Loudon County Board of Education chairman has mentioned it, Loudon County Director of Schools has mentioned it, and now there are documents estimating how much it will cost. Doyle Arp is asking the BOE to move it's offices out of the county building. The proposal is apparently for the BOE to move to the former County Vocational School on Harrison Road in Lenoir City. Estimated cost 1.9 + million. Problem with the whole plan? According to the law, all county offices must be located in the city of the county seat. That would be Loudon.

TCA 5-7-105. Location of county buildings and courthouse, jail, workhouse and county highway department garage — Interlocal agreements.

(a)  The courthouse and all county buildings provided by the county for the county officers shall be erected within the limits of the county town; provided, that the jail and county highway department garage may be erected outside the limits of the county town but within the boundaries of the county; and provided further, that if two (2) or more counties enter into an interlocal agreement providing for a jail or workhouse to serve the counties that are parties to the agreement, then a county that is a party to such an agreement shall not be required to have a jail or workhouse located within the boundaries of the county, but any jail or workhouse serving more than one (1) county shall be located within the boundaries of one (1) of the counties that is a party to the agreement.

County school board members are certainly county officers, the director of county schools is certainly a county officer. Seems the law would apply here and the BOE offices would be required to stay in the City of Loudon. It may be that Arp will need another law suit to skirt yet another law to evict the BOE from their offices. If Arp boots them out, and they have to stay in Loudon, the BOE may have no place to go. As Arp continues to expand his empire at the expense of the tax payers, seems there is no limit to how mush of your money he is willing to spend. 

The BOE has offered up a 144 million dollar plan for new schools and expansions. They currently own an entire school building, the former County Vocational School on Harrison Road in Lenoir City, sitting mostly empty on about twenty five acres. Yet rather than use this existing building, they propose to construct a new one for $22,000,000.00.

Seems everybody wants in the pocket of the tax payers.