What was a routine agenda workshop for the Rhea County Commission turned into a contest of wills between Chairman Jim Reed and Dayton Mountain Resident Tina Pearce.
During the last part of the meeting where the commission listens to the residents of the county on agenda items, Ms. Pearce started out the conversation with talking about the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) regulations and grants for schools.
Chairman Reed quickly stopped her and advised that she needed to follow the commission’s rules of speaking for three minutes and keep it to items on the agenda.
Mrs.
Pearce remarked back that he was impeding her constitutional right of freedom of speech.
He responded, “This is a thing that the commission allows you to do. We don’t have to give the opportunity for the public to speak. But when you do we request that you respect our rules and guidelines. Rudeness and disrespect will not be tolerated.”
Ms. Pearce continued to try to make her point on the issue of the CDC grants with the chairman continuing to caution her to stick to the agenda. At one point Chairman Reed told her that her opportunity to speak was up.
He said, “We have several options that we can do here. We can require people to send in an email prior to the meetings to have the commissioners approve if they want to allow them to speak. We can use the sheet where you sign up to speak on a specific item on the agenda or the 3 minutes for the public to speak can just go away.
“We want to have interaction with our constituents and hear what they have to say on items on the agenda. But everyone needs to follow the rules that the commission has put in place.”
Chairman Reed was referring to the new guidelines the commission passed in September at the first organizational meeting of the current commission which set forth the guidelines that on agenda meetings people could speak after the agenda was set and during the regular monthly meetings they could speak before the meeting on items that was set on the agenda. The commissioners did make a prevision that if something was not on the agenda and was of a pressing nature related to county business it could be brought up. Persons also have the option of contacting their district commissioner to see if they would bring the matter up.
Ms. Pearce was referring to a recent grant the CDC has put out that deals with improving Student Health and Academic Achievement Through Nutrition, Physical Activity and the Management of Chronic Conditions in Schools.
Tennessee is one of 16 states that is being targeted for the CDC Healthy Schools funds, providing school districts with technical assistance and developing specialized tools, recommendations, and resources to help in the work they do for school health. State grantees support the implementation and evaluation of evidenced-based strategies and activities to:
Prevent obesity and reduce the risk of children and adolescents developing chronic disease in adulthood.
Manage chronic health conditions prevalent in student populations including poor health, asthma, food allergies, seizure disorders, diabetes, other diseases, and disabilities or conditions. So far they have given grants to Nashville and Memphis to assist in this in the amount of $300,000 each.
Chairman Reed told Ms. Pearce that if it was anything to do with the schools they would take care of it. The County Commission only works on their budget, yearly budget amendments and building of schools.