September Commission Work Session 2025

From the agenda, it looked like this work session would be short and sweet, as there were only eight items on the agenda, and no zoning requests. Alas, it was not to be. Matthew Johnson, the Director of the Sullivan County Department of Archives and Tourism and the only speaker during public comment, hung around as he and Mayor Venable (who rarely attends Commission Meetings) would be needed on Item 8.

Items 1-4 are to accept grants or give permission to make application for grants. Item 5 is to sell some older and unused highway equipment to Bluff City. Item 6 is to adopt the Sullivan County Multi-Jurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (Disaster Plan). Item 7 is to reappropriate funds that weren't spent last year to support the Emergency Management Agency. All seven of these items were placed on the consent agenda.

Item 8 is to authorize the advertisement for requests for qualifications (RFQs) to provide tourism marketing on a contractual basis. The hotel tax has taken in quite a bit of money in the years it has been collected, with half appropriated to NETTA (Northeast Tennessee Tourism Association) that serves 8 counties. Mr. Johnson has been organizing and preserving the archives and acting as tourism director, and this proposal is to "see what's out there" to help him, hopefully finding a (hopefully local) business that can assist in tourism promotion. Mayor Venable spoke pretty eloquently about the need to use what we have, like the new airline flying directly from DC, and see if the county can get more visitors from there.

The commissioners had LOTS of questions and concerns.  Commissioner Akard was concerned that the money was burning a hole in the county's pocket, and that someone (I assume the mayor) had in mind who he wanted to fill this role and become a county employee as Director of Tourism. Commissioner Glover even directly referenced "sticky fingers" trying to get $800,000. He and Commissioner King suggested spending the money to finish making the Farmer's Market building like Kingsport's. The Mayor said he wanted that building too, but this money is to be used specifically for tourism. Commissioner King then talked about the Ag Center, which, to my understanding, the county GAVE to the Cattleman's Association after spending the money to build it, but the Commissioners and the Mayor seemed to think that had been a great deal. The Mayor talked about the need to grow the commercial base (specifically hotels) of the county, but all the effort has gone to industry. There was more discussion about the language and intent of the resolution, and it was referred for more discussion at next week's meeting.

Item 9 was added at the last minute, which is a state insurance plan change and will be discussed at next week's meeting.

During announcements, Larry Bailey, Sullivan County Director of Finance, gave out booklets about the structure of the county that had been put together in 2005, with hopes that a similar booklet could again be produced. 

The elephant in the room, however, was the threatening and abusive private message that Commissioner Joe Carr had sent to someone, someone he's not friends with, someone he doesn't know (graphic below). The Commissioners I spoke with were aware of it but were unsure if they had the authority to do anything about it. If they do not have a code of conduct in place, they surely need to adopt one.

If you'd like to see the meeting, you can find it here.