County Commission to Appoint Judicial Commissioners

October 26, 2019
By: Dwayne Page

The county commission Monday night will consider appointing three judicial commissioners to serve for the next year.

The commission will meet in regular monthly session October 28 at 6:30 p.m. in the downstairs courtroom of the courthouse.

A judicial committee recently met and recommended three persons for the appointments including Harvey Barnes and current judicial commissioners Tammy Ashburn and Joy Whitman. Two others applied, Boyd Cantrell and current judicial commissioner Richard Jennings.

The judicial committee is made up of Sheriff Patrick Ray, County Mayor Tim Stribling, Circuit Court Clerk Susan Martin, General Sessions/Juvenile Court Judge Bratten Cook, II, and Assistant District Attorney General Stephanie Johnson.

Judicial commissioners are responsible for the issuance of criminal arrest warrants upon finding probable cause. They are subject to call at all hours of the day and night. Judicial commissioners serve at the pleasure of the county commission and their terms of office can be one year to four years. These three judicial commissioners serve one year terms. Each of them are on call 24 hours a day for one week and then are off for two weeks.

October 25, 2019
By: By: Leigh Fuson, 4-H Agent

In a true underdog story, DeKalb County 4-H poultry judging team members have earned a trip to the National Poultry and Egg Conference that will be November 20-21^st in Louisville, Kentucky.  After placing 7^th at the regional level, the team was named Tennessee State Champions on October 19^th at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.  This is only the second time in history that DeKalb County has achieved the title.

Clayton Crook, Lily Martin, Megan Price, and Jacob Williams are the winning team members. Lily was awarded 4^th high individual, which really helped to launch the team to success. However, it truly was a team effort because the lowest score in each class of the contest is dropped with a 4-man team. This allows each member to have strengths and weaknesses going into the contest.  These youth know they have a big challenge ahead of them going to the national level.

“We were honestly surprised when we won, but we are going to keep working hard to do well at Nationals,” said Martin.  The national contest will have twice as many classes as the state contest with an added level of difficulty.  Poultry judging involves determining egg & meat quality, as well as live bird evaluation and oral reasons.  Price, who is interested in becoming a veterinarian, stated, “I’ve loved learning about past production hens and the basics of the poultry industry.”  Poultry is one of the biggest animal agriculture industries in Tennessee.

The team is excited to be representing DeKalb County and the whole state of Tennessee in Louisville, and we wish them the best of luck! Anyone wishing to help monetarily to assist with the trip may contact the UT-TSU Extension office at 615-597-4945.  4-H is a proud part of UT Extension, the UT Institute of Agriculture, and TSU Cooperative Extension.  UT-TSU Extension provides equal opportunities in programs and employment through the cooperation of county, state, and federal governments.

October 25, 2019
By: Dwayne Page

DeKalb County will not be able to purchase a new tanker truck for the fire department using CDBG grant funds this year.

County Mayor Tim Stribling informed the county commission Thursday night, in a meeting of the whole workshop, that the county’s application for a $315,000 Community Development Block Grant has been denied.

“DeKalb County did not score high enough to be awarded a CDBG grant. The cutoff was 178 points and DeKalb County scored 159,” said County Mayor Stribling.

In January the County Commission gave formal approval of a resolution to apply for the grant through the CDBG program which is administered by the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. Had it been approved the county would have been responsible for payment of a local grant match of 16% of the total project cost plus any additional funding required to complete the project beyond the grant amount. The Upper Cumberland Development District prepared all necessary documents for the completion of the grant application at no charge to DeKalb County.

County Fire Chief Donny Green said the grant would have been used to purchase a new tanker truck.

“We currently only have one tanker in the county. With the barriers and obstacles we have with water supply because we don’t have a lot of hydrants out in the county we really do have a dire need for another way to get water to the fire scenes in the rural parts of the county,” said Chief Green.

Although not awarded a CDBG grant this year, County Mayor Stribling said the county could re-apply next year. “It isn’t unusual for a grant application to be turned down on the first try,” he said. Stribling pointed to the fact that the county had to apply three times on behalf of the DeKalb Utility District before being funded a CDBG grant for water line extension in portions of the county in 2016.

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