Director Announces Zero Tolerance for School Threats and Warns of Severe Consequences for Violators (View video here)

April 14, 2023
By: Dwayne Page

Any threat made toward a school ‒ even if it is a joke or prank ‒ will not be tolerated and students will face full consequences.

Director of Schools Patrick Cripps issued that warning during Thursday night’s regular monthly meeting of the Board of Education.

“This is a message for parents and students alike. We are asking you, in light of the recent tragedy of the school shooting at Covenant, that parents sit down and talk with their kids about the seriousness of any threats that they may make on social media, at school during school time, or outside of school because they will be dealt with as a school issue due to it involving the safety of our students, our faculty and staff,” said Director Cripps.

“We have talked to Judge (Brandon) Cox, Sheriff (Patrick) Ray and our SRO’s and had meetings about safety because we can’t take threats lightly. Its very serious and its important that we talk to our children and students about the seriousness of those actions (threats) because there will be consequences and those consequences will be severe,” Director Cripps continued.

“We don’t ever know the mindset of someone when they make a threat and I think it is imperative that parents and students understand that if you make threats, (threatening) comments on social media, or look things up on your computer or phone, those will be dealt with and we will punish students for making those threats at the school level and through the judicial system. It its our goal to send every kid home safely every day. We can’t play mind readers so I beg kids, if they have something going on in their life they are struggling with that they reach out to their parents, faculty, staff, or other adults to get help. Parents, we ask that you reach out to us and allow us to help so that we can prevent a tragedy from happening. It’s a different world we are living in and I want to reiterate that threats, even if it is said off the cuff, will be taken seriously and it will be dealt with and the punishment for students may seem harsh to parents but when it (threats) strikes fear in a community and within a school it has to be addressed. Again, parents I ask that you sit down and talk with your students and we will be sending out reminder messages from our schools asking you to do that and if you should see or hear anything (threatening), please let us know so that hopefully we can help someone before they make a decision that they can never take back. Taking someone’s like, you can’t take back. There is tragedy on both sides of that so I just ask for your help as a community to keep our schools safe,” said Director Cripps.

“This community is lucky because if you go to a lot of surrounding communities, not everyone has an SRO in every building. Kudos to this county because the county commission, sheriff’s department, and school board pay for our SROs (one at each of the five schools) out of their budgets and its all about trying to keep our schools safe. We are thankful for our SROs and the everyone who helps fund those,” added Director Cripps.

In other business, Director Cripps remembered Emma Jean Martin, a veteran teacher of 44 years, who passed away in February. “We appreciate her service and our prayers are with her family,” he said.

In his monthly personnel report, Director Cripps informed the board that Callie Betancourt, Trent Colwell, and Tina Paschal have been granted a leave of absence as requested.

The monthly board of education meeting next month will be Thursday, May 18 at 7 p.m. instead of May 11.

April 13, 2023
By: Dwayne Page

Several county department heads and public officials met with the budget committee Tuesday night to make their capital projects funding requests for the 2023-24 fiscal year.

No action has yet been taken on them.

The county plans to make application for a Community Development Block Grant for a new ambulance. If fully funded the grant totals $399,638 with a 16% grant match by the county of $63,942. EMS Director Hoyte Hale said the projected cost for a 2025 ambulance is $237,000 but it would also need about $161,000 in equipment that the grant could cover including a Stryker automatic loading system, Pro 2 ambulance cot, Stryker Stair Chair, Zoll heart monitor, and ventilator.

Director Hale also asked that capital projects funding of $36,000 be allocated for the purchase of 10 portable radios with dual band/multiband frequency capability which would enable each of the EMS units to have two portable radios.

Hale has further requested that $45,000 be allocated to equip a new ambulance scheduled to arrive in January with an automatic loading system and power cot which had not been included in the specifications when the ambulance was ordered this past year.

Sheriff Patrick Ray has requested a capital projects funding allocation of $165,000 to purchase four patrol cars. The needed equipment for the vehicles is to be funded by the sheriff’s department’s maintenance budget line item which is about $12,000 per car.

County Mayor Matt Adcock asked for an appropriation from the capital projects fund for an SUV to be used by him for official county business.

“The car I have now has become unreliable and has broken down on me a couple of times lately. I do a lot of traveling to places like Cookeville and Nashville on county business and sometimes people ride with me like UCDD and staff members so an SUV would provide more room for travel, and as a 4-wheel drive vehicle it would also be handy when I have to go out in snow and ice especially during emergencies,” said County Mayor Adcock.

Seventh district commissioner and budget committee member Beth Pafford requested that $10,000 be allocated from the capital projects fund toward engineering costs in a joint effort with the City of Smithville for putting down sidewalks on Bryant Street in Smithville.

Solid Waste Director James Goff asked for $80,000 to fund the purchase of 12- 30 cubic yard open top containers. He said the new cans are needed due to “areas of concern from our state inspector because of leaky, rusty containers that we are having issues with that could become violations”.

Goff also presented the proposed solid waste department budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year. Perhaps the biggest change is the increased cost for contracted services. The county is under contract with the Capital Waste Company to haul to a landfill in Dayton all the county’s garbage collected at the transfer station.

Although the contractor’s fees have apparently not increased, the volume of the county’s garbage has which has resulted in an increase in the haul bill.

The county had budgeted $985,000 for the contracted service this year but for 2023-24 the budgeted cost is $1,365,000.

“The average cost is $55 per ton because of the volume we do,” said Director Goff. “That (current budget) only gives me $82,000 per month. We haven’t had an $82,000 month since I have been here. Last month it was $115,000 so we are trending well over $100,000 each month (cost to transport garbage out of county)”, he said.

Budget committee members suggested that part of the higher volume may be due to persons from outside the county bringing their garbage here.

“It is very tough to police that at the convenience sites,” Goff admitted but he added that “at the transfer station some do have contracts with us and they do pay so if they come in whether they are a singular entity as a citizen or if they are a corporation or company they are contracted with us and they pay every 30 days,” said Goff.

A change in the operating hours at the convenience sites has also impacted the budget. The total budgeted costs for laborers has gone from $352,000 this year to a 2023-24 budgeted amount of $394,176.

“That is more due to the convenience sites being open more and being open longer hours. Prior there were different shifts and different days open for different sites so this is bringing continuity across the entire convenience site operation that will bring it to six days a week and open from 9 to 6 every day,” said Director Goff.

Meanwhile the transfer station has now become the centralized location for solid waste operation including the weighing, billing, and renting of dumpsters, etc. and an existing operator has been reassigned as bookkeeper at the same pay. In addition to the director and bookkeeper, the solid waste department has one operator and four CDL drivers along with the 24 part time people who man the convenience sites.

Meanwhile as reported in a previous WJLE post, County Fire Chief Donny Green has requested that an additional $100,000 in capital projects funding be allocated to build a public safety building on property owned by the US Army Corps of Engineers near Center Hill Dam to house a fire truck to serve the Wolf Creek Community once a partnership agreement has been finalized between the county and the Corps.

In his other capital projects funding requests, Chief Green has asked for an appropriation of $40,000 to replace a leaking metal roof on a portion of the Main Station fire hall on King Ridge Road and $7,000 to install insulation to the Belk Fire Station, which is a metal building with a concrete slab with no inside insulation.

Chief Green has also requested an expenditure for an SUV for the fire department. The cost for a new one is expected to be around $50,000.

“We currently have a utility trailer and two boats that we have to move and pull. I propose to surplus a 2006 SUV that we bought from state surplus several years ago. It has about 150,000-160,000 miles on it. We propose to surplus that vehicle and then put the new SUV into service. The SUV would be assigned to me. If we have to take the boat to the lake, I am primarily the one who gets the boat and the trailer if we have to haul some special type of equipment like generators. I spent a lot of time during icy weather taking generators around to people that didn’t have electricity that were on medical equipment. That is generally what we use that (SUV) for. I do keep it equipped with a lot of emergency equipment that we can use before an ambulance or rescue truck gets there (scene) that we can do some initial operations with so that is why it (SUV) is necessary,” said Chief Green.

April 12, 2023
By: Dwayne Page

A new public safety building to house a fire truck in the Wolf Creek community could be coming in the not too distant future

USACE Partnership Request Letter

For the last several years the county commission has set aside seed money for future construction of a fire hall there and that fund has grown to $100,000. The problem has been where to build it, recruiting enough volunteers to staff it, and having a fire truck to put in it.

During Tuesday night’s county budget committee meeting, Fire Chief Donny Green said meetings have been held in recent months between the county and US Army Corps of Engineers including field representatives for Congressman John Rose in hopes of coming to terms on a partnership agreement. A deal could be reached soon under which the Corps would permit the county to build a two bay public safety building on its property near Center Hill Dam at the county’s expense but the Corps would have ownership of the building and bear the cost of utilities going forward. Under terms of the agreement, Green said the Corps wants the facility to be called a public safety building and not a fire hall so that other agencies could make use of it including the TWRA, THP, Sheriff’s Department, and Rescue Squad etc.

Although a partnership agreement has not yet been completed, Green suggested that the county continue to make plans and he recommended that the budget committee include an additional $100,000 from the capital projects fund in seed money for construction of the building in the 2023-24 fiscal year budget, subject to final approval of the full county commission.

“I would like to see us appropriate another $100,000 for that this year so that if we can work out that partnership agreement with them to have a location on the Corps property to build it then that could be a project we could get started in the next fiscal year,” said Chief Green.

“What we are looking at is called a partnership agreement with them (Corps) to where they give us the privilege of constructing a building on their land and once we build it the facility becomes their building and my understanding is they (Corps) will pay the utilities on the building. We will have a bay for a fire engine and the rescue squad can store a boat there for operations on the river. The facility will have a place for the sheriff’s office, THP, or TWRA if they are in the area and want to stop by to do paper work or use the restroom. They (Corps) want this to be for multiple agencies and that is why they want it to be called a public safety building,” said Chief Green.

The proposed location for the building is centrally located in the Wolf Creek area to serve communities on both sides of Center Hill Dam.

In order for residents to be able to take advantage of lower homeowner insurance premiums under Insurance Services (ISO) requirements, their properties must be within 5 road miles of one of the county fire department’s fire stations. Currently, the nearest county fire stations to Wolf Creek are the Cookeville Highway Station and Temperance Hall Stations.

“The biggest hurdle we have had is getting a location that will fit in a prime spot that will get us that five mile coverage back toward Big Rock Market and back toward Cove Hollow. This location is the prime spot because it addresses the problem we had with utility access. From Cove Hollow Marina to the Dam there is no utility access because all of that is Corps of Engineers property. In that area there is no electricity, water, or natural gas access. Below the Dam, where this building is to be constructed, all of those utilities are there. When you go down Long Branch Road beside the Dam, the campgrounds are on the right and the spot for this public safety building would be on the left at the location which was used for a staging area when they were doing construction on the Dam”, said Chief Green.

If the agreement is finalized and the facility is built, Chief Green said the county will have to purchase another fire truck to put there but the fire department expects to have enough volunteers to staff it.

In his other capital projects funding requests, Chief Green asked for an appropriation of $40,000 to replace a leaking metal roof on a portion of the Main Station fire hall on King Ridge Road and $7,000 to install insulation to the Belk Fire Station, which is a metal building with a concrete slab with no inside insulation.

Chief Green has also requested an expenditure for an SUV for the fire department. The cost for a new one is expected to be around $50,000.

“We currently have a utility trailer and two boats that we have to move and pull. I propose to surplus a 2006 SUV that we bought from state surplus several years ago. It has about 150,000-160,000 miles on it. We propose to surplus that vehicle and then put the new SUV into service. The SUV would be assigned to me. If we have to take the boat to the lake, I am primarily the one who gets the boat and the trailer if we have to haul some special type of equipment like generators. I spent a lot of time during icy weather taking generators around to people that didn’t have electricity that were on medical equipment. That is generally what we use that (SUV) for. I do keep it equipped with a lot of emergency equipment that we can use before an ambulance or rescue truck gets there (scene) that we can do some initial operations with so that is why it (SUV) is necessary,” said Chief Green.

The budget committee has not yet acted on Chief Green’s request.

USACE Partnership Request Letter

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