February Commission Work Session 2026

Top Priority

There are two items dealing with ICE money that will likely be combined to one item for the full meeting, providing $214,930 for vehicles and personnel to the Sheriff's Dept for immigration enforcement activities. These two items are scanned below for your perusal. Public comment on agenda and non-agenda related items is open shortly into the regular meeting time.

The meeting

Most of the items are normal housekeeping type things: a litter grant, transferring money from one account to another for the solid waste dept., traffic signal modernization, lowering the speed limit on Riverside Road, salary supplement for SROs, acquiring new vehicles for the sheriff's dept., and delinquent tax property sale.

Two items are of special interest. As everyone is aware, assessments raised most people's property taxes. Sullivan County Trustee Angela Taylor has created a program that will allow advance monthly payments for those taxes.  Taxpayers will be offered the opportunity to sign up to make advanced payments based on their prior year taxes, the amount of which can be adjusted once the county tax rate has been established. It doesn't look to me like this will be available for the 2026 tax year but will begin in February of 2027. This was strongly hailed and supported.

The Opioid Committee is proposing to buy a home to create the Sullivan County Women's Recovery Home for women coming out of jail. This facility would provide re-entry treatment and services as a part of the Northeast Tennessee Regional Recovery Center operated by Families Free. This program operates a large men's facility in Roan Mountain for approximately 80 men from our region, and several smaller women's group houses. These programs require counseling and treatment, jobs, and church attendance, and are highly supervised with a good success rate. Lisa Tipton, who operates the program, was in attendance to answer questions. There is $1.3 million in the opioid settlement fund currently, with $600,000 more due this year, with opioid settlement money scheduled to continue through 2033. 

You should listen to the meeting to hear the commissioners' objections to this purchase, which mostly consisted of "not in my back yard" "I support this BUT" arguments. Lisa Tipton, Mayor Venable, but most especially Judge Goodwin spoke powerfully (at the 1:30 mark) in favor of this particular purchase and this program. Of note is that treatment is cheaper than jail; reuniting children and parents is cheaper than foster care; and these are not one-time benefits but have generational effects. Judge Goodwin made no bones about it that without programs like this, "Blood is on our hands."

Of note

During the public comment section of the meeting, a local lawyer spoke about the need for a full-time juvenile court, citing statistics such as the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth rating of Sullivan County as the worst county in Tennessee for family and community well-being. The youth crime rate in Sullivan County is the 3rd highest in the state. When Hawkins County started a full-time juvenile court, its crime rate dropped in one year. His ask was for at least a study group to assess the feasibility of a full-time juvenile court to address the ever growing juvenile crime and drug problem in the county.