SQUARE REVITALIZATION AND TOURISM DEVELOPMENT ZONE IN JONESBOROUGH AND RETURNING STATE SALES TAX DOLLARS COLLECTED WITHIN THE ZONE TO FUND NEEDED IMPROVEMENTS”
3) Debt Management Policy unanimously approved.
The debt management policy was unanimously approved. This was a state mandate and the county is required to send this to the comptroller. This is an excellent policy. Mayor Eldridge and the budget committee did an excellent job on this.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703700904575391464237730330.html
Robert Reynolds was introduced yesterday as the CEO of the Washington County Economic Development Council. This organization was created to help market the area for jobs and unite the other development groups in the county.
Lawmakers are reacting but is spending really slowing? I don’t think so. Here’s an interesting read on how DC is reacting though.
According to The Tennesseean the Tn House met 89 days and the senate met 91 days before passing a budget. The state stops paying per diems after 90 days of session. Interesting.
http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100605/NEWS0201/6050345/-1/WAP&template=wapart