Drug Defendants Have Their Day In Court

June 26, 2019
By: Dwayne Page

Six people indicted after undercover drug investigations by the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department had their day in criminal court last Tuesday.

Judge David Patterson presided.

23 year old Aaron Jeffery Jones entered a plea to 2 counts of sale of methamphetamine over 0.5 grams and received a 10 year sentence on TDOC probation after serving 300 days in the county jail. He was fined $4,000. The terms are to run concurrently with each other and concurrently with a Warren County sentence against him. He must make $700 restitution to the sheriff’s department. Jones was given jail credit from November 4, 2018 to June 18, 2019

37 year old Willie Ray Murphy entered a plea to sale of a schedule II drug (methamphetamine) over 0.5 grams and received an 8 year sentence to serve in the Tennessee Department of Correction as a range II offender. He must serve at least 35% of the term before his release eligibility date. Murphy was fined $2,000. He must make $435 restitution to the sheriff’s department. Murphy was given jail credit of 319 days

25 year old Resha Nicole Martin entered a plea to sale of a schedule III drug (suboxone) and received a 3 year sentence on TDOC probation. She was fined $2,000 and must make $340 restitution to the sheriff’s department.

25 year old Jesse Ray Herman entered a plea to sale of a schedule II drug (methamphetamine) over 0.5 grams and received an 8 year TDOC sentence suspended to supervised probation except for 180 days to serve. He was fined $2,000 and must make $360 restitution to the sheriff’s department. Herman was given jail credit of 228 days.

35 year old Anthony Joe Hamilton entered a plea to sale of a schedule II drug (methamphetamine) over 0.5 grams and received an 8 year sentence on TDOC probation after serving 180 days in the county jail. He was fined $2,000. The term is to run concurrently with a misdemeanor sentence he is currently serving. Hamilton must make $150 restitution to the sheriff’s department. He was given jail credit of 71 days.

37 year old Danny Ray Murphy entered a plea to sale of a schedule II drug (methamphetamine) and received a 6 year sentence to serve in the Tennessee Department of Correction at 60% before his release eligibility date. He was fined $2,000. Murphy must make $360 restitution to the sheriff’s department. He was given 75 days jail credit.

The DeKalb County Grand Jury met in special session Monday, October 29, 2018 and returned sealed indictments in several drug cases including four of these defendants. The other two, Danny Ray Murphy and Anthony Joe Hamilton were indicted in April, 2019 by the grand jury after an undercover drug operation by the sheriff’s department.

June 26, 2019
By: Dwayne Page

The self-service driver license kiosks across the state including at the DeKalb County Clerk’s Office will not be available beginning Friday, June 28 at 5:00 pm through Monday, July 1 at 7:00 am due to a driver license system upgrade to permit the issuance of REAL ID compliant driver licenses and identification licenses on July 1, 2019.

The initial issuance of a REAL ID compliant credential cannot be issued at the self-service kiosk and must be issued at any of the 44 Driver Services Centers or at participating County Clerk locations.

Citizens will only be able to renew or apply for a duplicate of a REAL ID driver license or Identification license that has already been issued. Applicants using the self-service kiosk who are not seeking a REAL ID driver license or Identification license will receive a non-compliant credential via the kiosk if they do not already have a REAL ID credential. For more information regarding REAL ID please visit the REAL ID website at www.tnrealid.gov .

The Department has been actively working to provide additional services via the self-service kiosk and to restore the change of address functionality. The following Phase 1 functionalities will be available via the self-service kiosk July 2019:

• Restored Change of Address functionality within a transaction;
• Change of Address Only functionality as a stand-alone transaction;
• Eligibility enhancement that informs applicants of the services available to them; thereby, reducing the selection of ineligible transactions;
• Address Verification through USPS;
• Correction of issue resulting in the dropping of the apartment number during a kiosk transaction;
• Advance a Graduated Driver License (GDL) from an Intermediate Restricted Driver License to Intermediate Unrestricted Driver License;
• Advance an Intermediate Unrestricted driver license (GDL) to an Adult Class D driver license;
• Updated Organ Donor registration screens;
• New updated screen saver;
• Increased validity of the kiosk receipt from 20 days to 90 days;
• New Windows 10 PCs installed; and
• New 4G modems to replace old 3G modems for improved network connectivity.

The installation of the self-service kiosk enhancements will be deployed in a phased-approach with 3 locations serving as pilots beginning the first week of July. All installations are scheduled to be complete by July 31, 2019.

June 25, 2019
By: Dwayne Page

Smithville property taxpayers will have to dig a little deeper in their pockets starting this fall.

By a vote of 3 to 2, the aldermen  Tuesday  gave final approval for a property tax increase of 25 cents per $100 of assessed value while adopting the 2019-20 fiscal year budget during a special called meeting at city hall.

The new rate, to be applied to tax bills this fall, will be 89.9 cents per $100 of assessed value, up from 64.9 cents.

A public hearing was held 30 minutes prior to the meeting but no one spoke out either in support or opposition to the tax increase or budget. However after the meeting one resident, former Alderman W.J. (Dub) White approached the aldermen who voted against it to thank them.

The vote was identical to the one taken during first reading passage on Monday, June 10 and there were no changes in the proposed budget between the first and second readings.

As before Aldermen Danny Washer, Shawn Jacobs, and Gayla Hendrix voted in favor while Aldermen Brandon Cox and Donnie Crook voted no.

The new tax rate is expected to generate $350,000 in new money for the general fund but even so projections are that the city will finish in the black by only $66,162 as of June 30, 2020 if all funds budgeted are spent The city is projected to end the current fiscal year 2018-19 in the red by $279,048 come June 30, 2019.

The water and sewer fund is not faring much better. Although water and sewer rates were last increased in 2017 the revenue is not keeping pace with expenditures which may force city leaders to take another look at rates again next year (2020-21).

By June 30, 2020 the city’s water and sewer fund is expected to be in the red by $237,542. Projections are that the city will be in the hole by $205,147 in the water and sewer fund as of June 30, 2019.

Under state law, if a utility continues to operate at a loss for more than two years and doesn’t address it, the state has the authority to force rate increases to make it solvent.

City water customers currently pay $7.25 per thousand gallons of usage. Rates for customers outside the city limits are $10.88 per thousand. City sewer customers pay $6.75 per thousand gallons. Those rates will remain the same over the next year.

Water tap fee increases have been included in the new budget for customers both inside and outside the city.

Although the municipality has water/sewer and general fund surpluses totaling several millions of dollars, city leaders say the government can’t continually dip into those surpluses to operate.
The largest project on the table in the general fund is a new police department building. The proposed 7,805 square foot structure would be built on property donated to the city on the north side of the city hall/fire department complex at Don Cantrell Street.

The cost of the new facility could be as much as two million dollars to be funded either on a long term note or bond issue. From the start date of construction, projections are the building could be completed possibly within one year.

The mayor and aldermen recently met with Wayne Oakley of Studio Oakley Architects, LLC who submitted a bid to design the new police department building for the city at $105,000 and that cost has been included in the new budget as engineering fees.

A 2% pay raise has been figured into the budget for city employees who have topped out on the wage scale and funds for employee disability insurance coverage to help protect city employees from loss of income in the event they are unable to work for a period of time due to illness, injury, or accident while off the job. Capital outlay expenditures total $622,100 much of which includes grants for airport easements and clearing and a grant match for sidewalk improvements. Plans are to purchase two used police cars and a 16 foot flat bed trailer for the fire department.

Capital outlay expenses for the water and sewer include the purchase of a Kubota trackhoe, trailer, diesel truck, 9 foot dump body, camera system for leak detection, and engineering fees and sewer rehab project construction costs. The city has applied for a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant to help fund the sewer rehab project.

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