On June 1st, Loudon County General Sessions Judge, Rex Dale, came before the commission asking us to vote to create a second general sessions court. Along with the request is a proposal to quadruple the litigation tax to partially offset the cost of the new court. The two courts would cost a little more than a half million dollars per year to begin with. The judge's request failed by one vote. 

So now, just 28 days later, the judge is coming back for a second bite at the apple. At last Wednesday's budget meeting, the judge informed us that he would be coming to tonight's meeting to ask the commission a second time to pass his private act to create the second court.

According to Judge Dale, he believes his proposal will pass this time.

I'm not sure what has changed in 28 days. If the second court is created it will still add a minimum of a hundred thousand dollars to the operations cost of the courts. It would still require a huge litigation tax increase just to pay for part of the costs and it would still all but seal the deal that Court Clerk, Lisa Niles, will win her lawsuit against the tax payers. These were the very same concerns that were raised when he made his proposal back on June 1st when he was voted down.