Bradley County Commissioner Cliff Eason attended his last commission meeting Monday evening. He was appointed to fill the District 4 vacancy created by the resignation of Howard Thompson one year and three months ago.

He said, “Tonight is my last meeting. To the commissioners, you have been great to work with and I admire each of you. It’s been a great experience for me and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Bradley County is fortunate to have all of you in office.”

He was presented with a plaque for his service to Bradley County by Chairman Louie Alford and received a standing ovation.

Commissioner Eason is the vice principal at Cleveland High School. His commission seat will be filled by the winner of the March Republican primary race Charlotte Peak Jones, owner of K.A.C.E. Construction & Developments and Charlotte’s Wallpaper. She will be sworn in at 6 p.m. prior to the next commission meeting and serve until 2014.

Along with a new term for the assessor of property added to the list of agenda items for next week’s voting session, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a Corridor Management Agreement along Tennessee State Route 60 was placed on the agenda by Commissioner Mel Griffith.

As stated in the MOU, the purpose of this agreement is to provide a framework for the signatory agencies, organizations and governments within Bradley County, the City of Cleveland, the Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) and the state of Tennessee to work collaboratively in the management of State Route 60 (SR 60) between the Tennessee-Georgia state line and the State Route 306 (Eureka Road/Freewill Road) intersection and promote safe and efficient operation, enhance and sustain economic development and support environmental conservation along the corridor.

Bradley County Planner Corey Divel said this is one of the pilot projects and would essentially be a bypass for Georgetown. Commissioner Ed Elkins said, “Maybe I missed something, but when the gentleman came and made a presentation on this a few weeks ago, I thought we were going to have a work session for further discussion on this to have additional information at our disposal. Now, I’m hearing that we‘re putting this on the agenda for a vote next week. I think this is something that has such an impact that we need to have that work session to discuss it.”

 

He went on to say, “If you look at the MOU in the agreement section it says, ‘Whereas, Bradley County, the City of Cleveland and the Cleveland Urban Area MPO have prepared plans and studies describing their vision for the SR 60 corridor, including: Cleveland Urban Area MPO 2035 Regional Transportation Plan, Cleveland Urban Area MPO Transportation Improvement Program 2011-2014 and Bradley County, Cleveland, Charleston Joint Strategic Plan 2035.’ That’s a lot of material and I may have missed something, but I don’t think the Bradley County Commission has approved that 2035 plan yet. So, I would think that if we are going to have that as one of the foundations of this Corridor Management Agreement we need to know and understand what that plan says it is we are going to do before we adopt this.”

Commissioner Elkins requested County Planner Corey Divel make available to all commissioners the three documents listed in the MOU before the work session. Commissioner Griffith withdrew his agenda item for further discussion saying, “It is important that we get as much input as we can.”

The Bradley County Commission will hold its next voting session meeting next Tuesday at 7 p.m.