Appointment Update

According to the county attorney, the commission has 120 days from the date of the vacancy to fill the vacant seat. The vacancy begins January 1st, 2022. 120 days from that date will be the last day of April. The primary election is May 3rd. The deadline to appoint will be three days short of the primary. It would have been best if we could have just let the voters decide but unfortunately, the calendar didn't workout for us.

The county is in a unique situation in the upcoming election. For the first time ever, candidates for school board will have to run in the May primary election as either a republican or a democrat. The vacant seat will be on the May primary ballot. Candidates for that seat will be able to pick up qualifying petitions beginning December 20th. The end of the qualifying and withdrawal period is February 24th, 2022. After that date, we will know how many candidates have qualified for the open seat. If only one candidate qualifies, then the commission could appoint that candidate. If more than one candidate qualifies for the seat, then commission will need to find someone to fill the vacant seat till the August election. That person would likely need to attend only three meetings, May, June and August.

Ultimately, after the elections, the Loudon County school board will be getting a new 5th district school board member. I would personally like to thank Brian Brown for his time of service on the school board. It's a tough job and the most thankless. Brian has done a great job representing the 5th district since 2016. His experience on the board will be missed but hopefully we'll get a new representative who can pick up where Brian left off.

Loudon County Commission discussed Monday what to do for a successor to Brian Brown, who resigned from Loudon County Board of Education.

Brown told BOE members Thursday that he planned to step down after Dec. 31 when he moves from the fifth district to the first district.

The move leaves commissioners responsible for finding a replacement within 120 days, which met with mixed response during the workshop.

Commissioners Van Shaver and Harold Duff, who both represent the fifth district, wanted to let voters decide who replaces Brown.

“This close to election, let the voters decide, and then whoever wins the primary we’ll appoint that person,” Shaver said. “But that way you let the voters take their pick instead of giving anybody a leg up on the election or anything like that. I think the voters deciding is the way to go.”

The May primary is a few days after the 120-day limit.

Shaver and Commissioner Matthew Tinker went back and forth on what to do.

Tinker favored making an appointment, emphasizing the district wouldn’t have adequate representation for a short timeframe.

“The district is assigned two people based on their population,” Tinker said. “Some districts have two, some districts have one. They have two and they don’t need to go months without having their full representation. There’s no point in that. It’s our duty to assign someone and that’s what we should do.”

When commissioners ask how many people were interested in the position, Shaver said “it’s irrelevant.”

Tinker hoped to hear from Loudon County Attorney Bob Bowman by the Dec. 6 regular meeting to see if the county could face fines should an appointment not happen within the allotted time.

Loudon County Mayor Rollen “Buddy” Bradshaw said he would speak with Brown to see if he could extend service on the BOE a little longer to ensure it’s within 120 days.

“(Tennessee Code Annotated) you’ve got 120 days to fill it and I don’t like to stretch the rules anyway,” Bradshaw said. “I like our clean audits, I like us being in good graces, and so if it’s a three- or four-day thing, maybe ask Brian instead of Dec. 31, maybe stretch it to Jan. 3 or 4, if he’s comfortable with it and he’s not already moved.”

Commissioner Kelly Littleton-Brewster said the county should honor Brown’s initial decision.

“I feel like if somebody’s made that decision and they broke down their thoughts and their feelings on this, I think that we should honor their request and go ahead,” Littleton-Brewster said. “I don’t like asking somebody else to change something so that we fit into a certain timeframe versus 120 days or 123 days.”

Storage considered

Commissioners also briefly discussed funding additional space at Loudon Public Library for records storage.

An addition could potentially go to the left of the library toward the back parking lot. Drawings could cost about $60,000 from architect firm MBI Companies Inc.

Commissioners will consider the measure Dec. 6.

“It’ll have a records storage area for our historical records that can be on display and then it will have storage areas for all of our records that we have to keep for however many years or months that they have to stay in there,” Tinker said. “That area will be very basic, concrete floors, concrete walls, just air conditioning for safety of the records. It will be caged off per section of the departments that we have in the county.”

Tinker said the location is ideal for record storage.

“We have someone there who could help us with the documents, who can talk to the public about what they have in there, what they’re looking at,” he said. “They’re trained on handling of sensitive documents and materials, so having somewhere that the public can use alleviates those records being kept in behind the county building and every time someone wants to look at a record they have to go and get somebody to stop working on what they’re doing and send them out there.”