DeKalb Awarded $100K Grant to Launch Safe Baby Court

March 27, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

DeKalb County has been awarded a $100,000 state funded grant for the implementation of a Safe Baby Court through the Juvenile Court.

The object of Tennessee’s Safe Baby Court is to address the critical needs of child and family programs to reduce the incidents of child abuse, neglect, and endangerment, to minimize the effects of childhood trauma, and to provide stability to parents and children.

DeKalb County’s Safe Baby Court will serve families with children 36 months of age or younger who are involved in the child welfare system. Wraparound services will be utilized not only for the infant, but also the siblings, parents, and caregivers.

During Monday night’s regular monthly meeting, the county commission adopted the $100,000 budget amendment to accept the state funding for this program.

DeKalb County General Sessions and Juvenile Court Judge Brandon Cox addressed the commission during last Thursday night’s committee of the whole meeting.

“We have a grant of $100,000 for this fiscal year and technically its $50,000 for next year because its set to sunset in December but there is some legislation to keep that going,” explained Judge Cox. “ It should be a $100,000 annual grant. We are asking for a budget amendment to include those grant funds in the juvenile program. Its 100% grant funded. It’s a pilot program and several other counties are participating . Its adjunct or adjacent to our DCS (Department of Children Services) cases and it would be impactful for any family that has DCS involvement whatsoever with a child under three years old. There could be five kids in the home but if there is one under age three they could qualify for this program. It basically opens us up to resources, some funding to help solve problems for these families that we have trouble solving in our community,” said Judge Cox

“I am asked often and its one of the hardest things I have to do is sign papers to remove kids from parents. Oftentimes, its for drug related issues. We had a case in December and at that time, there were identifiable drug issues in the home. After an assessment, certain services were recommended. We are almost in April now and those services haven’t started because they don’t have insurance, the department (DCS) is not going to fund it, or they are balking at funding because they need this information or that piece of paper. With a program like this, funds are available for those families where we can identify the need and meet the need,” Judge Cox continued.

“Ninety nine percent of the folks in my DCS type court are also indigent and they have appointed counsel. They can barely afford rent and sometimes food, even with government assistance and they can’t afford some necessities like car seats or cribs, etc. This program has the ability to do that. The grant lays out what we can do for them. Its basically to identify a need for a family in the program and to fix that need with the funds we have available. That is the crux of it. What it looks like in reality is going to develop over time because it’s a very new program and I am sure I will adjust it along the way to fit our needs here,” said Judge Cox.

The program will establish specific eligibility requirements and will be tailored to target the most at risk children and families meeting the requirements.

The Safe Baby Court will be comprised of a Multidisciplinary Team including the following members, at a minimum:

Birth parents, out of home caregivers, judge, coordinator and supervisor, mental health providers, attorneys and guardian ad litem, department of children’s services, early intervention specialists, foster parents and support organizations, and other community members.

March 26, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

Good citizens doing good deeds!

Eddie Ramos and Tara Hunt, operators of Kayaking Adventures of Tennessee were honored by the county commission and county mayor with “Community Service Awards” during Monday night’s regular monthly meeting for the volunteer work they do in collecting, bagging, and properly disposing of litter from the lake and other places in the county.

The effort is part of the couple’s KAT Challenge urging communities to keep waterways clean.

“Eddie and Tara have done some great things for DeKalb County. After the Jamboree they cleaned up around the square and they have taken all kinds of trash out of hollows, etc and have helped clean up DeKalb County to make it a better place. We want to recognize them with community service awards,” said County Mayor Matt Adcock.

The commission voted unanimously to approve the recognition awards.

In December, 2022, Eddie and Tara were recognized by the Smithville Mayor and Aldermen for cleaning up streets in the downtown square area of the leftover candy and debris from the Smithville Christmas Parade. At that time, Mayor Josh Miller and the aldermen thanked and applauded Eddie and Tara for their work in bagging the garbage on a Sunday for city workers to easily pick up the following Monday morning.

Kayaking Adventures of Tennessee offers guided kayak trips to Burgess Falls in Sparta.

From that guided tours experience Eddie and Tara came up with the idea for a KAT Challenge giving participants on the trips the option to carry along a bag provided by KAT to pick up as much trash as possible. The person who collects the most on the trip gets a shiny new KAT Challenge Button and their picture on the KAT website and on the KAT Challenge Page. All who participate also get a special shout-out on the KAT FB and Instagram pages for being protectors of beautiful Tennessee waterways.

Hunt said much of the cleanup effort is done during the fall and winter season.

“We do this cleanup on every kayak trip through out KAT Challenge competition and in our off season we devote as much of our time as possible to cleaning up DeKalb, White, and Putnam counties. We do cleanups all winter long, at least four or five days a week,” said Hunt. “We have a big trailer that we usually have our kayaks in, and we take it out, go all over, and fill it up as well as our pickup truck. I consider it a hobby. I love doing it. The more trash we can get the more fun it is for me. We post our cleanup events in the wintertime on our personal pages and people can join us and they often do. We have had people on kayaks come with us out on the water in some of our organized cleanups. We do a lot with responsible stewardship so they will organize a cleanup and we will go to places like Watts Bar Lake and help with their cleanups,” said Hunt.

“We welcome anyone to join us or to clean up their own part of the lake or neighborhood because it makes a difference,” said Ramos. “When we go back to the places we have cleaned up there is a lot less litter than there had been before. When you start going out in nature and you see how beautiful it is and then you start seeing people throw stuff down or not packing it up and taking it back out, that is something that bothers me,” added Ramos. “We just went to Burgess Falls this last Saturday. We try to keep the base of that clean. It’s a state park. There was a big group of people who had just left and they had thrown all their apple cores and orange peels on the ground. The orange peels take two years to break down. Plus, its not natural to the environment. We picked all that up and left it prettier for the next group who decides to go down there,” said Ramos.

“We started doing recycling on the plastics we were getting,” Ramos continued. “The first time we decided to do recycling was when we went to Four Seasons Marina. We collected tons of plastic. That led us to going to the basketball games and other places and cleaning up their plastic,” said Ramos.

Eddie and Tara said the county’s solid waste department has also been a big help in their cleanup effort.

“The solid waste department is letting us bring tires, etc,” said Hunt.

“Tires is one of the main things we pull from the lake and (County Solid Waste Director) James (Goff) has been a blessing to allow us to pile those tires there,” added Ramos.

In addition to Goff, Eddie and Tara said they appreciate all the support and encouragement they have received from the community and especially to Center Hill Lake Resource Manager Kevin Salvilla, the state parks, the county mayor and county commission, and local businessman and county commissioner Tony Luna.

March 25, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

A seventh district vacancy on the county commission has now been filled.

During Monday night’s regular monthly meeting, Mathias Anderson was appointed to take the seat of former commissioner Tim Reynolds who stepped down from the commission last month. Anderson will serve as an appointee until the August 1, 2024 DeKalb County General Election.

Anderson was the only person to step forward who had expressed an interest in the position. He was nominated for the appointment by Commissioner Greg Matthews and because no other name was placed in nomination Commissioner Larry Green moved that Anderson be appointed by acclamation. Commissioner Tony (Cully) Culwell offered a second to the motion and Anderson’s appointment was approved by a voice vote of the commission.

After the meeting Anderson was sworn into office by County Mayor Matt Adcock.

During Thursday night’s committee of the whole meeting of the county commission, Anderson introduced himself.

“My name is Mathias Anderson and I live in District 7. I was selected on Saturday, March 16 to be on the ballot in August for the (vacant) commissioner seat for District 7. I have lived here for about 8 years and have been involved as I can be between kids sports and schools, etc. I try to help out where I can. I saw where there was an empty seat for my district and I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to help out and contribute. I work for Nissan. I am a senior analyst for the claims risk department so a lot of my job is budgeting dollars, figuring out where money is going and where it has to go and where to get the money for those expenditures. I think I would really enjoy helping out and hopefully be a benefit to everyone in the county as well,” said Anderson.

A Republican, Anderson was nominated by the DeKalb County GOP on Saturday, March 16 by caucus to be the party’s nominee in the August election to serve out the remaining two years of former commissioner Tim Reynolds’ unexpired term.

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