Council to hold Work Session Monday due to Election Day to discuss BOE sewer lines and Bluebirds and Sunday Liquor Sales.

With election day on Tuesday, the Crossville city council will hold their monthly work session a day early on Monday, April 30 and start work in earnest on the 2018-19 fiscal year budget.

The work session starts at 5 PM and will be in the third-floor conference room at Crossville city hall.

The final item on the agenda is the presentation of the budget by city manager Greg Wood. While staff has been working on the document for a number of weeks, where the budget stands currently has not been made public yet.

Crossville City Council Members, City Attorney 

and City Manager. L-R Will Ridley, Danny Wyatt

Pamala Harris, Mayor James Mayberry, J.H. Graham

and Greg Wood

Other items for discussion on the work session agenda include contract agreement modifications between the city and the Cumberland County Board of Education (BOE) concerning sewer lines for North, South and Brown Elementary schools. The new agreements would transfer ownership, control and the responsibility for maintenance of the lines to the city. The BOE has requested that the city take over the lines.

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Council will also consider a request from the director of schools to help pay for the drainage project for the Cumberland County High School football field and track that has been a problem for many years. The total project is $435,000 and parts of the project including the storm inlet structure and the mainline storm sewer are broken out separately at $10,000 and $133,000.

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The city's director of engineering recommends the city reimburse the schools for the inlet structure as the city's pipe connects to one side and the schools to the other side. In addition, it is unclear who owns the current structure that is partly in the right of way and the grate is substandard and would not support a vehicle if one left the roadway and that could be considered a city liability.

Council will also consider a request received to name the Eastern Bluebird as the city bird. A petition has been submitted to the city requesting that the bird be designated as the official bird of the city.

Eastern Bluebird

By William H. Majoros [CC BY-SA 3.0

(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],

from Wikimedia Commons

Council will consider the engineering contract for the sealing and striping of the Crossville Memorial Airport runway and taxiway. The cost of the contract is on a TDOT grant with the city's portion fiver percent of the cost.

Council will also consider a grant application to the Department of Justice to fund 50 percent of the cost of police vests for the department.

Council will consider a change to the city's liquor ordinance to allow for sales on Sunday as has been recently approved by the state.   

No action taken by Crossville city council on request for CCHS football field funding

Crossville city council took no action on a request for help with funding for repairs to the Cumberland County High School (CCHS) football field.

The request was discussed at the council's November meeting, and a motion was approved that the County be contacted about sharing the cost of the project and the matter to come back to the council in December.

CCHS principal Jon Hall returned to the council's December meeting and said that neither the board of education or the county had funds available for the project. Hall explained that he had donations secured for $20,000 toward the $100,000 to $120,000 project plus the donation of fuel should the contractor be a local company.

CCHS Principal Jon Hall addresses the council.

Hall said he had found a possible grant through the National Football League that could fund up to $100,000 but requires a 50 percent local match guarantee. Hall said they project met the criteria but he would need a commitment for the match before he could submit the grant. He added that he had spoken to two other potential donors and expected to hear back on those after they took the requests to their boards.

Mayor James Mayberry asked about funding from the board of edcuation and Hall explained that they were prioritizing the Crab Orchard school project and roofs for North and South elementary schools. “Our small project is way down their list,” explained Hall who added that those project should take precedence.

The project is to fix drainage problems on the field and to replace all the drainage lines under the field, repair the retaining wall, removing slopes down to the field to add drainage basins. Hall said the irrigation system also needs replaced.

Mayor Mayberry said he was concerned with the number of elementary schools and two high schools and said, “If the city gets involved in this project, whats the next project for the next school going to be?” Mayberry praised Hall's work in seeking other donations from businesses and corporations but he was uncomfortable with the city funding a project for one school.

Mayberry called for a motion and none was made by the council and the council moved to the next agenda item.

Final regular council meeting for Souza and Kerley includes ethics complaints, grants and funding request for Jet Stadium

The final regular Crossville city council meeting for the current version of council comes two days after the election for two new members of the council. The agenda for the November regular council meeting includes a long list of the ethics violations filed by councilman Pete Souza that may or may not be investigated depending on the vote of a majority of council.

Crossville city hall

The council's evening starts at 5:15 PM with the council meeting as the audit committee in conference room 317.  A public hearing on annexation progress report is set for 5:50 PM and the council's regular meeting starts at 6 PM.  

In addition to the ethics complaints that come near the end of the meeting's agenda, council will also consider grant applications for site preparation for an industrial site building pad and a tourism development grant for the shooting sports park. Council will again consider a sidewalk proposal for Dunn Ave near Walmart and a request for funding by Cumberland County High School for repairs to their football field.

The list of ethics complaints can be found at this link. City attorney Will Ridley recommended the items should be covered at a special called meeting and one was close to being scheduled but was pulled just before the notice was to go out. Councilman Souza then asked that the items be included on the regular meeting's agenda.  

All 13 of the complaints are listed as individual agenda items and in each case, the council has three options, to determine that the complaint has merit, determine that the complaint does not have merit or determine that the complaint has sufficient merit to warrant further investigation. If the Council determines that a complaint warrants further investigation, it would authorize an investigation by the City Attorney or another individual or entity chosen by the City Council to make that investigation.

The Chamber of Commerce is seeking permission to apply for a grant of up to $500,000 for a Tennessee Department of Economic and Community development site development grant. The grant will require a minimum $214,000 match up to a maximum of $500,000 match from the city to construct a 200,000 square foot pad ready for construction to start.

The site for the pad is in the Interchange Park at I-40 and 127-N and the plan would include space for some 255 parking spaces and an area for trucks as well.

Council will also consider making an application for a tourism enhancement grant to assist in the development of the Shooting Sports Park proposed for the old city landfill property at Chestnut Hill. The project construction will be funded though the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency at $2.3 million to develop the park. The city can request up to $50,000 for the toursim grant and a $15,000 match will be required for the grant. The grant looks at bringing people more than 50 miles from their home and a method for measuring the impact.

Once again the council will look at a proposal for construction a sidewalk on Dunn Avenue between Interstate Drive and Matherly St. Property owners on the street have agreed to fund 50 percent of the material to build the curb gutter and sidewalk with the city funding the balance and labor.

The project was discussed at a work session in 2014 where council accepted a recommendation that the owners provide all the material and the city would fund the labor and ranking the project with other sidewalk projects. The project also came during two subsequent work session and deferred.

CCHS principal Jon Hall has requested help from the city on a project to make major repairs to their football field. Problems include drainage issues and a need to replace drain pipes under the field, redoing the sideline hillsides, irrigation system and new sod. The total cost of the work is estimated at $100,000 and so far they have received a commitment of $10,000 from Pilot/Flying J. Hall's email to the city also says the school system had “some funds” to help but no amount is known at the current time.