Mhm. Hello. I'd like to welcome everyone to June 3rd public works and planning committee meeting. First, we'll call the role, please. Yes, sir. Commissioner Kush.
Commissioner Piery, here. Commissioner Pay here. Commissioner Dodd here. Commissioner James here. Commissioner Boyd here. Chairman Johnson here. We have a quorum.
Okay. First we'll uh approve the minutes. Vice Vice Chairman Dodd. Thank you, Chairman. I've read the minutes and found them in order and move for their approval. We have a motion and a second to approve the minutes. All in favor? I. All
oppose. We have any public comments? No public comments tonight. So, I'm pleased to say that we're honored to have uh Senator Haida Campbell with us. She's going to speak about
recycling and also we have uh Gary Cohen from her office that's with her. So, welcome. [Music] Thank you, chairman. Thank you so much for having us. Uh we are um honored to be able to present to you the Tennessee
Waste to Jobs Act. I think we're going to start, if it's okay, with everybody, with a a video that we put together that just kind of gives you an idea of uh of what people are saying in Tennessee about it.
[Music] Every year, billions of pounds of trash are buried in landfills across Tennessee. Not in my backyard. That's what people living in Rutherford County are saying about yet another proposal to
build more of the Middle Point landfill next to the one that's already there. Before you can even see the Middle Point landfill, you can smell it. With the population boom in middle Tennessee, landfills are filling up fast. Of all that waste, 75% could be recovered and
put back into our economy. But today, Tennessee only recycles about 10% of our waste. We can solve this. There are industries right here in Tennessee that need those materials we are currently sending to our landfills.
Kaiser Aluminum is a semifabricated aluminum products company. We manufacture products for aerospace, packaging, general engineering as well as automotive and markets. So currently what we're facing is 2/3 of our primary
aluminum in the United States comes from Canada. On average, 800 million to a billion dollars annually worth of aluminum beverage cans hitting the landfills. And because aluminum is infinitely recyclable, we could capture
that material and bring it back into our facilities. It would certainly help alleviate a lot of the supply issues that we're dealing with and we may be dealing with significantly into the future. And the only way to do that is through better state and federal
policies. The aluminum industry has an economic impact of $9 billion annually in Tennessee. Its impacts can be felt across the entire state. In Huntington, Grangus operates one of its three US aluminum rolling facilities. Grangis is
the largest employer in Carroll County with more than 500 employees. And we're a global um foil manufacturing facility and customers put that in all kinds of applications. Everything from HVAC to automotive to flexible packaging, even
thinking about um all the way down to a Capri Sun or a peanut butter lid. That is the aluminum that you see that comes from our facilities. We could function almost on 100% recyclable if we can if we can get it to fill our demand. It's really kind of treated like a commodity.
It's not a fight, but it's a challenge to find a an adequate continuous supply. Beverage cans, turkey basters, or pipe pans and stuff. That's a lot of aluminum, a lot of a good grade aluminum that we could use. It's a win all around. It's it's cheaper. It's less
electricity and and it's less emissions than converting it from ore out of the ground. The recycling he's talking about is taking place just east in Dixon, Tennessee at Shapiro Metals. We get probably 75 to 80% of the materials from
Tennessee. Uh we do aluminum, we do stainless, we do coppers, a lot of finisher, um cardboard, some plastics. We'll put it on the line, run it up into the bor. It'll compact it. It'll come out in this form. Then it'll go to a end
user from Melton. One of those end users is grangas in Huntington, which is how a circular economy works. The waste from one industry provides feed stock for another. Metals are not the only materials in high demand in Tennessee. Just up the road in Weekley County sits
the largest ball clay deposit in the United States. 90% of all porcelain tile manufactured in the US includes Tennessee ball clay. Tennessee clay is a key ingredient in the production of ceramic tiles and countertops. Up the road in Clarksville is one of North
America's largest tile manufacturing facilities. Florum, USA. Porcelain tile is made primarily of sand, clay, and feldspar. The clay is West Tennessee ball clay. That's why we're here. That's why Tennessee is so popular in the clay industry. The sand though we could
substitute in glass because it's chemically the same. So bottled glass would be a great source for us to have postconumer content in our tile. I think it's important to understand the scale of the industry in Tennessee and the scale of industry here at Floren. We could take every bottle landfill in
Tennessee today and we would still have to buy glass. From Crossville to Clarksville, thousands of Tennessans are employed in our ceramic tile industry. Florum, the tile manufacturer, needs the glass, but currently we don't have the
recycling infrastructure in place to capture that glass. Right down the road in Old Hickory, Recycle Services is trying to meet that demand. Recycle services located specifically to Tennessee because there is a great uh amount of glass that is not being
recycled and there's a huge demand for recycled glass. And the reason why recycled glass is so valuable is that when it's cleaned and processed appropriately, it's easier to melt and so is more efficient. You're not
remmining sand and limestone to create new glass products. And so there's many benefits to the environment and to our businesses. So there's demand for our aluminum and our glass, but what about plastics? A straight shot down I65 in
Troy, Alabama is KW Plastics. KW Plastics is headquartered in Troy, Alabama. And we are considered the world's largest plastics recycler. Companies like Unilver, Proctor and Gamble, Toyota, GM. They need postconumer recycled material and we
would love to be able to supply them with that. We know that there is much more plastic that we could be getting from Tennessee that we could be purchasing from communities in Tennessee. Not only would I love to buy more, I need to buy more. But without a system in place, without infrastructure
in place, then it's getting lost. That we literally are burying billions dollars worth of plastic containers in our landfills. This really is economic development. It's about being a good steward of the resources that we have.
um and maximizing what we already have. We had to go outside of Tennessee to Columbus, Ohio to find a real world example of the future of recycling. This $100 million facility processes and recycles over $250,000 tons of municipal solid waste
per year. In order to bring this degree of investment to Tennessee, our state lawmakers are currently considering the Tennessee Waste to Jobs Act. This legislation will generate millions of dollars for recycling infrastructure, reduce our reliance on materials from
foreign countries, create thousands of Tennessee jobs, and help solve our landfill crisis at no cost to Tennessee taxpayers. Tennessee is well positioned to become a regional economic powerhouse and a leader in recycling. Please support the Tennessee
Waste to Jobs Act. [Music] Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, if you have to wipe yourself raw just to get clean, do this. Start just in case you wanted to think about buying some paper towels.
Um, yes. Um, so the Tennessee Waste to Jobs Act, simply put, is a funding mechanism that will bring hundreds of millions of dollars to our state in infrastructure support for recycling and for education. Um, that's okay. I'm just saying at the
beginning, um, um, at zero cost to taxpayers, which sounds like a free lunch. It sounds like that couldn't be true, right? Well, it is. And the reason that they do this is because companies have to do this, big global companies have to do this in other countries and
they have had to for years. And so it's gotten to the point where the the parody, the lack of parody that they're experiencing in our country is so great that they're willing to invest in passing legislation to force our country to do it as well because they're having
to reduce and what this bill does is it forces companies to reduce their packaging. um literally physically um by charging them for their packaging. And that's just the economic outcome of charging them for their packaging. When
I was in business school, we used to talk all the time about shelf space and how important it is to take up as much shelf space as you possibly can because that's how you sell your product. And that's why we see these huge bags of potato chips with, you know, this much potato chips and that's why we see
shelves and shelves of cereal because that's how you sell things. Well, they're at a disadvantage if they're having to reduce the size of their packaging in other countries um because you know they're not able to economies of scale are not such that they're able to produce different packaging for our
country and for theirs. And so they are actually investing in EPR. Six states have passed EPR or seven now. Yes, seven. And we would be the first red state to do that. And because we are a red state and we're not about regulation
and we're about supporting businesses, this is such an amazing opportunity for us to support true circular economy and empower businesses to set the program for it. And so what this bill would do
is um enable a producer responsibility organization to be formed that would then make the rules for how they were going to collect um packaging um dollars to support infrastructure in our state. We are 48th in the country for
recycling. And I think maybe you guys know a little bit about landfills and trash around here. Um, so, uh, all of our landfills are at capacity and, um, I know that, uh, you all are tired of having Nashville's trash shipped out
here, um, to Rutherford County. And one of the things that we can do, um, immediately is reduce our our our landfill um, by our landfill input by close to a million tons a year. Um, and
also this would incentivize um composting. Composting is in our bill for packaging, but it actually would set up some infrastructure for composting and start to um make the public more aware of the fact that when they throw their trash away, it doesn't just
disappear magically, but that we're actually filling up landfills and it's causing problems for people like um those who are proximate to um the Rutherford landfill. So, this is Gary Cohen. He is an expert on packaging and I'm going to pass it on to him so that
he can tell us a little bit more about this. We're going to tag team here a little bit. So yeah, I am I'm not a politician. I'm nobody from government. I'm not a lobbyist. I've been in the packaging industry all my life. I'll be retiring actually from a full-time job June 30th.
Yes. Uh to focus on my role here as executive director, volunteer, I must say. I'm a volunteer. Uh I've spent 40 years seeing packaging uh firsthand being thrown in landfills. I know that there's better uses for it. We are very aware that aluminum cans, as you saw uh
in the video, aluminum cans, plastics, all of that can be put back if we have the infrastructure. So that's why I'm a major supporter of EPR. EPR has been around since the 1990s in Europe where it has a much smaller footprint of of landfills. They had to do something with
their waste. So they said, "We're going to put the responsibility back on the folks who were creating the waste. We're going to put the responsibility back on the Cokes, the Pepsis, and Mars. You all the way down." So these folks have been doing this in Europe for 30 years. It's just come to the United States in the
last four or five years because in 2019, there was a thing called the China Sword. Anybody hear about the China sword? China sword. Basically, we used to send all it's probably a good percentage of our plastics over to China for them to process. In 2019, they shut
the door on us. They said, "No, we don't want your stuff anymore because really there's a lot of contamination." So, what's happened? It exacerbated the supply of plastics. Then the COVID hit and all of a sudden people are buying more and more um you know, e-commerce
and all of a sudden our waist stream is going m and what do we have? We have a problem. We have to find solutions. Someone I think Commissioner Pay said we continually trying to find solutions looking for this is a solution. This is a proven solution in Europe. It's it's
in it's in Asia, Canada, many of the international companies that we have in here in Tennessee are participating all around the world. Why shouldn't we be participating in here? But we need to do it in Tennessee way. We need to be uh
strong with business. We need to get them on board. We need public support. So that's why we appreciate very much you giving us this public forum of providing a solution to this all this stuff that we see in supermarkets and and this is really consumerf facing. All right. We're not talking about
businessto business. Consumerf facing stuff that you and I buy in Home Depot and Lowe's and and uh Kroger's and Publix. That's the stuff that we're talking about. Yeah. It's supported by Nestle, Mars, Unilver, IKEA, Denown. So, we've already
got a lot of companies on board who are supporting it. Um, it's a bipartisan bill. You know, we're all dealing with trash. This shouldn't be political. Um, and I'm trying to think if there's anything we haven't covered that's on our slides. I do want to point out that this is true circular economy.
Um it can be I think part of the problem uh with EPR is that some of it has been in other states overregulatory and um I would say that some of the blue states h have overregulated not just this but all kinds of things to the exclusion of
being able to accomplish anything. Um, so I I think that this is a wonderful space for us to actually test out circular economy and see if businesses can generate. You see that there are from that video that there are companies by the way who paid for that video because they want this to pass that need
those materials. And with the tariff situation looming, maybe or maybe not, who knows? Depends on what day it is. They really want the security of knowing that they're going to have sources for their aluminum, for their glass, and for even for their plastics. So, um, so it
really is truly circular economy because it benefits, uh, Gary always talks about the triple win. It benefits, uh, consumers, it benefits businesses, and of course, it benefits, um, you know, the overall state. And just just to add, I mean, here in Tennessee, it's a unique
state, okay? Because we, as the video had said, we here in Tennessee produce almost 95% of the ceramic tiles that are shipped in the United States. Think about that. Yeah. ceramic tiles all around the country. 95% of them come here from Tennessee. And the reason is
is because of that ball clip. And what could and you heard uh the gentleman say he could use every single bit bit of glass. There's a lot of glass downtown Nashville. We just don't have the infrastructure to collect it. Okay. The the folks with the aluminum, it's it's it uh there is almost 20,000 people or
that are employed by the aluminum industry. It's a 10 billion dollar industry here in Tennessee. It's import Alcoa, right? Alcoa. I'm sorry. Alcoa, it's named in in, you know, it's a Tennessee. It's so important. They have to pay, according
to what they're saying, almost 50% tariffs on twothirds of the aluminum got to come in from Canada. Now, boy, could they use the aluminum. So, it's here in Tennessee, we have very, very unique opportunities to use what we throw away. So, Mr. chairman and members of of the
commission. Um we would be glad to answer any questions anyone may have um about this. Thank you for the opportunity. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner P. You you are asking for our support on this legislation. What in particular
could we do? I mean we could send a letter of recommendation from this committee or you know report to our steering and then to our full com commission. uh is that something you would like to happen or you know what other ways can we help you? Sure that would be great. We have um Metro Council
has written us written a resolution in support of this and then we have many uh mayors throughout um the state um who have signed on to this uh with a letter of support. Um so obviously um encouraging your mayor to write a letter
of support as well would be helpful. Um and then you know we just um obviously want as many people in Tennessee to come on board to let people know about it so that we can build we're kind of looking at grassroots support and then of course we're um working with you know
corporations and legislators to to see if we can bring that sandwich together. So that would be great. Um we would we would greatly appreciate letters of support and a resolution. What was that bill number? 269. Uh SB S
SP269. We rolled it over from the first session. It'll be reintroduced again. Any other questions? Yep. Thank you, Gary and Heidi. Um couple of things. There was a I can't remember if it was
Netflix or History Channel couple of months ago had a really good documentary on something you're describing right now and it was I can't remember the title but it was the theme throughout was you know taking out the trash and what does
that really mean there there is no out it it followed the trail of trash everywhere and then showed you know the oceans polluted the the economic depressed foreign countries that take the world's trash. It showed
the horrible piles and the horrible. But it then, you know, followed like the McDonald's rapper out in the ditch and traced that back as to those big corporations, and I'm not picking on McDonald's, but that was the
example used that they should have skin in the game. And it it did exactly Gary what you're talking about. It it followed and mandated and got those big corporations involved to be more responsible. And as most of us have sit
in public works and the solid way side for many years now, you know, we're seeing, you know, places like California be really successful, but we're seeing why they're being successful because many things are mandated by the government. Well, we
don't have anything mandated by the state of Tennessee. This sounds like a nice word for some mandates, which to me aren't all bad, but we we've kind of found that nothing's going to get done unless
somebody's forced to do something, which means a mandate. And is is this kind of maybe a first itsybitsy baby step for that? So this is at least for the big corporation side, right? Well, this is
truly a unique situation because you have companies that are already doing this in other countries and so we're already paying for it. It's already built into the cost of our products because they're already doing this in other countries. So the question is whether or not we we as a state want to
take advantage of the opportunity to have that um investment in infrastructure. And so actually I do think this is uniquely a space where you don't need a mandate so much as you need to actually facilitate and catalyze the opportunity for corporations,
businesses, the free market um to take advantage of um needing the materials um reducing the landfill um imprint and um and providing recycling for Tennessans and recycling education. Okay, la last
question. What you mentioned the infrastructure, we need to get the infrastructure in place. What what does that look like? And is that something that the federal government has grant opportunities for or the state government has opportunities for? So, how do we get how do we get the glass
bottles ground and crushed to the porcelain to the tile folks? How how does that happen? Well, that's a great question because initially what would happen is that they would create a needs assessment which basically you take a an analysis of what we have currently
within the state. What how many MURFs how many uh transfer stations and then what do we need if we're ranked 48th in the nation and we're only recycling at a 12% rate in 10 years we say we want to go ahead and be at 60% recycle rate.
What do we need to build for the infrastructure to get there? and it comes up with a dollars and that dollars then goes into the needs assessment. The pro which the producers will be set up they will then fund that infrastructure.
So if we have to go ahead and say well we need optical sorters as you saw in that rumki video right they have 15 optical sorders where they're doing 15 different commodities those optical sorters are somewhere around a million dollars a piece it's not going to come from the taxpayers is it? It has to come
from the industry because the industry wants the material back. But you have to go ahead and share in the responsibility so that you can build that infrastructure, build that equipment so that you can get the trucks, the people, the jobs, the infrastructure and the optical sorders and the processing so
that you can go ahead instead of throwing away 85% of your packaging, now you have the infrastructure to go ahead and process it. Does that And tell them what the estimate is. Oh. We are are our infrastructure here in
Tennessee uh probably is in the area of needs of about 300 to $350 million. Uh this just just in infrastructure um investment, but this our Tennessee waste to jobs would bring in somewhere around $300 million a year from the producers
based upon what we've seen in other states. $300 million a year uh that it would bring in to help us run so that we would bring curbside recycling to all the major metropolitan areas. We would bring depots to the rural communities.
Um it will help to build that infrastructure and obviously save taxpayer dollars because it's the taxpayer dollars that are sending and paying for the for the waste to go to the landfills right now, isn't it? that would now not have to be on the
taxpayers. What happens after these companies get their packaging back under control and now that price point from them is not there or I mean that's more the the long That's a great question because that's the goal, right? and and so they are incentivized to try to as expeditiously
as possible reduce the impact that their packaging is having. And um and what happens then is you have true circular economy that's running efficiently because you have you know a a huge industry in our state for material aggregation and distribution. Our state
um touches more states than any other state in the country. We are so perfectly geographically positioned to be able to aggregate and distribute those materials to companies that need them which you know you just saw in the video and there are many more. Um so
what happens then is the packaging industry hopes to get themselves out of the business of funding these sort of things so that that economy can run itself. Um and the idea of of this whole bill is for them to make it obsolete
eventually. That's the goal. Mr. Piery, the idea I'm I've gotten a little confused, I suppose. Uh, is this a program for individual counties or will it be a
centrally located in Tennessee and everybody feeds your recyclables there? Great question and actually gives us the opportunity to talk about a red state intervent uh innovation that we did with this. No other state has done this which
is we made it permissive. So we made it so that any county under 200,000 can opt in. So this is only going to be required uh to to uh have all of the major cities in Tennessee participate at the
beginning. Now I was a small town mayor before I was a senator. So, I and I know that most cities and counties will want to opt in because, you know, why would you leave that opportunity on the table? But that having been said, it is not required of any um county with a
population under 200,000. Back to my original question, is it going to be centralized located at one spot or will each county participate in on their own? like will we would we do all our recycling and ship it to these
locations or does it go to one spot then worked and then go? So the the producer responsibility organization that's established by the legislation and that's really all the legislation does which consists of corporations stakeholders and Tuck will make the
decisions about how that's going to roll out. Um, but it will it will be a process of getting RFPs and and having a vendor um either pitch for the entire state, but every county will participate and and how they want that to play out.
I think I can. So, I I mentioned the needs assessment, right? Where we determine what's the gaps, what do we need? Once the needs assessment is done, the pro the producer responsibility creates a plan just like I said in order for us to
get recycling to all of the citizens in Rutherford County. What do we need? So, they create that plan based upon the infrastructure needs. They will determine what the investments they will work with the individual um uh counties
and if you are doing it municipally now or if you're doing it through private they will work with the existing infrastructure to go ahead and increase the amount of materials coming in and invest they will do the investing not the taxpayer does that help to answer
not yet okay I'm gonna ask you one more time. Is this a situation as Rolifford County government would do our own recycling and send it to a central
location to be processed or will all the recycling go to a location and be processed? Are the small counties like Rutherford County going to be involved or is there going to be a corporate thing somewhere that's going to manage
and operate everything from the point of being collected recyclable till it's done away with. Rutherford County will be directly uh connected to the plan and to the operations of the recycle to the pro to the producer
responsibility. They will be working within each individual county municipality to create a recycling infrastructure and moreover it will because it's permissive be the decision of Rutherford County as to whether or not they want to
participate. Got it. Chairman Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. call me, sir. Ju just to kind of piggyback off of what Commissioner Kush was saying a minute ago, Rutherford County is um it's too big for its
britches. Okay. Uh and there's no end in sight. There is no end in sight. So, the problems that we're having right now will be so hard to imagine 20 years from now.
the the mandates that maybe Commissioner Kush was talking about. Um there are situations that Rutherford County tried to do to improve our financial standing in essence to be able to collect certain
revenues to build our new schools and to build infrastructure and those kind of things. uh lobbying efforts uh killed our opportunities to raise uh revenues uh through growth situations. Um who who
is your opposition? Who who are the folks that are are probably not going to support this and and what what does that look like right now? Our biggest opposition and always you're obviously very smart. That's that's the first question you ask as a legislator is
who's your opposition? And so our opposition thus far has been um the bottlers. Um so historically, you guys probably already know this, but there's been um a real aversion to a bottle bill in Tennessee. Initially, the bottlers thought this was a bottle bill because
as as we have seen, it's complicated. It's a hard thing to explain um in such a brief period of time as you know we have to we have to as legislators. So um the bottlers have been opposed to it. The Tennessee Chamber has been opposed to it. So our job and what we're doing
this summer is campaigning um to get more companies on board. We have seven of their members or probably more like 10 of their members already on board supporting it. The Tennessee Chamber. Um but those have been our opposition because they see that as um attacks.
They're concerned that it would because they they're concerned that it would be um folded into the cost of the product. The fact of the matter is it's already folded into the cost of the product because they're they're having to deal with EPR legislation in other countries,
other states. And so really the question is whether or not we take advantage of that to provide infrastructure for recycling for Tennessee. So our job is to I I think that the people who are opposed to this have every right to be and I understand why they are. Our job
is to make it clear that they don't need to be because that their objections to it um are are not um not things that they're going to have to worry about. And I I would just add, sir, we're just asking them to share the
responsibility. We're just asking them to do their part. That's all we're asking them to do. All right? Because it's all been based on the taxpayer to deal with the waste. Do your part. You're doing it all around the world. You're going to do it in seven states around the around the country and more.
Why can't you do it? We just want you to share. Come to the table. Just one more comment to follow up. You guys sound like you have a vision and there are still a lot some number of things to work out in that long-term
vision. Anything that requires change, uh probably you'll have to work through that process and that's also understandable. Um, but your vision once again is is to is to cut down on waste
and be able to uh utilize things that are being thrown away and put in in the ground uh so that we don't have to do that. And um so if I can hear what you're saying, your vision
is just that uh landfills will last longer uh will be more sanitary and u will also be a uh more of an asset to a community versus a detriment to a community. All of those things sound real good. The people who are opposed to
this, do they have a vision? Let me I just want to give you one example. We have been seeing more and more of these right instead of the plastic from Amazon. It is EPR that has driven Amazon to be more sustainable.
Why? Because the plastic envelope should it be thrown away will cost Amazon more because it's a hard to recycle plastic as opposed to a a paper. So it's the and we are seeing these types of changes throughout the market of people changing
their packaging. I'm in the packaging industry. I see it firsthand every day. People changing their packaging to more sustainable packaging as a result of the fact that if you don't, it's going to cost you more to answer your question. Yeah. And I I would also say, and you
put that so eloquently, um it's not so much of a vision that they have as a fear that they have. Um and fear is obviously what comes up for everybody all the time when we have change, when we're facing change. But, you know, do we want to keep dumping um massive tons
of stuff into the ground when we could actually be reusing it, reducing, providing those materials for industries that need them? I mean, that's the question inevitably. Are we going to dig more holes and put more junk in the ground, or are we actually going to start to change our behavior and reduce
and and start by requiring these companies to to change their behavior, um, which they're already doing. Vice Chair Dodd, thank you. And I hate to keep dragging it on. The companies are already spending money in packaging.
You're suggesting reduce your expense in packaging and contribute that to the community. Correct. Right. Correct. So the company is no greater expense, but they shift their expense. You the bill compels them to find cost savings in
packaging and give those savings to the community. Exactly. with also the added um caveat that they are already doing this in other places. So now they want to incentivize other people to do so as well. So it's a it's it's evening the
playing field um activity for them also. Then if there's a pool of money created then a plan will be created that Mr. Pierce I was confused as well. So there is no plan right now. There's no place to take it. There's nothing. If funds are produced, then a plan will be
created and awarded and then Steve and I'll know where to take our recycling. Is it you'll be part of the plan? So, we don't know yet. Is that what Yes. And and so it's an interesting question because we were just talking with a group of people and we're actually in an hour jumping on a plane to go um spend
time with the product stewardship institute uh which is a gathering of people who are discussing harmonization because we have different EPR bills in different states. And so because of that we have all kinds of different standards regulations. That is why as a red state
and um a state that does not want to be overregulatory, we are letting the majority of the details of that be actually handled by the pro subsequent to the passage of the bill in conjunction with all of the municipalities very much part of and TAC
and an advisory committee, right? Tde oversees it. Yeah, Mr. James. Yes. Um I'm curious and like that previous conversation there it might not be yet because it might be coming with the part of the plan but um I was wondering are
there any safeguards already pre-built in there for example the one that was the tile company that was willing to take all the glass if uh 95 counties are all doing their own trying to get our glass to them and then they have a rough sales quarter and they don't take as
much we're stuck holding it or they lower the price and we have a a surplus plus that we're sitting on now. It cost us more to get it to them than it's that we get reversed. So, is there any safeguards in that or is that to be expected in the plan? That's all part of the plan. Yeah, those are the concerns
that are laid out. I mean, this plan takes I mean, this is a three-year process. This is not something that happens overnight. This is a plan that takes over a year to to develop because they need to gather all the stakeholders, the municipalities. They need to know what's going on in the
state of Tennessee and how do we make it better and they will and we have some very smart solid waste folks in this state I've met around the around the state and all of those folks who know their stuff the Mac Nolan okay you probably know Mac those types of folks are going to be sitting around the table
figuring out it's not going to be her Senator Camel and I it's going to be the people who know what to do about solid waste that will come in work with the pro and the pro is going to bring the funding so that we can go ahead and get you what you need with TEX oversight. Yeah. Um and the other thing is is that
that that at that point that becomes the vendor's issue. It's not as if that that it's not as if that is whether or not we have a market for it is the issue of the municipality. But I have yet to see a lack of market for glass or for aluminum. Um especially in this area. Um
you know, they're going to keep making tile, but it's not just tile. There are all kinds of industries that that will want that glass and aluminum as well. Um, and plastics, K&W plastics, you know, as you can see, um, they refashion that stuff into paint cans and, um,
toothbrushes and all kinds of things. One other thing I just want to add, too, that I'm very excited about because we heard about it at the University of Tennessee and and other schools. They want to go ahead and create programs around recycled material, invention,
engineering. They want to be able to take the stuff that we're throwing away in garbage and create new products with it. and they've already talked to us about it and these are the things that are going on in the in the in the academic world. How do we go ahead and use the trash that we're throwing away and make new products that we've never
even heard about? That's really what's exciting and that's why the younger generation, those folks, you know, the 19 20 in that scholastic year are so excited about this this this uh this bill because this will go ahead and give them an opportunity to go ahead and
utilize the trash. I had one more question, but for Mr. Chairman, um Anthony, the um what would it take for us to try to get this presentation put on our TV channel so that the public could see it more on a rotating
basis? There anything that we need to do to do that? As of July 1st, I am the executive director. I'm not doing anything. I am at your disposal. We can take uh what we have done tonight. You can tell us what you like, what you don't like, what we can streamline the the questions and we can do we have the
ability to go ahead and do a presentation for you to eight minutes, 10 minutes so that it's concise and to your point and answer the questions that you want. Yeah. Well, we could get with the mayor's office and and you know discuss that and
see what we can do about getting it on on air. Thank you. Anyway, Mr. chairman, members of the committee, thank you so much for having us. We really appreciate the opportunity and members of the public and the lovely woman who is wearing one of our pins. Thank you very much. It's it's wonderful to be with you
today. Thank you. It's our honor. Okay, now we have our planning and engineering director Doug Damasi. Just a minute, Doug, if you don't mind. Um, it's up to the discretion of the committee what you want to do as far as
uh a motion to send a letter of uh support for this bill or you want to do a resolution or she said a letter of support would be sufficient. Well, should we send it to steering or should we just uh forward it straight to
the commission? I would think so. Well, I I'll make a motion that we send a letter of support for this bill. And I don't have the number. I I mean the bill name 269 269
five and 69. Like I said, I don't have it in my head, but anyway, forward a letter to of support from the county to our state delegation. Well, to all our state legislators. Yes.
Okay. We have a motion and a second. One comment, Mr. Chairman, if I could. Um, Robert, uh, do you think it'd be advisable if if we took this to our county attorney and let him write up the motion, uh, let him word the motion. I
think it could come better from our county attorney's office. Uh, the motion would be more clear as to what we wanted, right? and and that's normally what we do and and Rachel just said that's what she was gonna do. So, yeah. Does that make sense? Yes. It' be part
of the motion. Agreed. Okay. So, it's a letter of a motion to u to have a letter of support for Tennessee Waste to Jobs Act, Senate Bill 269, and to have our county attorney uh draw this
up and send it to the commission. [Music] Yes. Send it to the delegation through our county commission. Okay. Everybody straight on that.
Okay. All in favor? I. All oppose. Okay. Now, Doug Deasi. Sorry. Good evening everybody. Doug Damasi, county planning director. Uh hope everybody's doing well tonight. Uh we have our normal reports for your consideration tonight. The first is the
available lot inventory. You will find that on your iPads. The total available lots as of the end of May of this year is 1,50. That is down slightly from last month. It was about 1,61. Interestingly enough, uh at this
time last year, we had the exact same number of lots that were available. 1,50. I had to go back and do a double take on that. I thought that was that never happened before. I thought that was kind of unusual. So, we're kind of in that uh basically the same situation as far as available lots go that we were
in last year. So uh next month I believe after this month this will be the end of the second quarter I will bring to you kind of a uh just a little chart that kind of shows the available a lot of men over the last several years kind of give you an idea of how it's trending and everything. I try to do that quarterly.
So that's just something I'll I'll bring up next month. So was there any questions on the lot inventory? All right. If there are none, Mr. Chairman, I will continue on into our resoning report. Okay. Uh we do have four applications for consideration next
week at the board of commissioners meeting. You'll notice in our introductory memo on our planning and engineering report, you will see that there were five applications that were considered at the planning commission meeting last month. However, item D was uh recommended for denial and the
applicant has since decided not to move forward with that application at this time. and that was for uh the Aayoku properties over on Westgum Road, but the other four are still on the agenda for next week. The first of those is by Joe Swanson Junior. This is for Swanson Development. This property is located
along Elum Roads about 10 acres in size total. Uh the applicant is proposing to zone the property from residential medium density to employment and activity center. You'll see there is a concept plan that is on your agenda packets on your iPads that does show three buildings. Uh this is a concept
plan. So you understand, so this is not something that's binding. The front building is anticipated to be flex space, which can be a wide range of uses from trades offices to a dance studio. The rear buildings are anticipated to be more warehouse in nature. Total square footage of those buildings is about just a little shade over 70,000 square feet.
Of course, again, not a planned development, so not locked into that. Uh during the pre-application meeting, they did ask about the ability to use the EAC district. This is not identified on our current comprehensive plan as one of our development nodes. However, there is other EAC zoned property in the area and
the characteristics of this area closely mimic some of the other employment areas that we do have identified such as epsmill road and 24 along with Almaville Road and 840. You'll see the concept plan does show one access point that lines up with the access drive pretty
closely to a church across Elim Road. No traffic study has been done to this point. we can require one uh upon site plan submittal, which is more than likely what we would do when we get a better idea of what the proposed uses are actually going to be for the property. Buffering would also be
required, it is determined by the type of proposed use in the EAC district and industrial use would be required to provide a type three buffer adjacent to residentially zoned property. Commercial uses would only require a type two. So most of these properties surrounding it are zoned residential. So there would be
buffering required. During the planning commission meeting, one of the commissioners did have some concerns about traffic along Elum Road, although they did feel that the request was appropriate. Uh there was also a person who did speak during a public hearing that reiterated those concerns. Uh following the public hearing, the planning commission did ask questions
about a potential cemetery on the property. There was quite a bit of discussion on that. Uh just briefly since that uh planning commission meeting there's been some investigation done. As it turns out the graves that were there apparently at some point after 1975 had been moved to the
Evergreen Cemetery. There's no record as to when but uh our archivist has looked at this Mr. John Doctor, excuse me, Dr. John Lel as well as some uh folks from the state of Tennessee as well and feel pretty confident that any graves that were there have been moved. So that shouldn't be an issue anymore. Uh
following this discussion, the planning commission did recommend approval by a unanimous vote. The second application before you next week will be for Hollings development. This is for property along Hickory Grove Road. It's about four and a half five acres roughly. This matter
was referred to us from the county's zoning enforcement office. They would like to reszone this property from RM to Light Industrial. Uh the intent of the property is for use as a parking and storage facility for building materials. Uh this area already has indust this is
from their applica their application. The area already has industrial business conducted in the area and construction materials being produced in close proximity to the site. As it turns out the property has been developed with this building and parking area already. The building and parking areas are already there. So the applicant has been
put on notice that even if their request is approved, an engineered site plan is still going to be required to be submitted to our office for staff and also planning commission review since it'd be a new development as we would be looking at it. So changes to the site may be necessary based on the findings
of our review. Uh this property will have access to Hickory Grove Road. Access is shown on the western edge of the property, but we would want to see a sight line study. again. So, I'll be part of the uh site plan along with landscape buffering and our performance standards would also be applicable in
this situation. Uh the planning commission did have concerns understandably about the property already being developed without permits or requesting proper zoning. Most of the discussion we had at the planning commission centered around what steps the applicant would need to take in order to get it into compliance. Uh we
did explain that even if the property is reszoneed, again I'll reiterate that we would still need to see an engineered site plan that would require planning commission approval. So following that discussion, the planning commission did recommend approval by a vote of 5,4 and three against. Our third application is by
Matt Hamilton. Uh he's with Reagan Smith. This is property located at 4610 Sulfur Springs Road. It's actually in two tracks. It's about 10 acres in size. They are looking to zone the property from residential medium density to commercial
services. They would like to zone it in order to construct a mini warehouse development. According to information provided by the applicant, this would consist of about 302 units, both in both, excuse me, enclosed storage units and outdoor storage units with both covered and uncovered storage options.
The site would be fenced with gated access, surveillance, and on-site management. Uh there is a letter in your agenda packets kind of explaining it in more detail as well as a a concept plan as well. The applicant has included their plan. Total area is about
46,750 square ft. These buildings are positioned closer to Sulphur Springs Road. RV and boat storage areas would be in the back of the property. I will say again, this is not a planned development. So similar to any other development we look at what's conventionally zoned, this is not a binding concept plan. I will say one
other thing about this. The use of a mini warehouse facility in the commercial services zone is not a use by right. It is required to have a special exception before the board of zoning appeals. So even if the zoning is approved, they would still have to go through the board of zoning appeals for the use. So erggo the zoning does not
approve the use for many warehouses. Just so you are all aware of that. Uh this property again does have frontage along Sulfur Springs Road and Hickory Road. We did express concerns. her original concept plan showed an access onto Hickory Road. We as staff weren't
very comfortable with that considering that Hickory Road is just a residential access road. Uh we might be amendable to some sort of emergency access, emergency only access, but right now the concept just shows Sulfur Springs Road. An engineered site plan would be required to the prior development of this site.
We could also and more than likely would require a traffic study as well to determine what type of road improvements may be necessary, especially along the frontage of the subject property. Of course, landscape buffering performance standards would also apply to this particular development should it
be approved. Planning Commission did express concerns with traffic along Sulphur Springs Road. Uh we did answer again that the traffic study could be required and probably would be required prior to site plan approval. Uh we there was also uh some concerns expressed regarding the flooding and the sink holes in the area. A lot of drainage
issues in this area. Our engineer would call this a drainage sensitive area. And I know that if this is approved and a site plan submitted that they will take great care in and looking at the drainage that's being proposed in this area. It may affect the development of the site as far as the placement of
their buildings and and other parking areas as well. Uh following the public hearing and further discussion, the planning commission did recommend approval by a unanimous vote. Our last application is another by Swanson Development LP. This is for several properties located along Manchester
Pike, approximately 105 acres. I will say that on your agenda, I'm sorry, on your iPads, uh I personally I neglected to put the pattern book. So when I'm when I'm talking about the pattern book on here, you're not going to see that on your iPads. It's there now, but unfortunately I didn't get it there in
time for the sinking. So, it'll be there uh for the board of commissioners meeting. So, I apologize for that. That was just an oversight on my part. So, what they're asking for is to zone a portion of the property, a large portion of the property, about 92 acres to planned unit development. The remaining
12 and a half acres on Manchester Pike would be commercial general for future commercial development. They would like to allow for the creation of multiple warehouse distribution buildings to meet the needs of local, regional, and national businesses located in and around the country. This resoning would
again create commercial properties along the eastern uh the frontage of Manchester Pike for the future commercial and retail concept plan that you'll see in the pattern book. I said if you go to the website now, if you were to go there, you would see it on there. This plan does show about 644,000
square ft in nine buildings of warehouse and distribution space. Uh the applicant is providing some flexibility for the building sizes. They did mention that their total building size would not exceed 700 square ft for all the buildings. The ranges that they showed anywhere from
21,750 ft to about 150,000 153,000 excuse me. uh industrial uses are to include only those allowed by right under the light industrial and transport and warehousing activity classification that's in the PUD portion of this. There's also one building at the top. It's building I. It's the northernmost
building which would prohibit any uses that create any kind of type of loud noises, pounding, banging, anything like that. And that was to help protect the neighboring residential areas to the north. There are two access points shown on Manchester Pike. The applicant has completed a traffic study which did
recommend turn lanes for both access drives along with a new traffic signal at the entrance across from Warmingfield Drive. It would line up with the existing road at Warmingfield Drive. Uh if additional access points are proposed from the commercial portion of the property when we'd see site plans, we'd have the ability to look at future
traffic studies for that as well. The northernmost access drive was also reconfigured to discourage larger truck traffic. There were concerns during the planning commission's public hearing about a lot of truck traffic mixing amongst the the two different access points. That's been changed. So all the
truck traffic would really just be using the southern access. And a type three landscape buffer would be required before between the industrially zoned and the residentially zoned areas as well. Uh some of the planning commission did express concerns about the appropriateness of the development in the area and the traffic along
Manchester Pike. Uh following the public hearing, the planning commission did recommend approval of the application, adding a provision that that northernmost building, building I have their rollup doors be flipped to the south side of the building again so as not to disturb the neighboring residential properties. So following
discussion, the planning commission did recommend approval by a vote of 54 and three against. That was a whole lot of talking, so I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Mr. Chairman, vice chair dod and Mr. Kush made on the on the Hollings Head
property. It was it was a split decision five to three as I recall the the three that that opposed. Was it a matter of they want to tear down the building and then apply? Do you have what what could be the solution? Yeah, I think there was
some frustration on how the whole situation came came about. Um I won't say that that was their only reason for doing that but uh that I think that did play a part in it but uh you know again we did reiterate that they would still have to come back through with a site plan and if there is something that
needs to be redone you know unfortunately for them you know that's what happens when you build the building without getting building permits. Well, I just know that particular indust corporation has been a a good friend of Rutherford County have been very good
community members. So, I was just curious what I think they will abide. I've known them to be an abiding type corporation. So, I for one could certainly grant them some grace and forgiveness here. I'll make a motion to approve the report.
We have motion and a second to approve the report. All in favor? I. All oppose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just uh before I leave, just very briefly, I just want to uh just announce again as a reminder, plan Rutherford will be having our public hearing before the planning
commission uh June the 23rd. That'll be at 6:00 and that'll be in this room. So, thank thank you. Thank you. Building codes report from director Tanya Bale. Welcome. Good evening, commissioners. I'm Tanya
Bale, the director of the building codes department. Oops. Um, and in the month of May, let's see, where are we? May. Uh we issued a total of 419 building permits. Of that 419, 86
of those were for single family dwellings. Uh for a total revenue of 268,8380. Um, we completed a total of 1522 uh building inspections, 156 zoning
inspections, and drove a little better than 11,000 miles. And if you guys don't have any questions, I'll move on to school facilities tax. um school facilities tax in the month of May we collected 554,15
uh for a and sorry uh no development tax was collected in the month of May. So that brought us to a a cumulative total for this fiscal year of with the both combined both SFT and development tax of 4.5 million just shy of 4.5 million with
one month to go in the fiscal year. And that concludes my report. Motion to approve the report. We have a motion, a second to rep approve the report. All in favor? I. All oppose. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Have
a good evening. Have a good evening. Solid waste and convenience center report. Director Wagner. Welcome. Good evening, chairman, commissioners. I'm Bishop Wagner. I am your solid waste
director. I'm I'm wasting away. Rutherford County Landfill accepted 121.16 tons of brush for a revenue of $357. In the month of May, we managed one
1,137 tires for a revenue of $2,413. The May total of revenue from the landfill scale operations was $5,920. Rutherford County solid waste managed 4,19.35 tons of waste from all sources
in the month of May and 273.94 tons came from our county convenience centers and 807.80 tons came from our schools. We recycled and diverted 507.61 tons from all sources. That's a
residential diversion rate of 12.63% 63% for May, which is actually a pretty good month for uh residential recycling for us. We have one that's the the primary bulk of my report. We have one uh procedural change that we've enacted
this week. So, you know, at Rutherford County Solid Waste and our convenience centers, we accept uh mattresses, box springs, and uh I've been watching this action and activity um since we've started to kind of keep them in a box
altogether. And uh and what I've noticed is we're getting a lot of these things. And uh I'm watching how we're getting them. and we're getting them on trucks with them six tall stacked in there
dropped off on us. Um, which leads me to wonder where we're getting them from. And I haven't been able to find out or track it all the way down to where the origin is of it, but I know that when I get a mattress, I don't buy six at a time. Um, so we have uh restricted the
the disposal of mattresses to one mattress, one box spring per person per day um to to uh kind of alleviate some of that. But I'm literally getting mattress boxes filled in four hours in in uh in some communities. Whereas when we first started this and they were
getting thrown in with the regular boxes as as a regular activity, it seemed to me like we were probably getting I mean maybe a tenth of of what we're getting. So, uh, whether they're coming to us from commercial actors or, uh, from disposal folks that are
collecting them on behalf of the citizens, I don't know. But, uh, we're going to keep tabs of them in a different way. We're still going to accept those materials, uh, that are generated residentially, but we just ask that you don't load up, uh, a trailer load full of them and bring them to me all at once. And then we can uh just if
we can distribute that that disposal out over a period of time, it helps us to be able to manage and and haul those loads off and get them to to uh to their final location. Second. We have a motion, a second to approve the report. All in favor? I. All oppose.
All right. Before you leave, um the presentation we saw from the senator and Doug on EPR, could that help the county, hurt the county? No change. I think it could
help the county if there could be revenue that could be directed toward helping us to uh to overcome some logistical uh challenges that we have. Uh, one of the things in the presentation, the recycling services company that was that was listed there
for glass recycling, that's where we take our glass. Um, and we do re receive a return on that glass. It it pretty much makes it a a wash on the fuel cost to get it up to Old Hickory, but it is uh better than paying a a tipping fee on that material and it gets beneficial
use. Um I am I'm intrigued and excited about any idea that could help develop more end markets for these materials because frankly um the best way to get recycling
participation is to have places to take the material once we have it. Um the and it's it's always been a logistical problem uh in in managing these materials. That's something that uh back when I was with the state we tried to address through the recycling hub and
spoke program which in some communities worked fairly well and in others uh it wasn't so robust and it ended up being being kind of a challenge that that was hard to overcome because there just was no place to take those materials. Um we're blessed in Middle Tennessee and in
in Rutherford County especially because we do have a MURF with which is proximal to us. um and it still has capacity to accept more materials. So putting the pressure on on increasing those diversion activities is is relatively easy. Um but it could be better and uh I
think this bill has the opportunity to be able to help to develop those markets and to make that it easier for that. But I'll tell you that the the one material that that is um of a landfilled material that that really that they spoke about that could
be covered in this bill is increasing our ability to to manage organic materials. Um they are a third or more of of the waist stream. Um and they have a beneficial use in the production of soil that uh we need in Middle Tennessee. I'm here to tell you as
somebody that's trying to find dirt to cover a landfill right now, we need it. Um, and it's uh uh if there's an opportunity for this bill to support uh funding that could could get end markets or or help some of the companies like there's a southeast uh recycle uh
composters that are here in Rutherford County that are trying to to do good things to to create dirt and uh the mulch company that does some mulch mixing and some things. Those are just two that are come off the top of my head that are involved in in something like that. get them some feed stock because
of this activity. I think could benefit um benefit uh you know not just landfill reduction but you know uh from an old you the old develop developer hat on you know that you can get top soil be able to finish subdivisions you can have you
can put better uh better fields and and uh and just it's just a better idea to be able to do to do that with waste than bury it and lose it and have it be a lie producer. So, um, so yeah, I'm I there
are going to be challenges that, uh, frankly, industry is going to going to fight over. Um, I think the bottlers are going to fight over it, but from a from a county perspective, do we stand to gain from from revenues that are generated by activities that we're already spending? I I believe we do.
And, uh, and I would support um agree with supporting something that's going to support recycling and diversion activities anywhere in the state. If I could piggyback on on that question, um, Bishop, it it's it's at least a vision and it
could be a statewide v vision that we could marry and and attach to and could be a big part of our solid waste vision for the future. That's what I heard you say. And and does that kind of sum it up? It
does. I mean, a big challenge with with what we're doing. I mean, you all know me well enough to know now that if I could, I would recycle everything we could out of the landfill. Um, that we would divert everything we possibly could. The challenge is always going to be funding. If there's a mechanism that can help us to overcome that funding
challenge to be able to get these things out of that waist stream and into the recoverable stream, I'm all for it. So, so the motion that this committee just passed uh to support this legislation has your support as well. Did you not
hear me say I in the background? Take that as a yes. Yes, sir. Bishop, remind us when the opening of the transfer station is. Will be July 1st. And uh I've sent you guys you guys I've sent uh you uh commissioners a uh
an invitation to attend uh the uh ribbon cutting and floor christening of the of the structure on you know just like you sail a ship, right? You you bust a bottle of champagne on a on a ship and you give it a name, right? So, we're gonna we're going to drop some garbage
on the floor and we're gonna we're gonna uh say a prayer for the safety and the activities of all the folks that are going to be operating into that on behalf of the Rutherford County citizens and uh and uh all. So, that'll be on the 17th at 1:00 out there at the facility. I've already heard that one of my
favorites isn't going to be there um because he has other obligations, but we'll save some we'll save a little bit of garbage for you. Yeah. Yeah. and uh you can come out there. But I I really would uh love for you all to be there to to to um share um share this uh major accomplishment that you all it couldn't
have happened without you all support and and everything that you've done. And and uh um I'm the closer we get to opening, the more excited I am about the opportunities that this going to provide for for our community to be able to to manage these
materials. Any other questions? Thank you all. Uh, Bishop, not to uh interfere in your business or or get into something we shouldn't, but uh we had an employee today that I guess had an incident. Wasn't an accident. So, but
uh I was concerned that that uh he had to go to the hospital and and I just he's in my prayers and I want him to be in everyone else's prayers. He's Yes. Uh I we did have an incident. I can't go into details with it. I don't know what the status of this employee is
currently. I I do know that that uh the employee was conscious when I spoke with them and uh um and it was a medical medical deal. until he was removed in an ambulance. Uh, but I want to tell you something about solid waste. This gives
me Thank you for this because this gives me an opportunity to say this. Um, so I went in there. I I like, well, I like to, but I I make a habit of whenever there's an incident that happens with somebody that's involved in our staff, if I'm if I'm around and able, I'm going to be there. Uh, accident, injury, um,
so that they see that there's somebody there that's with them, right? That's kind of the goal of the garbage man goal, if you would. Um, so I went in there and I saw this this fella who's been here since before I got here. He was one of the first people I met and uh
um I went into the ambulance and uh and sat down with him and I asked him I asked him if he was all right. Did he remember what what was going on? And I said, "Well, you're going to the hospital, right?" And he said, "Well, no, I'm going back to work." That's the kind of folks that work for Rutherford County Solid Waste. I looked him in the
eyes. I said, "Will you please go to the hospital for me? I want to make sure you're okay. Well, all right. If you want me to go, I'll go. But, uh, so that's the heart of a garbage man in my opinion. And, uh, um, and we're praying
for for him his, uh, his return to health and his, uh, him get back there to to doing what he does best, which, is mix it up with the public. Thank you, director. I've I've been to many of the convenience centers and I'll tell you
that's the work attitude that that we have out of all of our employees. They're there to do a job and they get cussed out and threatened, but they still do their job and they're
they're efficient at it. Um I'm partial to the G Street guys and gals. uh they do a tremendous job and uh just if you if you go to the convenience centers
just thank them. Uh they don't ask for that but they appreciate it. They appreciate um this community and I appreciate them. Okay. We were going to have
recycle Rutherford tonight, but u um Dr. Rachel um Cornet decided that we'd reschedu that. And uh so she's welcome anytime she wants to come up here. No, sir. Thank
you. I'm glad there was no report because I skipped him accidentally. Like I've told y'all before, I tell them myself. See, under other business, um, we have Vice Chair Dodd that wants to give a
little explanation or or yeah, explanation of, uh, the roadway exploratory group. Thank you, chairman. I'll be brief, guys. Um, I have started a committee uh that is called the roadway exploratory group. It's an
offshoot of a committee that Mike Kush formed precoid that died by uh apathy during COVID and never restarted it. So, I've been uh passionate about traffic and infrastructure at career-wise and as
a commissioner. Um traffic, it's one of the top items anytime there's a focus group. Traffic hits the list. Traffic, solid ways, schools over and over again. I began to ask the question, what what is it? traffic is a problem. What is it?
What's the definition of that problem? Is it safety? Is it crashes? Is it roadway? Is it uh intersections? Is it, you know, what is the problem? So, with the uh the mayor and I have met a few times, this became a topic. Uh we got
blessed to start an exploratory committee. The members of that committee, the participants are Doug Damasi, uh, Rutherford County planner, Neil Schaefer, traffic engineers, city of Murphy'sboro traffic, town of Smyrna planner, town of Smyrna
assistant, uh, manager, Smyrna, Mayor, uh, Rutherford County GIS, Mike Hughes, Ruff County Engineering, and his engineering department, Eric Hennessy from the mayor's office, And mayor Carr has
attended highway department or a highway department representative. Marester Reed, I think I mentioned her, Smyrna, mayor, Matt Titer from SEC, and Cody York from from our IT department. What we're doing is defining the problem. What is the problem of traffic? What we've done out of our
first meeting was it's a matter of data. We are now putting together data from every municipality. We've engaged with GNRC who has an abundance of data. Goal one is to coales the data to help define the problem. Goal two is if there is a problem that we can define, prioritize a
solution. Goal three is goal three is can the county be a participant in resolving this traffic problem, this infrastructure problem. And that's where my role will end and it will become a an item for a committee because there will be some funds involved if we so choose
to participate. So we've got great buy in from planners in the county, both municipal and county planners. We've got buyins from civil engineering. We've got buyins from MTAR. I neglected to mention that Ashley Sugar's on our team as well.
Um we've got buy in now from GNRC. The town of Smyrna hosted a few of us last Friday. GNRC is the data gatherer on behalf of the state of Tennessee since they were chartered in the 60s. Um so uh
with buyin from from from this this many stakeholders uh and decision makers, we hope to ultimately come up with some solutions for one of our infrastructure problems and that's traffic and roadway. Um I'll leave it at that because just to be brief, but I wanted to just
acknowledge that there is an exploratory group. Traffic is the topic data prioritizing solutions and then deciding if the county wants to participate in taking lead on coalesing the traffic as a county issue, not just
a municipal or state issue. Uh two outcomes I must share though. Number one, because of this meeting, the planners of Rutherford County, all municipalities and the county are now meeting again on a quarterly basis. That had occurred for years, but it ceased.
That has now begun again. They've reignited the planners all meeting to talk about what's going on in your municipality. Coales that information. Number two, we applied for the safe streets for all grant that Jared brought
to us last month that we approved. That's a grant to parlay state dollars into helping us uh understand our traffic situation. So those are two items that are already takeaways that have that have resulted rather quickly. So again, I'll be brief, but I do hope
to report back to you more specific details and answer questions. Mr. James, I just I don't I don't remember this is and somebody if somebody can kind of educate me on how the subcommittees are created or not because I don't remember
voting to create this or moving. It's an exploratory group. Yes, but authorizing it. I mean, you're already applying for grants and things. Yeah, there's no there's no we're not we're not applying for a grant so excuse me. So, thank you for that. It's an exploratory group, very specifically an exploratory group
vetted by county legal, a a body of people that I ask the mayor to allow me to gather to have a conversation. No county, no county decision can be made, no vote can be had, no fun, no expenditures can be made. And because it's an exploratory committee, it's not
bound by the committee uh schedule that we have here. Um it's an information gathering. is putting together data that I'm choosing to volunteer my time towards as well as these multiple stakeholders in the county are volunteering their time to collect data.
And your second part, oh the grant, we didn't apply for the grant. We because this group acknowledged the grant that all the municipalities in the state are are are pursuing because we happen to mention it as a topic in a exploratory
group. The county chose to apply for it. Has nothing to do with the group but the county chose to apply for it independent of that group which was presented to to the full commission last month. Thanks for the clarity. Thanks. Commissioner Dodd, before you
leave, who do you report to? Results, uh, activities. Who who is a committee reporting to? It's it's it's the let's be very clear, it's an exploratory group. It's not a committee because there's no votes taking place. and this this group I have it just made sense for
me to be talking about an infrastructure item that I acknowledge to this group uh the uh the minutes as it were or the experience of this group will be reported here at the with the chairman's blessing
and the mayor's blessing. Thank you. they still under other business. Um, you know, quite often the first responders are talked about or mentioned or uh give them kudos for what they've
done, but we have one group of uh first responders that we really never hear much about. You'll see them in the paper, on the news sometimes during a disaster, but uh that's Middle Tennessee Electric. Uh there's
550 employees that serve 750,000 Tennessans. They cover 2,200 square miles in 11 middle Tennessee counties. They're out there in all kinds of weather.
weather that we don't well the ones of us that are sane don't go out in that weather uh but they do and we were speaking earlier about uh employees loving their jobs they love
their jobs they recently had a um the Tennessee Valley Lineman rodeo they're intensed in their uh endeavor. They took home 17 awards.
Several of them were first place, many were second, third, and fifth place. So, if you see anyone that works for Middle Tennessee Electric, just thank them for what they do. They don't get that much, but they put in a
lot and they give much to this community. So, I applaud them for what they do. and for what they've did in the recent rodeo. So, thank you. And any other
business? There's no other business. We stand adjourned.