August 27, 2024
By: Dwayne Page
The Alexandria Police Department has no officers!
Both Police Chief Travis Bryant and K-9 Officer Brandon Deffendoll resigned earlier this month only a couple of weeks after the municipal election that brought a change in the city administration and in recent days the only remaining officer, Jackson Franks has quit.
Does the town have any law enforcement protection?
Sheriff Patrick Ray said although the sheriff’s department does not function as a police department for the town, it will continue to do routine patrols and answer calls in Alexandria just as it has always done, but isn’t in a position to attend city meetings, etc.
Without a police chief in place, there are issues regarding the Alexandria police department in obtaining information from the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) according to Brad Mullinax, DeKalb 911 Director.
“We are handling it basically the way we have always handled it when they did not have a police officer there. We just dispatch the sheriff’s department,” said Mullinax.
“The Alexandria Police Department has to have an agreement with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation in order to get information from the NCIC computer such as criminal history information, driver license tags, etc. When Chief Bryant resigned that nullified that agreement that we had with TBI. When that happened I talked with the mayor (Beth Tripp) and explained what is happening. I said we are still dispatching for you but you can’t get any information off NCIC because you don’t have anybody with a user agreement with us and the TBI. She asked if she could sign the agreement and I said no it has to be a police officer. I said you could name an interim Chief and we can do that agreement and she said ok, I think I’ll do that,” said Mullinax.
WJLE tried to contact Mayor Beth Tripp at the Alexandria City Hall Monday morning but she was not available at the time.
In addition to the police department, the new administration at the Town of Alexandria has had other issues on its plate since taking office earlier this month.
During a special called meeting last Monday evening, August 19 the aldermen, on a 3-1 vote, terminated the city recorder, Pat Houser who had been placed on suspension by the mayor the previous week. Until a replacement is hired, Jeff McMillen has been named to fill the role as temporary recorder.
Two new clerks were hired to fill vacancies, Rhonda Conatser and Jessica Howard.
In other business, the aldermen voted 3-1 to hire Rich Potter of Utility Management Services, LLC as manager of the town’s water and sewer plant operations. Potter’s quote of $142,000 was the least expensive of the three submitted but not the one recommended by the town’s consulting engineer, Jerry Warren of Warren & Associates.
“At the request of the board, we had gotten quotes from operators and received one from Clayton Anderson who was formerly the manager of the water and sewer operations for the City of Lebanon for several years,” said Warren. “He gave us quotes on water distribution and sewer collection. We recommended his quotes in a meeting to the previous council. The previous mayor was to sign his contract but he didn’t have a chance to come by my office and sign it prior to the election. He was not comfortable signing it after the election. We brought it to the new mayor for discussion and then to the council last week in a workshop,” Warren said.
“In addition to Clayton, we talked to Penny Sutherland who is a well qualified waste water plant operator in Hartsville. She has another young man that works with her. She would take care of paperwork and reporting and he would do the day to day things such as samples, etc. at the wastewater plant,”
“We recommend they (Anderson and Sutherland) be hired”, said Warren.
One of the aldermen pointed out that the quotes of Anderson and Sutherland were almost double that of Potter’s and did not include water and sewer repairs and maintenance.
Meanwhile, the Tennessee Board of Utility Regulation has ordered the Town of Alexandria to be placed under an administrative review based on a number of complaints as to the entity (town). The Commissioner of the Department of Environment and Conservation’s designee to the Board advised that TDEC has also received several complaints raising concerns as to the financial, technical, and managerial competence of the entity, and warranting further investigation by Board staff.
According to Greg Moody, Chair of the Tennessee Board of Utility Regulation, the order requires the entity (town) to comply with Board staff requests for interviews and information. Board staff shall update the Board as to its findings at the Board’s next regular meeting. Should the entity fail to comply with any directive in this order or Board staff requests, Board staff and Counsel may issue subpoenas for the entity’s governing body and manager to appear in person before the Board during its next meeting following non-compliance with this order.
Mayor Tripp was quick to point out last week that this review by the Tennessee Board of Utility Regulation began on July 18, 2024 prior to her election.
“The previous board (mayor and aldermen) had calls from people who had complaints about their water quality but the board did nothing. The old board had over a month to get someone to run the water and sewer operations but failed to get anybody in here”, said Mayor Tripp.
Getting someone on board to begin overseeing the town’s water and sewer departments was one of the reasons for the special meeting of the Mayor and Aldermen last week.
Among the complaints raised by residents is the quality of their drinking water and the high bills they have had to pay.
Sherry Tubbs of High Street said for months, she has had cloudy and brown water coming out of her faucets forcing her to have to boil the water or in most cases buy bottled water for household use. Tubbs said she has also had to deal with extremely high monthly water bills, in some cases double and triple what they should be. According to Tubbs her highest bill last year was $424 and the year before it went to $700 in one month. “They almost shut me off. I needed some help with the bill and asked for them to give me some time. They gave me a $75 one day late fee and another $250 for being more than seven days late and then they charged me $50 to rehook it. It cost me over $1,000 to get my water back,” she said
Whether it’s a leak or a faulty meter, the source causing Tubbs’ high water bills has apparently not yet been identified.
However a remedy for the cloudy and brown water may be in sight within a period of months according to Rich Potter of Utility Management Services, LLC, a former manager of Alexandria’s water and sewer plant operations, who has just been hired by the aldermen to take it over again. Potter is also affiliated with the Smith Utility District, the entity which supplies water to the town of Alexandria. The source of the water is the Caney Fork River.
“In 2009 we had from Caney Fork about 4 parts per million of iron in the raw water. We now have about 17-19 parts per million. If iron comes into solubility you are going to see it. If you see brown, cloudy water its iron. I had to get my board to authorize a chemical polyphosphate treatment that I put in play two months ago and what it does is it sequesters the iron. It doesn’t get rid of it but it hides it. You won’t see it but its working. Polyphosphates sequester iron and manganese to prevent discolored water,” said Potter.
The Alexandria Mayor and Aldermen are scheduled to meet in regular monthly session tonight (Tuesday, August 27) at 7 p.m. at the Alexandria City Hall.