From left to right are Assistant EMA Director Steven McMillian, County Commission and Fire Board Chairman Jim Reed, County Executive Jim Vincent, EMA Director Brad Harrison and Carson Dye, EMA operations manager
A lively discussion over the new rules of the Rhea County Commission erupted between Commission Chairman Jim Reed and audience member Tina Pearce.
At a special called meeting, Commissioner Emily Fugate introduced changes to the commission’s format of allowing the public to speak to the commission. She proposed that a person fill out a form prior to the meeting and turn it in on what they were going to be speaking on.
The person would still only have three minutes.
Chairman Reed said if something was of an emergency nature those would be permitted to speak, but they would have to go through their county commissioner first.
He said it had always been the policy of the commission to allow people to speak, but they had gotten lax about controlling the content.
One of the more famous speakers to the commission was local activist June Griffin who would use her time to talk from issues ranging from the Ten Commandments to letting the commission know the Kentucky Fried Chicken in Dayton was ranked third in the United States in chicken sales. Most of Ms. Griffin's speeches maintained around abuses of the Constitution and keeping prayer and the pledge at meetings.
Ms. Pearce is a frequent speaker at the County Commission as well as the county School Board meetings.
“No one is trying to stop anyone from speaking,” said Chairman Reed. “It just has to be about an item on the meeting’s agenda.”
Upon research, it was found there is no absolute right to speak at a public meeting. In a United States Supreme Court decision it was written, “The Constitution does not grant to members of the public generally a right to be heard by public bodies making decisions of policy." Minnesota State Bd. for Community Colleges v. Knight, 465 U.S. 271 (1984).
Chairman Reed did brief the commission on a meeting that occurred on Monday.
He said, “With the hard work of the Commission and County Executive Jim Vincent we are paying back some $2.7 million of the loan on the new Justice Center. This will be a savings to county taxpayers. They told us we could not complete the center for what we got a loan for, but we did.”
Also, Rhea County EMA Director Brad Harrison unveiled two new fire trucks. The county just purchased a 2002 American LaFrance 93 foot Aerial Ladder Tower. The truck was purchased from an agency in Connecticut and driven back to Rhea County.
County Executive Vincent said the county got a good deal on the truck which if purchased new would run over $800,000, but the county was able to purchase the truck for $565,000. The money had been approved in the 2001-2002 budget.
Director Harrison said that the truck was capable of pumping 2,000 gallons per minute from its pump. It will be stationed at the Evensville Fire Hall. He said this truck would be used throughout the county, but Evensville was the only hall that was long enough to store the truck in.
The new tanker truck, which will be housed at the Morgantown Fire Hall, was also shown off to the commissioners. It will also be used countywide.
Director Harrison advised that completion of the new fire station on top of Evensville should be within the next few weeks.
New tanker truck